12 Sectors is a hypothetical Unity game by Ironcommando. A war between the Enforcers and Defiance has broken out in Metaspace, and both sides are trying to protect their own superweapons from each other.
The game resembles a Boss Game Shoot 'Em Up: One one side, a small but fast spaceship packing much firepower. On the other, a large superweapon boss packing even more firepower and individually attacking destructible parts. Seem pretty standard? Not quite.
You are not controlling the small spaceship, but the superweapon. As the superweapon, your mission is to destroy all the small spaceships (known as Weapon Slayers) trying to destroy you. Each of your parts and main body can fire out their own attacks, and they have a cooldown after every attack. You must strategically use attacks from each part to hit the Weapon Slayers, who will actively try to avoid your attacks and destroy you and your parts.
Each side has 12 superweapons trying to gain supremacy over 12 sectors. The Defiance superweapons are based on the Eastern Zodiac while the Enforcer superweapons are based off the Western Zodiac.
12 Sectors contains the following tropes:
- Advancing Wall of Doom: Cat can create these, which cannot be avoided by most Weapon Slayers. Pity he has to face an opponent that can easily phase through them.
- Always Accurate Attack: Targeting attacks. Once the target (Weapon or Weapon Slayer) is locked on, the attack that follows (usually Homing Lasers) will hit. Does not affect Stealthed units- since they can't be seen, they can't be locked onto.
- Animal Motifs: The Defiance superweapons are all based on animals from the Eastern Zodiac, and have traits corresponding to said animals. The Enforcer superweapons based on Western Zodiac animals also have traits corresponding to them.
- Another Side, Another Story: Both Enforcers and Defiance have their storylines occur simultaneously, but you only see the storyline of the side you chose.
- Arc Number: 12. There are 12 sectors that each side is trying to hold control over.
- Awesome, but Impractical: At the end of the game, the Defiance want to mass-produce the superweapons. In terms of preference, Dragon is only fifth place because he cost a lot of resources to build for his power and regenerative capabilities.
- Background Boss: Almost all superweapons have "move into background" as an ability, which forces the Weapon Slayers to use homing weapons on them. The Slayers will eventually make it to you, bringing you back to the foreground. Of all the superweapons, Rabbit does this the most often, which is essential for his survival as he's a Fragile Speedster.
- Battleship Raid: You're on the receiving end of it while using Ophiuchus, Snake and Dragon.
- Beware My Stinger Tail: Scorpio's stinger can infect a Weapon Slayer, slowly brainwashing and mutating them into an organic-looking Body Horror. Getting it to hit faster Weapon Slayers can be a hassle, though.
- Boss Game: Type 1, with a twist — you're the bosses.
- Boss Warning Siren: All the Weapons have this. The main difference is that said warning siren applies to you, not the enemy.
- BFG: Sagittarius uses huge guns and a huge energy bow.
- Bullet Hell: Several of the characters can create these. However, even this isn't even one of the toughest to avoid attacks. It is one of the least costly attacks, however.
- Bullfight Boss: Subverted by Ox and Taurus who can use other moves besides charging around, although one of their more powerful attacks invokes this.
- Chicken Walker: Rooster, who has some resemblance to Towbar from Axelay.
- Cognizant Limbs: Almost all the WEAPONS have destructible parts that attack separately.
- Collision Damage: Most Weapon Slayers will take heavy damage if they make contact with a superweapon. Some of them can take reduced damage while harming the weapon in the process, however.
- Combination Attack: The Rats have multiple, being a Wolfpack Boss and all. The Dual Bosses also have one.
- Cool Bike: Goat, Aries. Both of them have "horns" as their handlebars.
- Crippling Overspecialization: The Weapon Slayers attacking you specialize in one ability, while lacking in others. This makes different attacks effective against each of them.
- Cat has no way to reliably attack units with the phasing ability. Ophiuchus' Homing Lasers cannot target or hit Weapon Slayers with the Stealth ability. This contributes to both of their demises.
- Crosshair Aware: Most of the characters have targeting moves of sorts, which tend to lock onto Weapon Slayers with these.
- Cutscene Incompetence: Justified on both sides:
- Defiance: After the tutorial, the Rats abandon Cat, and a phasing Enforcer Weapon Slayer appears, which counters Cat's Advancing Wall of Doom and makes short work out of it.
- Enforcers: After the tutorial, a stealthed Defiance Weapon Slayer appears, which counters Ophiuchus' Always Accurate Attack and makes short work out of it.
- David Versus Goliath: Small ships versus a huge superweapon. Unlike most examples, you want Goliath to win.
- The ending cutscene has Virgo, the smallest superweapon attacking Dragon, the largest.
- Desperation Attack: Each superweapon has one should they be on their last legs.
- Dirty Coward: In the post-tutorial cutscene for the Defiance, the Rats escape and leave Cat to die once they see an unbeatable foe coming.
- Doomed by Canon: Almost all of the superweapons will be eventually destroyed by the Resistance Metas and their allies.
- Doomsday Device: Dragon and Virgo have abilities that can level entire planets.
- Dual Boss: Pisces, Gemini and Libra. The first is comprised of two fish-like weapons, the second is a pair of humanoid units, and the last is a pair of Evil Elevators.
- Eldritch Abomination: Scorpio resembles a flesh, bone and slime organic horror thing, as opposed to the rest of the weapons. He's a Biogen, a techno-organic assimilating form of Meta.
- Evil Elevator: Libra is basically a pair of massive transport elevators armed to the teeth and are actively malicious towards the Weapon Slayers.
- Evil Is Visceral: Scorpio.
- Feather Flechettes: Rooster's Macross Missile Massacre attack takes the form of exploding feather-like projectiles.
- Final Boss: The final level for the Defiance has you use Dragon, while the final level for the Enforcers has you use Virgo.
- Fragile Speedster: Rabbit and Monkey are can't take much damage, but attack very quickly and move very quickly.
- Free-Fall Fight: Monkey's fight takes place in a huge, endless shaft, with both Monkey and the Weapon Slayers attacking him falling down it.
- Genre-Busting
- Glass Cannon: Virgo has powerful nuke "spells" that can clear entire screens, but has one of the worst health totals.
- Healing Factor: Dragon has this, thanks to being made of a replicating energy sand-like substance. May still not be enough when he gets double and even triple-teamed by Weapon Slayers, though.
- High-Speed Battle: Rabbit, Horse, Goat, Pig, Aries, thanks to the former being a fast hopping machine and the latter four being fast-moving vehicle units, are fought in a hyperspeed battle.
- Hitbox Dissonance: Some of the Weapon Slayers have a Bullet Hell-styled hitbox, which makes it hard to hit them. Targeting attacks will hit them, though.
- Hold the Line: You win a level by destroying all the Weapon Slayers coming to attack you.
- Hopeless Boss Fight: The Video Game Tutorial has you do this to the hapless Weapon Slayers attacking you.
- Defiance: You're Cat with Rats helping you out, and you have a spammable laser wall move that's pretty much unavoidable.
- Enforcers: Each subsequent Weapon Slayer will make short work of Ophiuchus' train segments, but probably get easily defeated by the next. They will not make it past the head and its powerful Homing Lasers, though.
- Hopping Machine: Rabbit, true to the animal it's based on.
- Humongous Mecha: Ox and Tauros.
- Invisibility Cloak: Tiger can move into the grid-like background and blend into it, preventing the Weapon Slayers from attacking him.
- Being a scouting unit, Rabbit can cloak as well.
- Interesting Situation Duel: Many of the fights are this:
- Rabbit's fight is a Chase Fight where he utilizes the pillars in the background to attack.
- Monkey's fight takes place as a Free-Fall Fight.
- Jump Jet Pack: Rooster has one. Just like a rooster, it allows him to "fly" for short distances.
- Lift of Doom: One of Libra's attacks invokes this by firing deadly platforms into the air that "descend" on the enemy.
- Magic from Technology: Virgo is basically a female mage humanoid who uses spell-like programs to attack.
- Mile-Long Ship: Dragon, due to being based off the eastern dragon.
- More Deadly Than the Male: Virgo's a rather lithe humanoid, the smallest boss, and the only female superweapon. She's a Final Boss whose power and cunning are only rivaled by Dragon.
- Organic Technology: Scorpio is a ship made of an organic-looking flesh-and-bone substance.
- Pintsized Powerhouse:
- Virgo is smaller than the rest of the weapons, but she's arguably the strongest.
- At the end of the game, the Defiance want to mass-produce the superweapons. The Rats are their top choice because they're easy to produce due to being small and they have group synergy with each other.
- Play as a Boss: The main concept of the game is that you control a Bullet Hell boss to destroy the Shoot 'Em Up player-like characters trying to take you down.
- Recurring Boss Template:
- Ox and Taurus are built very similar to each other. Justified as the Defiance stole Taurus' blueprints to make Ox.
- Tiger and Leo are both gigantic stealth bomber-like planes that fly sideways and have similar attack patterns, as they're both named after big cats.
- Sand Worm: Once Snake's train segments are destroyed, he becomes this.
- Sentient Vehicle: Quite a lot of the superweapons are this.
- Sequential Boss: A number of the larger superweapons have to be taken down part by part.
- Shout-Out: The Rat and Cat were best of friends... until the former sabotaged the latter. In this game, the Rats leave Cat to die by the Enforcers.
- The Smurfette Principle: Virgo is the only female in the game, while the rest of the superweapons are either genderless or male. She can easily beat the others, however.
- Spread Shot: Obviously present, on both the player's and enemy's side. But mainly used by the player.
- Starter Villain: Cat and Ophiuchus. They're also the Video Game Tutorial characters.
- Stealthy Mook: Stealthed Weapon Slayers have a cloaking system that prevents homing attacks from homing in on them, and targeting attacks cannot lock-onto them. Certain Weapons have the capability to remove their stealth, however.
- 13 Is Unlucky: Cat and Ophiuchus are the thirteenth superweapons to be made on each side. They're also the first ones to die.
- Tiger Versus Dragon: Tiger and Dragon are noted for being rather hostile towards each other, even though they're on the same side. They're also the penultimate and final bosses respectively.
- Underwater Boss Battle: Capricorn's fight takes place underwater. Aquarius' battlefield is split into two sections- water and sky. Pisces' fight has water on top and water below, with air in the middle- both fish attack from the water.
- Video Game Tutorial: Each character has a (skippable and replayable) tutorial so that the players can get a rough feel of their attacks and abilities.
- Villain Protagonist: Both the Enforcers and Defiance aren't really good guys. Furthermore, you're also playing as bosses.
- Weaponized Exhaust: The aircraft superweapons, as well as the motorbike and car superweapons can do this.
- Wolfpack Boss: The Rats, who are individually weak but attack in numbers and have synergy with their attacks.
- X Meets Y: It's basically Boss Rush
meets Einhänder. - You Dirty Rat!: Considering that the Rats left Cat to die, they qualify.
- Zero-Effort Boss: Two of them happen at the very end of Cat's and Ophiuchus' segments, against a Weapon Slayer type that completely counters the boss you play as:
- The Phasing Weapon Slayer is capable of phasing through Cat's giant wall of death attack as well as the rest of its attacks, and Cat has no abilities that can hit it when it phases. This makes Cat unable to
- The Stealthed Weapon Slayer's stealth makes all of Ophiuchus' homing attacks unable to home in on it, and the boss' deadly homing lasers cannot even get a lock-on thanks to being unable to target it.
