Sine Mora (Latin meaning “without delay”) is a horizontal side scrolling shooter developed via partnership between Digital Reality and Grasshopper Manufacture for the Xbox 360, Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3, PlayStation Vita, iOS and Ouya. The game features a diesel punk-like style and art design which is heavily inspired by Battle Garegga, Kurenai no Buta, and Royal Space Force: The Wings of Honnêamise. Akira Yamaoka, the composer behind a good deal of the Silent Hill series and Shadows of the Damned, presents the soundtrack. Mahiro Maeda, a famous anime artist known for The Animatrix, Kill Bill, and Neon Genesis Evangelion, designed in large part for boss battle. Sine Mora also feature “time manipulation mechanics” influenced by R-Type, Eihander and Under Defeat.
Sine Mora has five game modes: Story, Arcade, Score Attack, and Boss Training. The Story Mode has fairly complicated story. It has many cut scenes and a lot of dialogue to read. Story Mode is displayed in English, but narrated in Hungarian. Similarly, when the characters talk to each other, player will hear Hungarian with English subtitles to follow along with. However, understanding the story is not essential to enjoying the game. Player are given two choices for difficulty – Normal and Challenging, the harder difficulty offering less continues and an alternative ending. Player must go through Story Mode if they want to unlock everything the game has to offer. The Story Mode takes under two hours to complete without using continues.
Arcade Mode removes the narrative cutscenes, just pure action but limits the player to only three continues. Score Attack takes on the same structure as Arcade Mode with fewer changes. Player can’t progress further once a stage has been completed and there is no continues. Boss Training plays similarity to Score Attack, except the scores are never posted online. Player can fight previously encountered bosses and can they keep trying thanks to unlimited continues. In Boss Training player can modify things like primary firepower and number of secondary weapons. For those who want an even tougher battle, there is Challenge Mode which is basically a Boss Rush Mode. In this mode player encounter thirteen bosses from the game one after another.
There are seven pilots and three ships, each have standard weapon and secondary weapons. Standard weapon can be increased by collecting red orbs. However, these orbs are lost when the player takes damage. Secondary weapons are a type of smart bomb that clears a good portion of the weaker enemies and projectiles. Secondary weapons can only be used a certain number of times, unless player find power-ups from destroyed enemies. Player also have time manipulation ability to slow down time for a bit to help dodge bullets and safely navigate through the levels. Consecutive kills with the standard weapon will increase the game's score multiplier, while use of the secondary weapon or time manipulation will reset the multiplier. The final scores and rank are determined by three factors; damage taken, kills and poweups collected.
Sine Mora has seven stages and each stage has a countdown clock. The amount of time available varies depending on the stage. Unlike any other shooters, in Sine Mora time is the most important factor. Player can gain extra time by eliminating enemies or finding time boost. If player take damage, not only they lose power-ups, but they will also lose time from the clock. It it runs out, the game is over. When player finish the stage any remaining time will be added to final score.
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