Battle AirForce

Battle AirForce is a vertical-scrolling bullet hell STG. Three years after Battle Marine, an enemy soldier rescues you and you defect to the opposing nation. Back in your homeland, the commander who lured you into a trap has become emperor through a military coup. He is invading formerly neutral countries and turning them into colonies, and you take up the fight to stop his expansion.

Fight with the Battle AirForce

Your autocannon fires automatically. Hold the laser button to charge it, then release to fire; you can use the cannon and laser at the same time. Your movement slows while the laser charges and slows further while it fires, but the laser can cancel enemy bullets. The Battle AirForce also automatically slows bullets when they approach your AT zone.

Colliding with enemy aircraft or bullets reduces your life gauge, and an empty gauge ends the game. When your life is not full, continuously shooting ground targets can earn recovery hearts. Each heart restores some life, but resets your hit combo and reduces the number of medals you obtain.

Build your score

You earn Shooting Points by hitting enemies with the autocannon, Bullet Erase Points by canceling enemy bullets, and Bonus Points by collecting medals. Shooting and Bonus Points are added to your score at a rate that decreases linearly with the amount of laser charge; Shooting Points are not added while the laser is firing. The number of medals you receive falls as you fire lasers or lose life.

Hit combos increase when you fire shots and lasers within 60 frames (about one second) of each other, or when you collect medals. The display tracks up to 9999 hits. Medals are automatically collected when you are nearby, and are auto-collected from the start once your combo exceeds 1000. To build a high score, keep your combo going and collect medals for as long as possible. When combos and medals are low, using the laser aggressively can help build them; when they are high, firing the laser less can help maximize points.

The score calculations are:

• Shooting Points: medals acquired × 30 + hit combos × 10.
• Bonus Points: hit combos × 10.
• Bullet Erase Points: hit combos × 10 + medals acquired × 10.

Stages and ZAKO RUSH

The main game has four areas, each with four phases, for 16 phases in total. Each phase features 16 different enemy characters. Completing a phase unlocks ZAKO RUSH, where you can replay any phase you have completed in the main game, with unlimited lives. The game records how many times you play and clear each phase without mistakes, as well as your high score.

Leaderboards and replays

You can view high scores from the main game and ZAKO RUSH, and play the replay of your own high score by pressing Start. The global leaderboard shows scores from the top 16 players worldwide and lets you view replays of their runs. Replays can be downloaded, though one that has only recently been registered may temporarily return an error. Updates may make replays incompatible, and the global leaderboard may be reset if an update causes replay incompatibility. A score in the global top 16 may also be removed if its replay is missing or corrupted, or if the replay results do not match the score.

Configure the game

The title-screen configuration menu lets you choose full-screen or windowed mode, adjust the window size on macOS and Linux, toggle scanline and background interlace effects, and set background music and sound-effect volumes from 0% to 100%. Window-size settings are disabled on Windows, where the window can instead be resized by dragging its corners. In Big Picture mode, the game switches to full screen on launch even if windowed mode is selected; on macOS and Linux, restarting is required for changes to window mode, window size and scanlines to take effect. On Windows, you can also leave full screen with Alt+Enter and adjust settings from the status bar.