Virtual-On Oratorio Tangram/Stages

Stage mechanics

Terrain

Walls

Walls inside stages play a huge part in the gameplay of the Virtual-On series. Most attacks will be stopped in their tracks when connecting with a wall and be rendered ineffective.

As such some core skills are using the walls for defense, how to attack through/around them and how to attack enemies using them as a shield.

They can also be used as platforms to move in abnormal elevations & mix up your landing timings. Landing behind walls or placing dash attack recovery behind walls is a common strategy.

VRs reliant on walls for defense or with weak ability to attack through walls are more heavily affected by stage selection. Some VRs have attacks which completely ignore walls and pierce through them.
The presence of abnormally high walls reduces the amount of attacks that can be used to shoot around them.

Wall collisions

• Dashing into a wall immediately stops the current dash animation and any attack.
• Falling on the corner of a wall causes a heavy falling animation with uncancellable recovery.

Stage border

• Moving against the border of a map will not slow a VR down, the momentum is transferred to match the direction of the wall, ‘sliding’ against it.
• Of course you have more limited movement directions against a border, being easier to hit.
• Dash attacking into a corner should be especially avoided since you stop at a single point.

Uneven terrain

Some stages do not have flat terrain. Things like lasers will not cover the whole ground plane. Direct attacks may hit a hill during travel.

Stage Traits

No walls: Unholy Cathedral
Minor walls: Public Port
High/Large walls: Space Dock, Autobahn, Water Front
Uneven terrain (Major): Abandoned Quarry, Sanctuary
Uneven terrain (Minor): Autobahn, Unholy Cathedral

Stage selection

In the arcade version and online modes stage is randomly selected with no control from the players. As such most players dont think much about the stages and learn to play in all of them.

Stage specific mechanics

Undersea Plant

For some reason the stage Undersea Plant changes projectile weapon behavior for all VRs. Usually one weapon type (usually LW?) deals slightly more damage than normal. Generally Beam-type attacks deal less damage than normal while explosive or V-Armor piercing type is increased.
The stage does take place in water but this is a confusing gameplay change.

Bal-Bados (Bal-series) becomes underwater type Bal-Baros in Undersea Plant. This model has a faster ground dash, slower air dash and a longer hitbox along with a variety of changes in moveset.

Sanctuary

The water puddle inside the stage heavily slows down any grounded movement. Highly recommended to not perform any dash attacks inside of it. Troublesome for ground based VR.

• The unique building in the middle can have strange collision properties.

Storage Depot & Unholy Cathedral

• Storage Depot has two conveyor belts which move grounded VRs and a medium sized container that can be used as cover. Note that the containers will stop in their tracks if something is about to block their path.
• Unholy Cathedral has small pieces of cover periodically rise from the ground.

Stage gravity

Another strange stage mechanic: Stages have unique gravity values. The maximum height of jumps is altered by stage. Undersea Plant has the lowest gravity.
This is minor and generally doesn’t need to be taken into account.

Stage	Jump height (Cypher)	Relative height
Abandoned Quarry	84.6	100.00%
Floating Carrier	79.8	94.35%
Blank Frank	79.8	94.35%
Unholy Cathedral	79.8	94.35%
Public Port	79.8	94.35%
Storage Depot	79.8	94.35%
Sanctuary	79.8	94.35%
Airport	79.8	94.35%
Autobahn	79.8	94.35%
Water Front	79.8	94.35%
Vertebrate Shaft	79.8	94.35%
Space Dock	71.9	85.05%
Ascent Corridor	63.8	75.44%
Undersea Plant	59.9	70.79%

Stage gravity table gathered by sixfortyfive.