Return Ace

Return Ace is a shoot ’em up in which you turn enemy attacks back against their army and bosses. You begin with the power to return things rather than greater strength or a sturdier body, and enter battle guided by an unidentified voice. The game has three core abilities: absorb enemy energy bullets, hack enemy aircraft and roll through attacks.

Return enemy attacks

Absorb lets you take in enemy energy bullets, register them and fire them back. Absorbing stores energy for your shots, so taking hits is part of using the ability and the basis for several attacks. If you exceed your capacity, you overheat and become defenseless. When your energy is at 0%, you register the bullets you absorb; to use another bullet, avoid absorbing and spend the energy by shooting, hacking or rolling.

Hacking turns enemy aircraft against their former allies. It works only on airborne enemies and physically guided bullets, and uses a lot of energy. Rolling briefly makes you invincible and bounces off physical contact, including physical ammunition. It offsets energy bullets with the aircraft’s kinetic energy and strengthens your shots while active, but can be overwhelmed by high-powered energy bullets or repeated contact with them.

Energy bullets vary in power, energy efficiency, range and strength matchups, and each responds differently to strengthening. You can also attack bosses with rolling; hacking a boss can trigger an additional effect.

Difficulty levels

The four difficulty levels are Full Tune Up (Level1), Prototype (Level2), Wanted (Level3) and World Ruler (LevelMAX). Each has a different story, BGM arrangement, aircraft abilities, enemy strength and combat routines. You can change difficulty at any time except while the game is confirming your score for clearing it.

Each level displays different gauges: Level 1 shows a green aircraft-acquisition gauge; Level 2 shows a purple gauge that fires physical bullets at 100% energy consumption; Level 3 shows a red attack-power gauge that rises with the number of enemies and as you approach the boss; and Level MAX shows all gauges. Story scenes have auto and skip functions, so you can focus on the shooting sections.

Modes and rankings

Story Mode runs through to the end, Random Stage is a single-stage game that depends on luck, and Boss Rush is an endless endurance mode. Online rankings show scores for all three modes down to 50th place. You can open the rankings from the title screen using the Pause key. Random Stage has four hidden bosses that appear under specific sortie conditions.

Titles and abilities

Clearing the game displays a title earned through play. Titles can be earned at any difficulty except for one hidden title, and grant abilities suited to their conditions. Collecting them can strengthen your aircraft, while difficult, high-scoring titles provide powerful abilities that can change how you play. The hidden title is difficult to obtain and is not removed by the reset function.

Examples include Destroyer, earned by destroying over 80% of regular enemies, which increases weapon power; Eliminator, earned by destroying all regular enemies, which grants Return Area and Return Bomb; Commander, earned by switching weapons at least three times, which lets you convert energy to weapon level by absorbing while stopped and pressing roll; and Assault Finish, earned by defeating a boss with rolling, which damages nearby enemies when you defeat an enemy by rolling and offsets the slowdown caused by energy-bullet collisions. Hacking can also trigger Aftermath. Other abilities are available in the retail version.

If you defeat all four hidden bosses and meet certain conditions in Boss Rush, an additional outcome may follow.