General Guide and Tips! [Last Update: 14/10/2023]

[Travel]

Introduction

Thunder Ray is a very unique game, i got it recently and played it until i gotten all the achieviements. After that, i started to mess around with the game, and discovered some interesting things that may aid you on your fights! Most of them work on all oponnents, but match-up specific stuff will have to go on a future post. This is mostly a "general" guide on how to control Ray as best as possible and some fight tips to help you along the way. There is a BUNCH of stuff the tutorial dosen't tell you, and this guide is to fill that huge information gap. First of all i would like to make some things clear about this game and guide.
1) Even though it is a punch-out inspired game, it's quite different when speaking mechanically, specially on your offense. If you come as a hardcore fan of the punch-out series i must remind you that this is a different game , trying to play it as a punch out 1:1 will only get you kissing the mat repeatly. Some reviews of the game think of this as a negative, others not, either way, it dosent matter. Just try to play this game with a clear mind, only when i forced myself to "unlearn" many of the habits and tactics i had about PO did this game became a lot less frustrating to tackle.
2) Expect to encounter some bugs and weird interactions, this game just came out (as of writting of this guide) and it sadly shows. I hope the dev team will keep a eye out for these bugs and try to improve the game every chance they get. I know, i know, it feels like bullsh*t when the game gets all wacky and suddenly you lost because of something out of your control, just dont give up! Im telling you this as a warning, expect these bugs, because the game is not on its most polished state.
3) I am human, and its possible some information on this guide may be incorrect, not entirely accurate or may be missing some information on my end. Also, even though i know english as a second language since i was a kid writting is still my weakest point, so please, feel free to correct me if i make too many gramatical errors. Either way, feel free to let me know of any of these errors and ill try to keep this guide updated so no one gets misled or confuse.

Ray, our GOAT

Ray has 4 basic attacks, 4 charge attacks, 3 different Supers, 3 dodge directions and a Block. Lets dissect each element of the champion part by part so you can learn the most important thing about this game: your character!

Basic Punches

Ray basic punches all do the same amount of damage and seem to have the exact same speed and recovery time. You can also chain them together easly by rapidly pressing a new basic attack just after executing another, this allows ray to basicly "cancel" one punch into another, ergo, allows you to mash out punches faster. Also, you can always buffer a punch by holding down the button while ray does a attack (or another action!), and he will do the punch as soon as posible! While mashing out your attacks sounds fun its important to know that once Ray start a series of chained punches, he will not stop until the last punch he throws complete its full recovery animation. So if you mash out like a maniac, and suddenly the oponent is about to throw a counter, get ready to eat it, cause Ray wont respond until he has completed his last punch or until he gets punch in the face. This can be frustrating, but you cannot simply cancel out of any action into another. Only basic punches to other basic punches.
"Then why there is 4 different kinds of basic punches if they all act the same?" The game dosen't tell you why direcly, but it's quite simple, Counters! Some oponents have attacks than can be interupted if you choose the right basic punch to counter with, if you choose poorly, or your timing is off, you're just going to eat the opponent's attack. Altought counters are possible to do in this game, i don't recommend going for them, the reward you get from them is not worth it, no extra damage, no extra meter, no stun. nothing. Its just a basic attack, and it's a very case to case scenario which attacks you can counter and which ones you can't. I still dont have the full list of possible counters to do, so until me or someone else discovers a way to get a huge reward thanks to counters then i STRONGLY recommend you to not go for them as a beginner. It's literarly all the risk for the least reward.

Charged Punches

Charge attacks is the other set of 4 attacks Ray has, the charge button holded determines which direction the charge attack will hit (left or right) and the attack button used determines the height of which the charge attack will hit (Jab will hit high and body shot will hit low). Unlike basic attacks, Charge attacks are not exactly the same with each other, low charge shots are noticible slower than high chargers, but for some reason, they still cause the same amount of damage, so stick to high charges. Speaking of damage, Charge attacks have 4 different levels of charge.
-Lv0 is not charging the attack at all, this is posible by presing the charge and attack button at the same time. This charge attack does the exact same damage as a basic punch, so you're just wasting time on a slower normal punch.
-Lv1 is charging by a minimal amount, and by that i mean hitting the button as soon as Ray does his charging "pose", this only does a little bit more damage than a normal punch
-Lv2 is obtained by charging for a short moment after ray does his pose, as expected, this does more damange than a Lv1 charge.
-Lv3 is the biggie, you gotta hold the charge button down until the lighting effect on Rays glove vanishes completly, the jump in damage from lv2 to lv3 is pretty noticible.
Charge punches can also be fainted, if you let go of your charge button before presing a attack Ray will simply stop charging. You can also cancel his charging into a dodge or block if you want to, so if you're in the middle of a charge and you need to react to a opponent's attack you can cancel right out of it. Altough, in my honest opinion, charge punches are not that useful overall, the time you spend charging a punch could've been used on attacking the opponent with a series of normal punches, which in the end does more damage that a Lv3 charge. They still have a use, a niche use i'll explain later, so keep them in mind.

Super Moves

Now this is where damage values go crazy. To use his supers Ray first need to fill up his super meter, the meter goes up to 3 levels, each level coresponding to a different super. To fill up the meter you gotta land punches, and sadly, every punch fills the exact same amount of meter, yeah, even the lv3 charge attack will fill the same amount of meter as a normal punch. Another thing to note is that you cannot choose which super Ray will use the moment you press both charge buttons, he will simply cash out the highest level super available at the moment of executing it. The caviat on this restriction is that any meter left is kept after the Super move is done, that is, if you do a Lv2 Super, and your meter was nerly reaching for lv3, then after the Lv2 is done you'll have meter enough to almost fill up a Lv1! It is important to note that initially Ray only has acess to his Lv1 Super, Lv2 is obtained after beating Back-Breaker and the Lv3 is obtained after beating Glam Witch .
It's better to always land the highest possible super available to you, the jump in damage between Supers is HUGE, so its best to just wait up and fill your meter until you can unleash the most powerful one you have. If the opponent has Low HP, and it is NOT their final health bar, then down them with normal punches, wait for them to get up and regain HP, and then unleash the Super as soon you get a free shot.
I know its sounds frustrating having to reserve your meter until you have all of it filled up, but the damage is totally worth it, and sometimes you get to skip almost a whole "boss phase" thanks to it. If youre sure on how much damage each super level does to a specific opponent then feel free to unleash a low level super if it gets them kissing the mat, otherwise, stick to charging that meter up to its max level!

Dodges, Block and Neutral Block

As mentioned before Ray can dodge left, dodge right, duck or block. Unfortunatly there is a lot of information regarding defense that is skipped in the tutorial fight against Rico, or sometimes is just plain out misleading. The only way to know which defensive move you should use agaist a opponent attack is by being patient, paying close atention to the oponnent animation and guessing which one is correct. Diferent to how it is in Punch-Out, there is a LOT of attacks in Thunder Ray that have only one way to evade or defend against , so if at first your defensive choice is wrong quickly try a new one the next time the opponent tries the same attack. Every defensive option is worth trying out, even if it looks unlikly it will work. A good tip i can give is that if the attack animation covers a lot of space, or if it dosent feel possible to dodge, then it's most likely that you can block it, some examples are: Glam Witch Confusing blast, Lord Worw Poison Bite and Mr.Pega Jumping Stomp.
One very important feature the game dosent tell you about is that YOU CAN HOLD YOUR DEFENSIVE OPTION FOR A LONG TIME . And when i mean long time i mean veeeerry long, you can dodge one way and stay in that pose for over a second and half easly. The reason this is important is because many opponents have attacks that are done back to back very quickly (Double Attacks for example) or they last very long, to the point that if you try to dodge only by taping one direction, and then try dodge again as soon as possible, you will stil get hit. Get use to holding that dodge, duck or block direction down, because they game will not have mercy on you if you only try to *tap* dodge the entire time. A few examples of attacks that need you to hold down the dodges are: Millenium Cobra Phase 3 Tiple Kick (You have to hold left dodge until the first 2 Kicks are done, and then quickly duck the third one), Lord Worw double high slash , and Mr.Pega Suprise laser shock.
The last thing i want you to know about defense is the infamous "neutral block". This defensive option is right out skipped over in the tutorial section of the game. Some attack animations in the game appear to hit Ray lower than usual, some of then you can dodge out of the way, but also, if you stand still and do NOTHING , ray will block the attack! The crazy part is that if you try to block the same attack by holding up Ray will get hit instead! At first i believed this was a bug, but after some time testing it out, it was apparent that it was intencional. Worse yet, there is some attacks in the game that needs to be blocked on Neutral . thats pretty cheap, right? Examples of attacks you can Neutral block are: Back-Breaker low blows, Millenium Cobra normal kicks, Back-Breaker Phase 3 All-out hammer punches and Lord Worw low slash.

Now, knowing everything Ray is capable off, let's talk about some general tips and mechanics that work in most fights in the game.

Fighting Guide

4 Hit Allowance

First off, Beating down opponents. As you already know the best moment to throw punches is when your opponent is on their idle animation, just waiting out for you until they decide to attack. There is a random chance your attack gets blocked, and a random chance your attack lands; with what i tested, there is NO way of getting garanthed hits or some kind of attack pattern to land punches while the opponent is on their idle stance. Dosen't mater which height or direction you throw a punch, or if is charged or not, if the AI dosent want to get hit, it wont. Not all is lost thought! there is one minor detail about attacking that is useful to know. The AI will normally take up to 4 hits on their Idle stance, after that, they will always block your attacks. So a good stratetgy is to throw out punches until you land a total of 4 punches, and then, wait out for the opponents attack, dodge, and throw punches again until they get hit a total of 4 times. Rinse and repeat. There are 3 reason knowing this "Hit allowance" is helpful. First of all, you can avoid wasting your Super Moves after the 4 hits; Second is that you can reserve the last hit allowed on a charged punch for extra damage (altough its a bit risky because there is still the chance of the opponent blocking it); and third is to avoid provoking a counter.

Enemy Counter

if the opponent blocks too many of your punches in a row they will get provoked and do a counter attack. You will see a little pop up message that says "Counter!" on the right side each time it happens. So for more punches they block, there is more of a likelyhood of them attacking you earlier than expected. Futhermore, the counter attacks are always some new pattern of attacks that you never saw before! Its best to let the opponent in peace after getting your 4 hits, because otherwise, you will just provoke them to hit you with something youre not use to.

Stun

Another obscure mechanic is the Stun system. If you get to land many blows on the opponents (like landing all 4 allowed hits many times in a row), and you dodge ALL their attacks and avoid taking damage, there will get a point that the opponent will sudendly enter a stunned state, you will most likely see a animation you never saw before where the opponent is completly quiet and tired out. In that moment, you can freely beat down your opponent until the stun state ends. This is a nice place to land your super moves, or land some nice Lv3 charged punches, so take advantage of it then it happens! Just make sure to not get hit, which is the harderst part, but the reward is worth it! As of writing of this guide, this is the ONLY way to get garanthed free hits on your opponent.

Getting up faster and regaining more HP

When you get Down for the count, or when you downed a opponent, that game tells you to mash the A button, when in reality, every face button works . So instead of mashing A, mash every punch button, this will help you a lot in getting up as quickly as possible, and also, as regaining as much HP you can before the opponents gets up, which, spoiler alert, the opponent always gets up, there is no 10 count on this game.

Sneak up a Super Move!

One last tip i can give is that the other good place place to throw out your super move is right after dodging a attack, if you do your supers as your opponent is still on their recovery animation of their attack, the chances of your super move landing rises incredibly! Just make sure that you release your super on their last attack of their current pattern!

Outro

Well, this is all i can think off for now! This guide will get regulary updated with every new information i discover or is mentioned down in the comments of this thread. Please, any information is welcome! And thanks for reading!

[kryeed]

i appreciate this greatly. neutral block was baffling me.

[a-livingsandwich]

Indei games always attract super helpful and wonderful nice people. I certainly wish you all the best bro, really appreciate it.

[xzoelvatress]

How can I restart a new game on Steamdeck. There is no option in the menu system to start a new game from an old game