RayForce (Arcade)

Released in arcades in 1993 by Taito, RayForce is a vertical scrolling shooter for 1 or 2 players. The game was called "Gunlock" outside of Japan. The first game in what would become a trilogy, in story it actually was the last game as a plan in the 23rd century by Earth to counterattack an invading planet's forces concludes with a specialized fighter ship sent in to carry out "Operation RayForce".
While the game was a 2D shooter, it incorporated some 3D/depth perception elements as players could target ground enemies and ships below them. The player is equipped with rapid fire cannons and a lock-on laser, with a targeting reticle for the laser always visible a short distance above the player. The laser can hit enemies regular shots can't and can lock on to up to 8 targets at once (hitting more than one target with a round of lasers awards more points)-when the laser locks on to a target a white circle appears and a tone sounds, with the circle turning red once the player fires the laser. Players can collect 3 different floating cubes to power up weapons-collecting 3 red cubes powers the shot up one level, collecting a yellow cube instantly powers up the shot one level, while green rectangular capsules increase laser capacity by one (up to 8). The player's ship is destroyed if hit anywhere by an enemy attack or collision with an enemy, and the game is over if all lives are lost.
The game consists of 7 areas, with a giant boss ship at the end of each stage. Destroying each ship, which usually consists of having to blow away multiple parts, completes each stage while the final boss is a 2-part battle. Defeat the final boss to complete the game and get a maybe-not-happy ending...
Aside from the high challenge level, the game's biggest attraction was more superb music and sound work by ZUNTATA, Taito's iconic in-house music & sound unit.
There were multiple versions of this game released worldwide, with the only differences between Gunlock (outside Japan) and RayForce (Japan) being the title screen and RayForce's attract mode displaying instructions in Japanese text while Gunlock has English text.

The game was released in the US for the Sega Saturn in 1995 as "Galactic Attack" and also in some areas as "Layer Section", for the PlayStation 2 & PC in 2007 as part of "Taito Legends 2", for Apple iPhone & iPad in 2012 and for PC in 2023 as part of "Ray'z Arcade Chronology".