I know, I know, we all love Wryn for the fact that she is the main character and she even beat the snot out of the very guy i'm talking about today, but i believe it's time we set our sights off her for a bit, now that she has claimed title of world's greatest hero of all time and look at the Rival; the mechanic, the pilot, the (at least before he got taught a hard lesson) cheater, and nemesis of our girly hero... should i also add that he appears to have just as much taste for blood as Wryn does?

notice: because i feel he deserves to be called more then just "The Rival", i will refer to him as "Reese" for the duration of the guide.

By the time you beat the game on V. Hard or clear arcade mode, you most likely are used to the mechanic of only being able to triple jump and each jump only going so far, as well as being used to firing endlessly without worry of consequences for burning through so much ammo. Reese, here, however, processes traits that turns all of that around, including...

pros
* quite obviously, he regenerates energy VERY fast, in fact, with turbo charger, it takes only half a second to go from 0 energy to full, even with all energy upgrades

*unlike the other characters, he can "jump" infinitely

* after a double, triple, quad, ect. jump, during the moment where you can "fly", he does not have to worry about having to use a short frame of time to fly around, for, he can fly endlessly..

*unlike Wyrn and White, he can start slowing down time again sooner, to be exact, when just one "unit" of energy is recovered, (use the thresholds on the meter to gauge the units of energy, Wyrn and White need 3 units to start slowing time down again) and with his high energy-recovery rate, this will be close enough to instantly. only Robo-Wyrn rivals Reese when it comes to how soon she can slow time down again (only needs 25-50% of one unit of energy needed), but considering she must do damage and dodge in order to recover energy, Reese still wins in terms of when he can slow time down again.

cons
*when using any weapon, Reese must use his own energy to fire. with turbo charger, this should be no kind of issue (and you most likely will have bought it by the time you obtain Reese) when not doing too many demanding activitys, but his capabilitys become limited when he has been slowing time down or has been double jumping recently, as his fire rate ends up slowed down when he is running on little energy reserves.

*jumping (both the initial jump and flying around afterward) requires energy.

*in the hands of someone who is used to dodging, slowing time down, and shooting at the same time, you will quickly find he will tire himself out WAY too fast in some cases.


as a result, in a way, he can be seen as a more energetic but difficult to use version of Wyrn. not to worry, I’m here to help you out here

while Wryn can simply run, gun, slow time down, and whatnot, Reese, while he doesn’t play by Wryn's rule book, he does have to follow his own, and thus, trying to play by Wryn's rules can lead to him being nothing more then dogmeat for the opposition. so here are a few key things to consider when playing as him.

* be sure to manage your energy budget
your not going to go far if your just using all your energy the moment you have it. be smart and consider your energy reserves when preforming any action aside from moving and doing basic and wall jumps.

* learn when to hold your fire
if your flying around and shooting, you may end up becoming a rock falling out of the sky if your still going guns blazing while doing such dodging. if you need to dodge or slow time down, stop shooting and focus on getting out of what ever you need to escape. preferably, after dodging, wait for the split second for your energy to fully recharge, and then start shooting again.

* sparingly dodge and slow time down at the same time
you consume energy considerably faster if your dodging and going reflex mode at the same time, so try to focus on doing one or the other. only do both if it is required to dodge a attack (such as White MK II's missle barrage) and again, wait for your energy to replenish before shooting once again.

* use the katana with caution
the katana is surely a powerful weapon in the right hands, and while Reese, in his own boss fight, can slash with the katana with speeds that rival that of a Japanese anime samurai, he, sadly, not only cannot swing with that much speed in his player form, he can only slash so much, for as far as i can tell, the katana is the only weapon that can truly deplete the energy meter on its own, without other sources of energy output. if your going to use the katana, use VERY good timing, and don’t spam it, holding the button down to attack will give a stable attack speed that does not deplete energy so fast and can be out-regenerated with turbo charger, but is kinda slow, so using your Zen when using the katana can be a lot smarter (ahh puns) then slashing at mach speed and hoping you bounce a bullet back. in fact, if you need to, unless its a barrage of bullets coming at you, consider slowing time down to help you time your attack.

does does kinda seem broad and basic, but Reese is a difficult character to use. once you get ahang of him, however, he will seem to be a straight upgrade from Wryn and her own basic abilitys

if you have your own tips (that are legit, not troll or useless), list them out, and i may add them to the guide later on, as i work to improve it.