Dashing, Beam ammunition and Live ammunition[]
SUGURI, sora and the Acceleration of Suguri spin-off series use the triangle of Dashing, Beam ammunition and Live ammunition:
Dashing makes you immune to Beam ammunition. Live ammunition can harm you, even when dashing. Beam ammunition destroys Live ammunition to give you more room for dashing - and beam shots penetrate live ammo to cause further damage.
In short: when the enemy uses beam attacks, dash. When he uses live ammo, use beam shots.
When there aren't any live ammo shots in your line of fire and the enemy doesn't move, try using live ammo since it's usually more damaging than beam shots.
Many enemies defend themselves offensively by throwing out rockets, mines and so on to impede your own Live Ammunition attacks. Remember which enemies use this type of ammo and take them out with Beam weapons.
Nearly each weapon used by you and the enemies falls into either Live ammunition or Beam ammunition, a few being Penetrating and Melee attacks. However, certain attacks are both indestructible and “undashable”, meaning that your dash will not make you immune to them: for example the lasers in stage 6 or the flamethrowers in Stage 7.
Live ammunition disappears upon hitting an enemy or other live shots. Beam ammunition penetrates live shots and disappears upon hitting an enemy or a stage obstacle. Penetrating weapons can’t be stopped by walls, shields etc. and will hit multiple enemies in a row. Enemy penetrating attacks are "dashable". Melee weapons give a temporary Shield to protect you while attacking. Enemy melee attacks can’t be dashed through.
When you dash into a nearby screen edge you do a "walldash". That allows you to enter the dash state and evade bullets without actually moving around and risking a missile in the face. You can also dash into the wall diagonally to do slower and more precise dodging.
Heat percentage, damage received and health gauge[]
Your heat increases when you use your dash. Holding down dash will raise your heat gradually while tapping dash to switch directions frequently will raise your heat much more rapidly. Every bullet touching the rings trailing behind you will also increase Heat: dash through many bullets and your heat will skyrocket.
For each attack there's a damage value. Sora has 10000 HP available for each stage. Being at 100% Heat doubles damage: at 200% you get triple and at 300% quadruple damage. E.g. when you get hit by Alte's ultimate attack (which does 1500 damage) at 100% Heat you lose 3000 HP or 30% of your entire health - but when you suffer a hit at 300% Heat you receive 6000 damage.
While not dashing your heat percentage cools off at approximately 50% heat per second.
Repairing[]
A new feature in sora. Whenever you receive damage your health gauge gets a red portion: its length is equivalent to roughly 50% of the damage received. This red health can be repaired by dashing near bullets. Some beam attacks don't refill your health, though.
Hyper gauge[]
Your Hyper gauge fills when the rings trailing behind your dashes come in contact with any enemy attacks or when you deal non-Hyper damage to enemies.
To use a Hyper attack you need to fill your Hyper gauge until you gain Hyper stocks, indicated by the number in the hyper gauge. Using a Hyper attack uses up 1 Hyper stock.
With the advanced shielding option enabled pressing the hyper button will activate a shield first. While shielded you can move around and press one of the attack buttons to use an hyper attack.
Lock-on[]
Press a directional button and the lock-on button to target the nearest enemy in that direction. Press lock-on twice to disable it.