Sentences written about this title, gathered by type from the Japanese and English Wikipedia articles (as of 2026-8-30).
The title was changed to Layer Section, which had been the working title during development.
When only 1 stages had been built, however, the platform was changed to the FX System, an arcade board compatible with the PlayStation (1), so development as R-GEAR was cancelled — shelved, as they say — and the title was changed to RayStorm and built again from nothing.
Due to trademark problems, when the home version was released in Japan it was renamed Layer Section.
The Windows version was released outside Japan retaining this name, but when Acclaim published the Saturn version for the North American and European markets, it was renamed Galactic Attack.
The arcade version took 5th place for the Grand Prix in the 8th Gamest Grand Prix (1994) run by the magazine Gamest, and the Sega Saturn version entered the Gold Hall of Fame in the "Cross Review" in the magazine Famicom Tsushin.
In the 8th Gamest Grand Prix (1994) run by the magazine Gamest, the readers' vote gave it 5th place for the Grand Prix, 2nd for Best Shooting Game, 4th for Best Presentation, 8th for Best Graphics and 5th for Best VGM, and it won the editors' Special Award.
In the "Cross Review" in the magazine Famicom Tsushin it scored 8, 9, 7 and 8 for a total of 32 out of 40, entering the Gold Hall of Fame, and it was rated highly in SATURN FAN with 24.3 out of 30, as shown at right.
Taito specifically stated that the Kumagaya team wouldn't be able to make any shoot'em up games, to the dismay of several employees within the division; they tried multiple times to get the green light for a new shooter, but Taito executives denied these requests for not being "feasible".
The music for the game was composed by Zuntata, Taito's "house band".
Rad Automatic of Sega Saturn Magazine stated that the game is fun but severely outdated in terms of both graphics and gameplay, though he did praise the absence of slowdown and the authentic arcade feel of the tate mode.
Because it is part of "S-Tribute", the project produced by City Connection to reissue titles from the Sega Saturn era, the name Layer Section was deliberately used; the overseas version, Galactic Attack, is included as well.
The Windows version was released outside Japan retaining this name, but when Acclaim published the Saturn version for the North American and European markets, it was renamed Galactic Attack.
When only 1 stages had been built, however, the platform was changed to the FX System, an arcade board compatible with the PlayStation (1), so development as R-GEAR was cancelled — shelved, as they say — and the title was changed to RayStorm and built again from nothing.
In 2025-8 it also became possible to buy it as a normal download-only release, so the "phantom sequel", though only 1 stages as noted above, could be played after some 30 years.
The limitations of the Taito F3 System arcade hardware proved to be difficult to work with when designing levels, due to the hardware's scaling techniques with backgrounds and objects.
In Japan, Game Machine listed RayForce on their April 1, 1994 issue as being the third most popular arcade unit at the time.
A reviewer for Maximum similarly commented that the game falls into the retro genre without offering the nostalgia value found in most such releases, and further criticized that the tate mode "isn't very practical in execution (and not particularly healthy for your television).
The sentences quoted on this page were taken from the Japanese and English Wikipedia articles exactly as they stand. Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) — usable under those terms. They are the work of the people who wrote them.