Get ready for an epic new experience in Xeno Fighters R v0.398! The highlight of this update is the brand-new playable stage, Y-05 (Railway of the Behemoth), which pays homage to Raiden Fighters 2’s iconic Violet Head raid boss. Simply press left on the Conquest Mode stage select screen to access this adrenaline-pumping battleground! Alongside this, player hitbox visuals have been completely overhauled! Choose from styles like the simple flashing dot, Dodonpachi Resurrection, and Angel at Dusk, or even turn them off. Craters now adapt to the terrain for extra immersion, and the music info widget has gotten a stylish makeover that makes tracking your favorite tracks better than ever!

On the gameplay front, major fighter balance adjustments have been rolled out to keep the action fresh and exciting. Judge Spear and Blue Javelin get revamped Vulcan Cannons, Styx enjoys multiple buffs including stronger Lancer and Wave weapons, and Variable Weapon Mode fighters have a new challenge with reduced powerup drops on death, encouraging more strategic play! There’s also a new enemy bullet glow system for better visibility and style; simply tweak your XFCONFIG.INI to make bullets pop with custom glow effects. Expect even more customization with an upcoming subscreen for bullet glow options in the next UI overhaul!

Rounding out the update are polished visuals and a slew of bug fixes. Fighter sprites like Amada Vipros, Solvalou, Miria, Miyamoto, and Opa-Opa look sharper than ever. Annoying crashes, misaligned sprites, and audio quirks have all been tackled, while menu improvements and subtle UI tweaks make every session smoother. Plus, soundtrack enhancements and smart changes to medal milestones will keep both veterans and newcomers hooked. Dive in and enjoy all these upgrades! Xeno Fighters R is more electrifying than ever!

v0.398 CHANGELOG

NEW PLAYABLE STAGE: Stage Y-05 (Railway of the Behemoth)

A recreation of Raiden Fighters 2's Violet Head raid boss stage. Choose Y-05 in the Conquest Mode stage select screen by pressing left on Stage 1 to go to the end of the stage list, which shows Stage Y-05.

FIGHTER BALANCE FIXES

Judge Spear

• (NERF) Napalm Missile: Increased hitbox size of all missile projectiles. Lowered missile projectile burst damage from 12/18/21/25 to 10/14/16/20
• (BUFF) Vulcan Cannon: Balanced effective DPS from 276.00/197.60/174.00/160.00/175.00 to 276.00/281.20/288.00/293.75/300.00

Blue Javelin

• (BUFF) Vulcan Cannon mk2: Balanced effective DPS from 144.00/180.00/162.00/150.00/190.00 to 220.80/224.96/230.40/244.00/260.00

Styx

• (NERF) Hunter weapon (Revision 3): 100% accurate homing behavior via reverse engineering the algorithm--independent axis-based speed component steering towards an enemy target's x/y position
• (BUFF) Twin Shot (Sever Lv0): Increased damage per shot from 14 to 20
• (BUFF) Lancer weapon: Damage increased from 20/22/25/29 to 23/25/28/32 per shot burst. Rear-fired Lancer shots now rebound from the bottom of the screen at wider angles
• (BUFF) Wave weapon: Increased damage per shot from 21/24/28/32 to 25/28/32/36. Wave sprites now alternate between the TF3 original sprites and the currently used custom Wave sprites
• (COSMETIC) Fire weapon: changed sprite from custom to TF3 original

VARIABLE WEAPON MODE FIGHTERS IN GENERAL

* (NERF) Variable Weapon Mode fighters now drop less powerup (M/L) items on death, making recovery more difficult for these fighters and encouraging players to use other weapons of Variable Weapon Mode fighters

NEW ENEMY BULLET GLOW SYSTEM

To enable enemy bullet glow, edit XFCONFIG.INI in your Xeno Fighters working directory and add these keys to the [Graphics] section:

BulletGlowScale="100"
BulletGlowBlendMode = "0"
BulletGlowAlpha="50"
BulletGlowRed="15"
BulletGlowGreen="0"
BulletGlowBlue="0"

These settings will give you a 32x32 pixel black bullet glow around all enemy bullets at 50% opacity, using the default screen blend mode.

• Values for scale: 100 = normal size, 50 = half size, 200 = double size.
• Blend mode: 0 = screen (default, for darker glows), 1 = additive blend mode, for lighter glows
• Alpha valid values are between 0 (transparent/invisible) and 100 (opaque).
• RGB valid values are 0 to 255.

A menu option subscreen that allows you to change and preview the bullet glow appearance will come in the post-v0.400 UI overhaul cycle

NEW FEATURES

• Overhauled player hitbox styles: Flashing Dot (default), Dodonpachi DaiOuJou, and Angel at Dusk. Hitboxes can be turned off as well.
• Craters now are appropriate for the terrain they spawn on (dirt craters on dirt, blast craters on hard surfaces like concrete and asphalt)
• Music information widget: Greatly increased music information text size and replaced the M2 ShotTriggers Garegga-inspired deck display sprite with a more stylish original widget. The widget background changes randomly when the song changes

UPDATED SPRITES

• Player fighters: Amada Vipros, Solvalou, Miria, Miyamoto, Opa-Opa

BUGFIXES

• Boss Rush stage: Fix Balor being offset by 2 pixels in Boss Rush stage (camera stopped slightly late)
• Raiden mk-II Laser (Bend Plasma): Fixed laser getting cut off when the fighter is outside the bounds of the room space. Changed off-screen checks to outside the screen view instead
• Styx Wave weapon:  Fixed issue where large Wave projectile fired by the Styx will not hit small ground enemies the fighter overlaps.
• Fixed game crash when pressing the SP button immediately after respawning after death as any of the Gradius fighters.
• Fixed issue with RF2 stratofortresses having some parts not reactivating after unpausing the game
• Fixed incorrect music mod behavior: if the mod has a NONE entry, but the default XFMUSIC.INI file doesn't, the default NONE entry is used instead
• Fixed game crash when selecting any of the three ?'s (caused by an oversight of forgetting to check for invalid internal IDs for fighters after the Grasshopper and the Flying Baron were added) in the Fighter Select on the Continue screen in Story Mode and Arrange Mode.
• Fixed depth drawing issues in Stage EX-4 (transition BG drawn under pause screen, transition BG and other HUD elements drawn under the player fighter)
• Fixed occasional not setting of window size on startup
• Fixed widgets appearing over gameplay at some resolutions
• Fixed menu hang when mashing the confirm key after confirming lives and bombs settings in the select screen
• Fixed menu operations still active when exiting any game mode (Story, Conquest, Arrange, Boss Rush) from the pause screen.
• Fixed powerup zakos rarely spawning powerups when they leave the screen
• Fixed transition animation sometimes getting stuck before the full-game screen transition animation frame appears when flushing and preloading certain stages' background assets

OTHER FIXES

• Opa-Opa: Changed from old SP meter to updated one that the Xeno Overdrive fighters use
• Extend milestone medal amounts changed from 1st @ 150 / 2nd @ 325 / every 475 after to 1st @ 150 / 2nd @ 307 / every 313 after
• XFR Default Soundtrack update: Changed Gradius clear theme from "Scramble" (Gradius: the Slot) to "Historic Soldier" (ReBirth Remix) (Gradius ReBirth)
• Player hitbox visualization is now drawn over the enemy bullets
• Mirrored horizontally the new Raiden Fighters-style A6M Zero banking sprites so that its lighting comes from the upper left, like all other Raiden Fighters-style custom sprites
• Select screen: Added 20 step delay (0.33 seconds) before menu inputs are enabled for the Lives and Bombs Settings and Difficulty Settings menus
• Fixed incorrect button function description text in Radio XF for skipping 10 entries in the music playlist
• Fixed debug key for Steel Aughisky transition testing still being active