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Shmup Report 3
OK, another batch of shoot'em ups was beaten! I wonder why I got to the number 11 as a checkpoint for a summary... Whatever.
I should point out that from all these games only Axelay had been beaten before. The reason it's here is because this time I actually looped it without continuing. And because it's also a damn fine game.
For some odd reason, I never really got into the R-Type series during the classic 8/16-bit gaming era. I always preferred SEGA, and the only R-Type available for a SEGA home machine was the port for the Master System, which by some strange reason was impossible to come accross. This gap was recently corrected because I was able to loop the Master System version. Actually, it gets fun after you get over the slow initial speed of the ship and the awful flickering that abounds in the game. Which is not easy by any means, you have to dedicate yourself to each and every one of the 8 stages to see the end.
I took Abadox - The Deadly Inner War for the NES off the shelf by impulse. It seemed cool. It's a sort of game version of the movie Innerspace, where you fly a spacesuit inside an organic body. Abadox is reminiscent of Salamander, even with the horizontal/vertical scrolling mix, but with a difference: the vertical parts scroll downwards. There you have a strange little title!
Mega SWIV for the Mega Drive was released only in Europe, in UK to be exact. It's a pretty standard vertical shooter that tries to be different by offering the possibility of playing with a helicopter and a jeep. That's where difficulty lies: you can't collide with terrestrial enemies with the helicopter but, on the other hand, you can't collide with aerial enemies while using the jeep, whose movement is sometimes blocked by ground walls and obstacles. The graphics are smooth and the music is OK, but I expected more of a challenge in the last stages.
While being just a slight improvement over the previous Arrow Flash, Whip Rush has a few aspects that show some potential. I think it could've been a great game, had Renovation dedicated themselves a little bit more on the graphics department. The game has very claustrophobic parts, especially during boss fights. Out of 8 different speeds, there are times when you do have to use speed 1-2 in order to succeed!
Another European exclusive, Xenon 2 - Megablast is a port of the insanely famous Amiga vertical shooter. Being totally honest, let me just say that the Mega Drive version is one of the worst 16-bit games I have ever played in my entire life. The terribly slow frame rate is maybe superceded only by the annoying music, which remains the same throughout all 4 stages! Yes, I say 4 because there are 4 stages in the NORMAL setting. The game loops after that and the *beep* ending. I didn't have the patience to play it in HARD mode to see if the original stage 5 is in there. Maybe when I lose a bet, who knows... If you want to check some more of me bashing this turd, go to Sega-16's Reader Roundtable for the month of July and read my humble contribution to this awesome website.
From the rarity section of my collection comes Panorama Cotton, one of the highest praised games for the Mega Drive. The Cotton series is very famous, and this is the only instance where you have that cute witch starring in a rail shooter. Indeed the game is beautifully designed and generous in colors. Albeit intense and packed with action, I think it's rather easy, for I completed it with only one credit on the second day I decided to play.
Taking advantage of the theme, right afterwards I gave a shot at Cotton 100% for the Super Famicom. Following the annoying childish trend adopted by Nintendo for the SNES, it's a beautiful but very easy game – a lot easier than Panorama Cotton. The real challenge lies in the last stages only. Well, at least the road is paved for the other Cotton games I have yet to beat!
Few games of the 16-bit era combined gameplay, theme and music in an awesome way like Axelay for the SNES does. I had just one problem with it when I started playing, which is the way your ship defaults to the center of the screen if you let go of the directional pad in vertical stages. After I got past that, it was impossible not to be overwhelmed by the game. Take that epic and mind-blowing last stage, for example. I am a SEGA fan, but I give my compliments to Konami and Nintendo for this one.
I can understand the impact that Panzer Dragoon for the Sega Saturn had over gamers when it was first released, even though it hasn't aged well visually. This is a game that seems to be easy, but actually is hard as hell, demanding continuous play for the purposes of mastering all stages and boss fights. It's remarkably fun after you get deep into the gameplay, and truly deserves all the praise it had initially.
As far as budget releases go, (Shooter) Space Shot is an OK title for the PS1. There are only five stages, that are far from the desired difficulty for a Thunder Force V or Einhänder clone. The developer should've targeted its efforts on improving the game or making it longer, instead of inserting all those unnecessary cut scenes. Who would want to know that much of detail from the story in a shmup? And I didn't even mention how awkward the scoring bonus system is or how annoying the characters sound...
The bullet hell I adopted for the period was Mars Matrix for the Dreamcast. I've come to the word "adopted" because that's what I feel you have to do with these newer shooters: adopt them. If you're no shmup expert player – like me – you'll have to take the bullet hell under your wing and try to master it, day after day, round after round, game over after game over, for some weeks or months... Because that's the only way to get even close to the end with just one credit. Those who played Mars Matrix know how difficult and impossible it can be. As of today, my best performance with 1 credit on the default setting is reaching the last stage (6)...
To finish this post, to the right is another video with some bits of all the games mentioned above. Let's celebrate the best gaming genre ever, folks!
Text posted by Kollision on August 5th, 2008