The Last Archwing

Synopsis

The Last Archwing is a fast paced, vertically scrolling space shooter. You take on the role of the sole survivor of Earth's defense fleet, the Space Force in a do-or-die mission to save humanity. The player plays as Chet Brickhouse and must fight their way through the invading fleet from the Zarkhan Empire to defeat Emperor Zarkhan himself. The game consists of a balance of story telling and intense action. Each level of the game features fully voice-acted dialogue between the main protagonist, his companions and his adversaries. While the game has a somewhat serious tone, it is filled with a lot of humor.

Story

The game begins by following Space Force Battlefleet Omega as they flee from a lost battle against the Zarkhan Empire. There are no more fallback positions between the fleet and Earth, so their last option is to return home. The fleet is forced out of warp and, unable to escape, find themselves surrounded by enemies.

This is where the first level begins, all Archwings are dispatched to take down the ship that is preventing their warp drives from working. During the course of the level, all of the Archwings except for Chet's are destroyed. Once Chet finally destroys the Warp Interruptor ship, he realizes that all of the other ships in the fleet have also been destroyed. At this point, Chet flees on his own.

Chet then receives a distress signal on his way back to Earth and decides to investigate. Upon fighting his way through to the source of the signal, Chet is introduced to OLEC, a supercomputer that so happens to want to help him defeat Zarkhan in order to be able to explore the galaxy in peace. OLEC offers to power up Chet's Archwing to make him up to the task.

Armed with new abilities and an upgraded Archwing, Chet launches his counter-assault on the Zarkhan Empire, taking out enemy after enemy until confronting the Emperor himself, and ultimately defeating him. Earth is saved, Chet is heralded as a hero, and OLEC is now free to explore the galaxy unmolested.

Gameplay

The game consists of multiple levels in which the player must fight their way through several waves of enemies and then defeat a final boss to clear the level and move onto the next. The game is played from a top down view and the player can move in any direction on the screen. The player fires lasers at incoming enemies to defeat them, once all enemies are defeated the level is cleared. If the player dies, they have an unlimited number of attempts to retry the level.

The game has 3 different levels of difficulty; Casual, Normal and Hard. The casual difficulty is designed to make the game very accessible, however normal difficulty is quite challenging at later levels. Hard mode is for veterans of the game looking for a greater challenge.

Here is a breakdown of the abilities and game mechanics:

• Shield Capsule - Defeated enemies have a chance to drop a green capsule. This restores the player's shields.
• Weapon Capsule - A red dropped capsule that adds extra shots that the player fires, increasing their firepower.
• Rainbow Capsule - A shifting colored capsule, this gives temporary invulnerability and increased firepower.
• Super Meter - Each collected capsule fills a gauge that allows the player to perform their special abilities.
• Barrel Roll - Consumes 1 bar from the super meter. The player quickly dodges to the left or right. During the roll, the player is invulnerable. As such, this move can be used both offensively and defensively, as you can intentionally roll into enemy ships to damage them. The barrel roll can be upgraded to move you farther, as well as deal increased damage to enemies on contact.
• Super Death Wave - Consumes the entirety of the Super Meter. Does a blast that damages all enemies on the screen. Can be upgraded to deal additional damage.
• Upgrades - Each destroyed enemy gives the player credits that can be spent on upgrades. Available after the player has met OLEC.
  • Lasers - Increases the damage that your base laser does.
  • Shields - Increases the amount of damage your shield can take.
  • Special - Increases Barrel Roll duration and damage. Increases Super Death Wave damage.