Rez any% Notes

Hello! This is a document compiled by Metroid Crime! Notes are compiled from various guides, articles, and wiki pages. Huge thanks to IndyVillain for transcribing notes for me.

Story

The world of Rez is set in the near future on a massively overpopulated Earth with society crippled by crime rates, and on the verge of meltdown. In an attempt to resolve the chaos, a new global network was created: Project-K, overseen by a self-aware artificial intelligence named Eden. However, the increasing information flow confused Eden, allowing her to begin questioning the meaning of its existence and the consequences of her actions. Trying to fathom the paradoxes that surrounded her and realizing the power she possessed, she shut herself down.

The player character and protagonist is a hacker traversing the Project-K network on a mission to re-awaken Eden by progressing deeper through the system, destroying the viruses, anti-viruses, security programs, defense systems, and firewalls within.

[From the Rez Wiki]

The story of Rez is told through in-game visual storytelling, with minimal text.

General Notes

• Rez was released originally on DreamCast and on the PlayStation 2 in 2001 (or 2002 in North America). It was later remastered and released for PC and VR.
• Rez is a on-rails rhythm shooter. The gameplay and projectile hits sync to the music, and have vibration feedback, with the aim to create a sense of synesthesia (people with synesthesia may experience colors when listening to music, see shapes when smelling certain scents, or perceive tastes when looking at words).
• The game was conceived by Tetsuya Mizuguchi during 1994 and 1995, drawing inspiration from European disco music.
• The design concept drew from rave culture and classic rail shooters, and level design made extensive use of wire frame graphics inspired by the paintings of Wassily Kandinsky.
• The music, supervised by Keiichi Sugiyama, features collaborations with multiple Japanese and European music artists. The music influenced the level designs.
• Rez is also inspired by Tron; the name itself is a reference to be de-rezzed, which means death, so rez must mean life.
• The game Child of Eden is a spiritual successor to Rez.
• Tetsuya Mizuguchi also produced Tetris Effect, and if you’re familiar with that game, you’ll notice a ton of familiar sound effects and themes throughout the game.
• [Spicy Trivia] This game was released on the Playstation 2 with the “Trance Vibrator” accessory that vibrates to the music, immersing you in the experience. It plugs into the console via USB. The device is meant to be placed in your pocket, beneath your feet, or on your seat. It wasn’t meant to be a sexual thing.

• This accessory is also compatible with two other games, Space Channel 5: Part 2 and Disaster Report.

Gameplay Notes

• The Any% run takes us through 4 Areas, each with a boss fight at the end.

• Each Area has 10 Layers, plus a boss fight.
• There are 5 Areas in total, but the 5th area takes almost as long to complete as the other 4 levels, and is just a rehash of the previous levels with a boss rush.

• Area 5 is unlocked by finishing Areas 1-4.

• You want to aim to take out the bigger enemies first, because they tend to spawn missiles and other projectiles that can rapidly get out of control.

• Time starts after you select Area 1 and gain control of your character.
• Time ends on the final explosion of Uranus.

Controls

• Press X to shoot.
• Press O to use Overdrive.
• Use the analog stick or D-pad to aim.

Items

Heal Item

• The 3D blue cross items that appear after destroying an enemy or groups of enemies. There are different versions of this that will spawn that will either fill 1 or 3 points of your Evolution Meter.

Overdrive Item

• The 3D red triangle items that can appear after destroying enemies. Much more rare than the heal items.

The Network Opening

• These look like an eyeball (called a Password Protector) carrying a cube (Network Opening). They appear to transition you to the next Layer of the Area. They are also triggered by shooting sequences of enemies.
• As soon as they appear, you want to shoot the Password Protector once immediately to advance, and then shoot at the Network Opening, hitting it 8 times. They shine a rainbow beam when you hit them.

Interface

Evolution Meter

• Bottom left corner of the screen. Shows how many health points you need to evolve your character’s form. You need 8 blue heal items to fill the meter. The meter disappears once you’re in your final form.
• One hit from an enemy will devolve you to your previous form.

Overdrive Meter

• Bottom right corner of the screen. Can hold a maximum of 4 charges. Pick up red items to fill it. Once activated, it will take out every enemy on screen for a few seconds.

Action Log

• Top left corner of the screen. Shows a log of actions taken, like shots fired, names of enemies fired on.

Crosshair

• The big square in the middle of the screen. If multiple enemies are in that crosshair, the shot will be given to the one that's closer to the X in the middle of the crosshair.
• Single Shot

• When you tap the shoot button, it will do a single shot.

• Charged Shots

• Will send multiple shots in one shot. To do one, hold the shoot button and move your crosshair on the enemies you want to shoot, and then release the shoot button.
• It'll send up to 8 shots at a time.
• The number of shots you’re firing will be indicated in the middle of the crosshair.

Evolution Forms

You start at Level 01 when you start the game. Every time you get hit you go down by one level.

Level 00 - A white orb made of triangles.

Level 01 - Humanoid figure made of horizontally aligned squares. Shoots lasers directly to the target.

Level 02 - Skeletal polygonal humanoid figure. Shoots a line of smoky white balls.

Level 03 - A humanoid figure, with silvery skin. I’ve been calling them Silver Angela (inside joke). Laser traces a path at right angles to the target.

Level 04 - A human figure doing yoga poses, within an orb. Shoots lasers from the panels of the sphere to the targets.

Level 05 - An orb, surrounded by a webwork of polygons that pulse to the beat. Lasers appear from various directions that go through the target.

There is also a Final Form that can only be achieved in Level 5, it’s a baby in a venn diagram.

Levels

Each Area has 10 Layers that you must get past to reach the Firewall’s boss.

Inside these Areas, you destroy sequences of enemies, aka Viruses, that have infiltrated the system. This first part is called the Infiltration phase. You want to take out enemies as quickly as possible so that a Network Opening cube appears. You break these open to proceed to the next Layer of an Area. Each progressive Layer has music that builds on itself, increasing the BPM, and adding new enemies, and level designs.

The Firewall Bosses come in 3 different flavors, Mega, Giga, and Tera. Each one being tougher than the last with upgraded health and new attacks. Which one you'll face depends on your shot down % during the Infiltration stage. I believe that it is 98% or more for Tera, 90-98% for Giga, and under 90% for Mega. We usually end up fighting Giga due to the enemies we need to hit. Any other would add extra time and complexity to the run.

After the Boss fight of each area, you are shown your stats for a level. If you hold X, you speed through them quicker. You must manually select the next level from the main screen. If you quit out of the screen, it resets your evolution progress and you have to start again.

Area 1

Song: Buggie Running Beeps by Keiichi Sugiyama

Level 01
- Can fire missiles if not fast at taking them out.

Level 03
- collect power ups and health for these first few levels
- a lot of missiles in this one, don’t have to hit all of them though

Level 06
- big ships that drop health power ups, take them out asap bc they shoot missiles

Earth

Phase 1

• Shoot the panels off the rotating orb to reveal the inner middle section, shoot charged shots at the glowing green lights.

• When the tentacles on the orb start coming towards you, quickly shoot out the glowing green parts before they can spawn projectiles at you. (should take 4 hits each?)

Phase 2

• The orb will turn into a circular strip, and starts spewing ninja star projectiles at you from the strip. Take out the projectiles before they hit you, take out the panels on the strip before they TURN into projectiles, and continue to focus on shooting at the glowing green lights.

Area 2

Song: Protocol Rain by Mist

Level 01
- Giant ships that you have to take out. Shoot the big lights.

Level 02
- Giant ships again that you have to take out. Shoot the big lights.

Level 03

- Take out giant cylinders. Takes multiple hits.

Level 04

• Big ships are back on the left side. Some of them are off in the distance that you have to watch out for. The faster you take them out, the faster the key spawns to the next level. If you take out groups you get health power ups and overdrive powerups.

Level 05

• Enemies build gates. You have to take out the main ships before they can build the gates. To destroy the gates you can shoot the ship or shoot the center dot. If you get hit by the gate you lose a health.

Level 06

• Stalactite and stalagmite level

Level 07

• Ships that fire missiles. They ride on rails. Two spawn at a time so you have to watch out for missiles. They’re very sneaky.

Level 08

• Ships you have to take out quickly. They spew out an octagonal shape and if you take them out fast enough you don't have to deal with the extremities which fire beams

Level 09

• More enemies on beams this time in a spiral. Also missiles are fired at you from other enemies. There’s a lot happening here.

Level 10

• More shields and shape enemies.

Mars

Phase 1

• The blooming onion in front of you will grow yellow spikes out of its’ arms, called Claw. Take them out as soon as they appear.

Phase 2

• The boss will throw walls at you with yellow locks on them. Shoot them out before the wall hits you. Rapid fire on the big yellow lock in the center (6 charge, 1 single?)

Phase 3

• More blooming onion and Claws.

Phase 4

• Use an Overdrive on the flying drone (Core) after charge shotting it once.
• Chase the Core with your shots hitting it as much as you can.
• The Core disappears into the vanishing point, and a bunch of white branches grow out of it. At the ends of these are yellow points, and if you don’t hit them fast enough, they spawn yellow spike enemies called N-Bullet.

• It’s very easy to get hit here, especially when they are spawning so close to your character.

Phase 5

• More blooming onion and Claws.

Phase 6

• The Core reappears! Release an Overdrive after charge shooting it once.
• Chase the Core around, and fire charge shots at it.
• It will spawn S-Mines if you’re not quick enough that will inflate and turn into orange bombs that will damage you.

Area 3

Song: Creation The State of Art by Ken Ishii

Level 02
- Missile spewing side weapons need to be taken out asap and then the center ship

Level 03
- Same side ships, but also small enemies that shoot missiles if you don’t kill them fast enough.

Level 04
- Forced look right to fight a ton of ships, then behind to shoot the side weapons then the center. Often get an overdrive here which is important.

Level 05
- Enemies open up and spew missiles. Mask enemies shoot out missiles from their points.

Level 06
- Mask guys are back, they’re bad. They shoot 8 missiles from their spines on their sides if they open up. We can ignore the worms at the end.

Level 07
- We fight big worms this time. We only attack when they open their mouths to shoot us with a beam. Then we mash in their mouth.

Level 08
- Enemies split open and shoot missiles. They’re faster now. Take out any missiles because they follow you in the transition.

Venus

This boss level starts off with a bunch of cubes crashing down and falling towards you, they won’t do damage but you can shoot them for points.

Phase 1

• The cylinder has a laser defense system on its outer shell. You have to shoot them out without getting hit yourself, they’re difficult to keep track of. There’s two types of lasers.

• Blue Lasers shoot directly forward.
• Red Lasers fire 2 beams at 45 degree angles.
• They both require 2 hits to destroy.
• You can use an Overdrive to take care of some of them if you are overwhelmed.

Phase 2

• Venus starts shooting “Fish” out of F-Pods on the perimeter of its enclosure. They will chase after you. There’s three types of ships.

• G-Fish, yellow ships, takes 1 hit to defeat.
• R-Fish, red ships, takes 2 hits to defeat.
• B-Fish, purple ships, takes 8 hits to defeat.

• You’ll want to ignore the Fish and focus on taking out the F-Pods on the enclosure. There are 3 faces to the enclosure, with 3 floors, and 4 F-Pods on each floor. Be mindful of the Fish, though.

Phase 3

• You fly into Venus’s defenses.
• Shoot all of the D-Pods around the bottom part of the cylinder. Some red shapes (Depris) might fall from the top, and they will damage you. Use Overdrive or shoot them before you get hit.
• The center of the cylinder will open up, fire at the core to take it out. This might take 2-3 cycles.

Area 4

Song: Rock is Sponge by JOUJOUKA

Level 00
- Purple ships that fire missiles. Gotta be fast.

Level 01
- Ships that take 4 hits to take out. Very short level. Their missiles don’t target.

Level 02
- Rows of purple ships again. Short level.

Level 03
- Camera forced down. You shoot below you at ships in columns. Then you get major ships that come out at the same time. They shoot out enemies. You have to shoot their core. They make noises when they’re going to shoot missiles. Take out the missiles then shoot the ship. Then a 3rd major ship comes in. The bouncing enemies don’t bother you.

Level 04
- Homing missiles from the bat-like ships. They take multiple hits to take out.

Level 05
- Locking door mechanisms. Take out the points on them to get them to not fuse. They regen them if you aren’t fast enough. If you smash into or through them you take damage.

Level 06
- More three-pronged enemies. Shoot their core as fast as possible.

Level 07
- Bat-like ships are back. They fly high above you and shoot homing missiles down. They’re tricky.

Level 08
- More locking gates with other enemies around this time. If the key spawns behind the gate you have to knock the gate open to get it.

Level 09
- Very fast level.

Level 10
- Mix of enemy types from previous levels

Uranus

All throughout this fight are several switches (M-Switch) that you can hit to open up alternate paths that usually have health or overdrive nodes to pick up at the end of the hallway. This is also useful if you’re about to die and need to dodge Uranus.

Phase 1

• A UFO shaped item (the Core) will fly around in a swarm of big purple cubes. You want to attack the Core itself repeatedly. Follow it around with your crosshair. Don’t worry about the cubes.

• It will also spawn green missiles out of itself, take them down if you’re in immediate danger.

Phase 2

• Now the Core is flying through pink cubes that turn into an orange running person. You’ll want to take out all the cubes that make up the shape. Use an Overdrive if you have it.

Phase 3

• The Core flies through purple pucks that also morph into a running person. Focus again on attacking the Core. You’ll likely have to turn around to be able to attack them because your positions will swap, and you’ll be being chased.
• The person shape will drop on top of you and hit you with the sections that are glowing on its body. Take out those cubes if you’re in danger of them falling on top of you.

Time ends when Uranus explodes!