No wonder it's on Virtual Console. by jordith on May 23, 2009
Rating: 8/10
That's right, I bought this mutha for my Wii. There's something to be said about the white-knuckled, constantly-dodging-for-your-life-while-blasting-the-ever-loving-crap-out-of-everything-in-front-of-you intensity of a good old fashioned shooter.
Now, I may be opening up a can of worms, but I'm not a real big believer in the whole 'games are art' philosophy. I'm not saying that this game isn't beautiful, but what I AM saying is I found the complete and total lack of story to be refreshing. You press start, select one of your wacky biological identities to blast away in, and get started shooting anything that moves. No backstory, just shooting. Timeless.
What separates this game from most other shooters of its ilk is that for one, you can SEE yourself, and not just a tiny little cluster of pixels, and for another, the enemies you face are HUGE on the screen.
This to me was strangely refreshing when comparing this game to other frantic shmups out there. You're not just a tiny pixel, and the screen isn't filled with what looks like a swarm of angry, glowstick-shooting mosquitoes you're trying to thin down with your own barrage of glowstick shots. You actually engage your enemies in VERY tight spaces, but they don't take an incredible amount of hits so you just need the reflexes to blast them before they get a shot off.
Amping up the adrenaline factor is the fact that every once in a while a truly huge monster runs across your screen threatening to just simply ram your ass unless you can get off a well-placed power shot or have a powered up little amoeba friend to help you do the work.
Sure, the power ups aren't exactly balanced. There's not a whole lot of reason NOT to get the cheap little homing laser shot or the homing bombs or the big-ass rapid shot, but none of them are particularly weak, either. It's just a whole lot easier to survive with some of them than it is others, and of course, the game gives you plenty of opportunity to stock up on the kind of booster shot you need to survive a confrontation with some of the games' nasty stage bosses.
This game reminds me a lot of R-Type, only a LOT faster and a lot more unforgiving. This game doesn't make you sweat by just spraying slow-moving projectiles everywhere. You're quite often dodging the boss's body itself, which makes the battle feel a lot more personal and a lot less like you're fighting some fiendish spiralgraph spitter.
The graphics are very nice to look at. Even if some of the enemies only last for a few moments on the screen, none of them look just tossed together with no love. It's genesis, so you're not expecting Metal Slug animation, but the graphics get the job done. Again, the inclusion of some real monsters on the screen that nearly take away a quarter of the playing field for maneuvering is a nice change of pace rather than just spouting an endless pattern of death you have to figure out in order to survive.
The sound certainly isn't anything to write home about. The music is lively, and thankfully makes the bland sound effects less noticible.
There IS an element of randomization that makes this game replayable, as well. There are some areas where you can expect a certain weapon powerup, but not always, and enemy spawn locations are not absolute, especially in the later stages.
Where this game really shines is in the sheer joy of playing an old-fashioned, hard-as-hell but not UNFAIR shooter. You don't have any bombs to nuke the screen, so every enemy kill has to be a button press. You can kick total ass or find yourself using one of only a handful of continues on the first stage. It's definitely a game you want to play on a 'good day' because otherwise you will get SPANKED, especially for those of us who are trying to feel all battle-hardened old-school and huffing about how the young kids have games that are candied down with regenerating health and save states when WE didn't always have the luxury of being able to take any hits.
Put simply, this game reminds those of us who remember the 16-bit era what it was like to spend a whole weekend getting our asses kicked by a difficult game and loving every minute of it, for the thrill of final victory came only to the twitchy.
