Once
you know their background and story, you will surely appreciate
them as all-round characters, probably developing a "passion"
for one of them (well, i can't avoid to adore Iceman, player 1 type-C,since
he's a self-parody of Joker Jun).
The
only gripe is that in some points (mainly fifth and final stage)
quality is a bit lower: the second half of the stage features an
"industrial" background (i suppose you have all an industrial
complex below you) but design is a tad generic, and it's not very
clear what really is scrolling on screen. The final boss is also
a bit generic, a giant ammass of turrets shooting at you, while
you have to destroy its inner core...almost anti-climatic, after
the long battle with Jupiter.The other graphical flaw is a consequence
of gameplay: the game is very colourful and nice, and so are all
of your attacks.The problem is,once you're fully powered up at the
maximum level, it may be difficult to understand what's going on
screen, especially if you're used to more sedated games.Worst ones
are type-A planes (pilots are: Jeeno and Schneider):they have the
typical wide shot (with frontal missile) that can be very confusing,at
full power,since they can cover all screen.Aside that, the game
is really well designed and has excellent graphics.
"Special
edition"
No real differences, only background colours change a bit, everything
else is indentical,the Saturn port is also arcade-perfect.
SUMMARY
OF SUBSECTION
Graphics
are excellent and design is characterized by the cure on details,
only gripes are that last stage is a bit blander than the others
and the firepower produced by your ships may be a bit confusing
at first.
BGM:
8++
Easily
the weakest part of the game.The original BGM was a bit cheesy,
and was easily inferior to other BGMs: it is not a case that neither
Tatsuya Uemura nor Masahiro Yuge (Flying Shark and Tatsujin respectively)
composed it.It's still pretty good, mind you: it suits fine the
anime-ish style of the game, but it just sounds like "cheesy
videogame music",if compared to other games of the same year.Still,
it has a very happy and solar mood in it, which contributes in creating
an atmosphere of joyness (especially when you delivery mass destruction
with your insane firepower!). Stage 1's song, "Heart beat",is
a nice slow tune with the strongest "old skool" flavour,
and quickly gives space to first boss theme, "Dark Echo",
your usual big baddie theme."Skim on the surface of the sea",stage's
2 tune, is faster and more cheerful, and gives a better idea of
the game's joyous style: the boss theme "King Bird" follows
the pseudo-rock style to give an idea of the heated battle you're
going to fight.Stage 3's song is "Bomber Dance", hectic
rythm to match the increase in action and number of bullets on screen:
the boss theme " Psycho Paranoia" is a short jingle that
follows other bosses themes in style. The best song is stage 4's
one, "Complimentary ticket": it's basically a perfect
example of '80s VGMs (VGM:VideoGameMusic), with its fast rythm and
cute melody, and its vaguely pop style: it like stage 2's song,
it really gives the idea of a solar atmosphere and fast gameplay,
without being too elaborate.The boss theme for Jupiter, "Premonition",
is more atmospheric and darker in mood, like all boss themes.Last
stage has "Geo Frontier", a slow theme with a slightly
nostalgic feeling, whereas the final battle has "final attack"
(original title, isn't it? -__-;), a fast rock-like tune with a
slightly epic tinge. Another excellent theme is "Blue Illumination",
a slow-paced song that plays during the ending credits and really
gives a sense of melancholy (after all, they're the ending credits
of the last Toaplan shmup...damn,a sec, i need to wipe off the tears!).Now,
the special version has the same BGM,but the Saturn port...
"Saturn
port"
...Features
a rearranged soundtrack.The songs are more elaborated, you have
synthetic guitars and drums instead of 16-bit samples, but the quality
isn't top-notch: it sounds like they recorded it with a slight "echo/cave"
(no puns please!) effect, so it often sounds a bit muffled.Still,
the style is more modern and closer to "standard" music.One
final note:i have no chance of checking the original game, but the
few voice acting in the game (you only hear it when selecting a
pilot or when you level up) also sounds a bit muffled, notice really
to be worried about at al..
SUMMARY
OF SUBSECTION
The
Arcade versions have a decent, "old skool" BGM with a
vaguely pop/rock style,which suits fine the game without being too
memorable.The Saturn port has a rearranged version which is musically
better and closer to "normal" music, but it sounds a bit
muffled.
GAMEPLAY:
10
If
you want an in-depth analysis, please read my ST.
A brief version of it is this: you basically choose one out of three
ships:Type-A( Jeeno on 1p side, Schneider on 2p side), Type-B (Beltiana
on 1p side, Alteeno on 2p side) and Type-C (Iceman on 1p side,Olisis
on 2p side).Type-A has wide shot and forward missiles, very similar
to Raiden (only "tapping attack" type); Type-B has a frontal
laser with another homing-like fluxus of energy (only "automatic
attack" type);Type-C has a forward laser stream if you use
the "automatic attack",or a wide attack with a few homing-like
bullets if you use the "tapping attack".You have an experience
system, and every enemy you destroy will give you exp points: every
288 points, you will level up.Once you reach the third level, any
successive levels will give you an extra bomb.By levelling up,you
also have access to more powerful weapons:At any case,if you get
5 power-ups in a level,you will max out your current power.You also
have a smart bomb,which consists in a circle of energy,expanding
and destroying or damaging enemies and cancelling bullets:you max
out at 7 bombs.The hitbox is smaller than the sprite, about the
main fuselage of ships: you will have to be careful during all 5
stages because you will have to dodge a lot of fast bullets (not
fast as raiden DX, but all bullets are pretty quick).In some key
points, you can discover the vibrating pigs, who will give you points
by hovering over them:you can also score the V (for "victory","batsu"
in japanese) bonuses which will be worth 3k for smaller ones and
5k for bigger ones at the end of the last stage (starting from the
last time you died during the stage). The game has just one round,
and will give you an extra life at 1M. Last but not least,you can
milk the fourth boss for points (as described in the ST).
"Special
Edition".
The
special edition has many innovations,compared to the normal edition.It
features a microscopic (your cockpit,mainly) hitbox, an shield protecting
you form one hit (it is renewed every time you level up,and of course
you get an extra bomb), bombs are much powerful, since consist in
a huge explosion covering the screen (while your pilot raises his/her
thumb up!) and affecting everything, there are pink pigs that give
you points and lavander pigs in key spots that give you experience
points, you can score more points on stage 5 by using the moving
platform trick and during the round tanks section and,last but not
least, the game features four rounds (you will restart from the
second stage the second time,third stage the third time,fourth stage
the fourth time).You will get suicide bullets on all three loops
(unless you point blank an enemy during its explosion), and the
game will switch to normal (yes, you actually start from easy on
first round) on second round,then hard and very hard.
"Saturn
port".
The
Saturn port runs at full speed.Yes, it means that both versions,due
to hardware limitations, slow down during third and fourth rounds
because of the large number of suicide bullets on screen!This means,
basically, that the Saturn ports are more difficult (not too much,
however).
LONGEVITY:
10
I'll
now concentrate all versions in one comment, since the elements
that prompted me to give the maximum vote are present in all of
them. Normal edition is funny and relatively short:gameplay is pretty
fast and you can fire it up at any moment, trying to play for score
whenever you want to (feeling confident with tricks and all).Special
version offers more opportunities of survival and its first round
is a tad easier, but completing all four rounds is a very demanding
challenge (in time too:you will need about 70 minutes or so).All
scoring tricks,regardless of versions,surely require some consistent
skills, especially on last two rounds for special:still,it doesn't
require too much training to learn them,and they can be completely
ignored if you don't want to get extra points.The strength of this
game is its absolute balanced gameplay: easy to pick up at any moment,difficult
to master, but very rewarding.Also, its joyous atmosphere is an
excellent motivation to play it every once in a while, since it
features one of Joker Jun's best works so far.You can also choose
between three very well balanced ships, something that doesn't happen
too often (as i usually end up just using one ship in shmups like
this), and you will surely like covering the screen with a rain
of bullets :)
The
game represented a turning point in shmups:it's "manic"
(i.e. the "bullet maze" shmups like Cave games) but gives
you enough tools to survive with relative easyness, and is immediate
and charming enough for the casual play.The only gripe is that it's
not cheap, and its emulated version sucks (i think only final burn
hasn't any graphical glitches,mame still has them up to version
0.86:both emus haven't any sound):but frankly, you should really
get a Saturn for this game (and a few other exclusive titles, at
any case i'm against console wars,if you wonder)... or the original
PCBs :)
I
honestly hope you will have as much fun as i still have, with this
title: it's really a shmup for everyone,and Toaplan's finest moment.
R
Toaplan
- 1993 - Arcade / Saturn
