'98 D R E A M S

’９８ＤＲＥＡＭＳ

Area 1
Huge enemy
Midboss
Area 2
Hamsters!

夢の１９９８年

(yume no 1998 nen, lit. "dreams of the year 1998")^?

General information

Stage EX-4

Terrain type

Vaporwave dreamscape, vaporwave cityscape, Windows 98 desktop, Windows 98/vaporwave fusion

Inspired by

vaporwave imagery
Microsoft Windows 98
Many Cave games

Major enemies

Endboss

BonziBUDDY

Midboss

Clippy

Hidden bonuses

Number of Micluses

13

Number of Fairies

14 (maximum)

Story Mode branching

Has stage objectives?

Yes

Failure

Asteroid Belt

EX Warp

Lair of the Leviathan

Path Mode information

Path

Echo Path
Prales Path

’９８ＤＲＥＡＭＳ is the fourth EX stage, and the first of the three EX stages that make up the Tritium Plasma arc of Story Mode. This stage is unique in that it is largely not based on any specific shmup, but instead based around the vaporwave electronic music microgenre and visual art style.

Backstory[]

Coming soon

Enemy encounters[]

There are many different types of enemies of ’９８ＤＲＥＡＭＳ, themed to the each of the two distinct areas of the stage.

Area 1 (Vaporwave statues)[]

Floppy disks: these early computer storage media serve as common small enemies. Some formations of floppy disks drop powerup items on destruction.
3D-rendered spinning cube: This large enemy fires fast aimed bullet spreads at the player. It drops an S item upon destruction.
Living statues: these ground-based statues come in two sizes. They release aimed spread shots at the player and drop ground-based medals on destruction.
Asteroid statues: These airborne statues release smaller and smaller fragments until they are tiny fragments that are completely destroyed. The largest of these statues release three airborne medals on destruction
Vaporwave suns: They appear during the stage transition at the end of the first Area. They release S items on destruction. They shoot area-of-denial bullet streams that limit player movement against...
Ares statue head: This huge enemy appears as the stage transitions. It releases large asteroid statues and fires aimed laser beams at the player.

Midboss[]

Clippy: It's none other than the infamous Office assistant that came with copies of Microsoft Office 97, most frequently associated with Microsoft Word 97. Clippy will try to "help" the player by summoning Office 97 application icons as bullet-shooting drones while himself shooting aimed bullet streams and a wide 5-way laser attack.

Area 2 (Windows 98 desktop)[]

CD-ROMs: These early high-capacity computer storage media appear in formation moving at a fast speed, serving as minor enemies. Some formations drop powerup items on destruction.
Flying toasters: They appear from the right side of the screen slowly. If left alone long enough, they release up to 24 pieces of toast that fly toward the player. The flying toasters release a number of medals related to the length of the current scoring chain, as well as an S item, on destruction
Formation orbs: Appears as two formations of 5 orbs that follow different movement paths.
Corrupted light infantry fighting vehicles: Off-colored versions of the same enemies found in the regular stages. They emerge from a Windows 98 system icon placed in various locations, as well as stationary defense positions.
Small hamster: Large numbers of these small Hampster Dance hamsters march in rank and file down a series of stone arches after the Windows 98 desktop gauntlet. They continually shoot aimed bullets at the player.
"Friendly" hamster: This large brown hamster poses zero threat to the player. They have no attacks whatsoever, and shooting them makes them release random items. They also block all other forms of enemy attacks, serving as cover to the player.
Laser hamster: This large hamster appears from the sides of the screen. If left alone long enough, they fire a giant green laser vertically down the screen for several seconds, becoming dangerous as they serve as area-of-denial attacks.
Medium formation hamster: They appear in horizontal lines on different locations of the screen. A visual indicator and sound tell the player where they will appear.

Endboss[]

BonziBUDDY appears in a corrupted area of the stage that combines features of both areas encountered earlier in the stage. Behind the boss is a large rotating crystal that contains a sample of Tritium Plasma, which the boss guards.

Stage branching[]

Stage objective[]

Find all 13 Micluses in the stage and collect the EX-Medal. There is technically no success condition, as collecting the EX-Medal triggers the EX Warp condition at the end of the endboss fight.

Objective failure[]

Fail to collect the EX-Medal. Caused by failing to find all 13 Micluses in the stage. The player is sent to Stage F-A (Asteroid Belt) as their next stage.

EX Warp[]

Collecting the EX-Medal sends the player to Stage EX-5 (Lair of the Leviathan).

Music[]

The default soundtrack contains these two songs for Stage EX-4.

Stage theme[]

Title: "馬鹿 i d i o t" by ロフト tapes (Baka i d i o t by Lofttapes)
Album: Tronic カセット EP (Tronic Cassette EP)
Bandcamp: https://lofttapes.bandcamp.com/album/tronic

This is a vaporwave song that uses an earworm from an Aston Villa football club interview. The album Tronic Cassette was released on April 1, 2016, by the UK-based Lofttapes. This song is a cover of "Idiot Country" by a band named Electronic. It was released in 1991.

Boss theme[]

Title: メインフレーム（スタートアップ）by Windows 98のご紹介 (Mainframe (Start-up) by Windows 98 no Goshōkai)
Album: インターネット (Internet)
Bandcamp: https://windows98wave.bandcamp.com/album/-

This is the first track in the experimental trap vaporwave album Internet, released on August 27, 2014, by the artist "Windows 98のご紹介" (uindōzu 98 no goshōkai, "Introducing Windows 98").

Trivia[]

Cave references[]

Stage EX-4 has numerous references to shmups by Cave.

The starting area of the stage as well as the Ares statue head enemy come from the final stage of 1998's ESP Ra. De., which is the antagonist organization Yaksa's stronghold and its leader, Miss Garra.
Midboss Clippy's attack patterns are loosely based on that of Satoru Oumi, the boss of player character Sagami Yuusuke's stage, Hou-Oh High School, from ESP Ra. De.
During the midboss fight against Clippy, he will say, "Heaven is here inside my soul!", a line of spoken dialogue that is often heard in 1997's Dangun Feveron (also known as Fever S.O.S. internationally)
The text strings (both English and Japanese) that appear in the background of the Windows 98 area contain several Cave references:
- 己のが不運を呪うがよい (Onore no ga fuun o norouga yoi, "Cursed be your misfortune!" in old-fashioned Japanese) is a line spoken by Fujimura Shizuhiko, the first boss of 1998's Guwange.
- "Full extent of the jam.": A well-known Engrish line (full line is "Violators and(sic) subject to severe penalties and will be prosecuted(t) to the full extent of the jam.") found in the Japanese versions of most early Cave games' legal disclaimer during the power-on sequence of their arcade machines.
The pink stone arches after the Windows 98 desktop journey come from the first stage of 1996's DoDonPachi.
The large green lasers shot by the large Hampster Dance hamsters is the player Type-B craft's full power Shot-Type power shot from DoDonPachi.
The small rank-and-file Hampster Dance hamsters make the death scream sound of the original version of the Alice clone enemies found in the final stage of ESP Ra. De. The original voices themselves are sped-up versions of two of player character Irori Mimasaki's voice clips, her damage sound and her power-up pickup sound.
Endboss BonziBUDDY's second phase attack patterns are inspired by Magira, the second form of Ashikaga Sukouji, the fifth boss of Guwange. His second phase attacks also use Magira's voice clips for attacking and damage, as well as enemy bullet shooting sounds from Guwange.

Other trivia[]

Some of the glitched craters left behind by the ground-based enemies contain the lowercase letters "rdrr" arranged in a 2x2 block. This is a reference to a glitched enemy commonly found in Compile's 1988 8-bit Nintendo game The Guardian Legend (Guardic Gaiden in Japan) when players explore the out-of-bounds areas of the map by using odd game passwords.
The asteroids statues are the statue obstacles found in the first Egyptian stage of Capcom's 1988 arcade rotary stick shmup Forgotten Worlds (Lost Worlds in Japan).
The song clip that plays during the Ares statue head encounter is from "Boot" (ブート), the first song of the album Floral Shoppe by vaporwave artist Macintosh Plus (AKA vektroid). The song itself contains a sample from the song "Tar Baby", from the 1985 album Promise by the artist Sade.
Clippy and the John Romero Miclus bosses make the Icon of Sin pain and death sounds from id Software's 1994 first-person shooter PC title Doom II: Hell on Earth. The Icon of Sin sounds from that game are samples of id Software co-founder and developer John Romero's voice heavily processed and slowed down.
The clock on the system tray located at the lower-right of the Windows 98 desktop tells the exact time of the player's own computer clock (in 12-hour time, i.e. 7:30pm instead of 19:30).
Vaporwave albums and artists from the early to mid 2010's on the Windows 98 desktop:
- Floral Shoppe by vektroid (aka Macintosh Plus, released December 9, 2011)
- Blank Banshee 0 by Blank Banshee (released September 2012)
- Hit Vibes by SAINT PEPSI (released May 31, 2013)
- Mana Pool by VAPERROR (released June 6, 2014)
- Tronic カセット by ロフト tapes (released April 1, 2016)
Other Japanese text in the background of the Windows 98 area:
- 気にしない。(ki ni shinai): I don't care.
- 馬鹿 (baka): fool, idiot. Also a reference to the name of the song used in this stage in the default soundtrack.
- 何が怖いのか。(nani ga kowai no ka?): What are you afraid of?
- ゼノファイターズR (zeno faitāzu aru): Xeno Fighters R transliterated into Japanese.
- 雷電伝説 (raiden densetsu): literally "Raiden legends" or "Raiden tradition". This is the name given to the ports of Seibu Kaihatsu's 1990 arcade top-down shmup Raiden released for the 16-bit Nintendo and Sega consoles, as well as the FM Towns, a Japanese personal computer made by Fujitsu and sold from 1989 to 1997. The international releases of the 16-bit Nintendo and Sega console versions of this port was named Raiden Trad, loosely based on the English translation of 雷電伝説 as "Raiden tradition".
On the Windows 98 desktop, the app icon for 2003's Xeno Fighters EX can be seen. Other Xeno Fighters references on the Windows 98 desktop include a video to the Xeno Fighters R E3 reveal and a text file containing cheats for Xeno Fighters EX.
The midboss Clippy has 4,242 health, while BonziBUDDY's phases have 564 or 5,640 health. This is a reference to the manga Soul Eater, which uses the number sequence 42-42-564 to contact Death (Shinigami) in his self-contained room within the Death Weapon Meister Academy.

Concept and development history[]