Einhander appreciation day

[xxx1993]

Einhander. IMO the best shmup on the PS1. The final battle with Hyperion is really epic, one of my favorite final bosses in any shmup, that I intentionally prolong the boss. I drag it out and then finish it off before it fires the laser. It also has a death scene when you defeat it, when it crashes and explodes in Earth’s atmosphere.

[PerishedFraud ឵឵]

IMO the best shmup on the PS1.

Lol.

That hot take aside Einhander is fantastic. Praise.

[xxx1993]

It's in my top 10 shmups for sure.

[scrilla4rella]

God-tier yoko, that's for sure. It's the game that got me and my high school gamming buddy back into shooters. Was hooked on those ps1 square rpgs before that. At the time I hadn't taken a shooter seriously since Life Force or maybe Raiden 2 in the arcade. I had the soundtrack on constant rotation in my car for over a year. Some time after playing the shit out of Einhander and loving every minute of it I went online and read about this Radiant Silvergun game. It was pricey so me and my friend went in on it 50/50.

The art direction, world building, and music are all tops IMO. Too bad Square will never make a sequel.

[pablumatic]

Of all the polygonal shooters from that era I thought Einhander handled it the best. The art style worked perfectly with the limited poly count. A fun shooter as well. Glad to have it in my collection.

[To Far Away Times]

I want to like it. Ammo management shmups are not my thing though. Its got some real dull spots too.

I'd put R-Type Delta, Thunderforce V and G-Darius as the big three PS1 shmups.

And there's some others like DDP and X-Multiply I view more as ports than as PS1 games.

[copy-paster]

I want to like it. Ammo management shmups are not my thing though. Its got some real dull spots too.

It's my major gripe about the game actually. Limiting ammo for an already balls-hard game like this is just not a good direction IMO. At least you can select secret police car ship with unlimited ammo and the OP homing bullets, fun to use but bosses take longer to beat.

[PerishedFraud ឵឵]

Interesting to see people appreciating its music so much. IMO it was never that it was super good music, rather that it fit what was happenning in the game extremely well. Few shmups achieve such a thing but they're very memorable for it. Eliminate Down is one of them, for example. Definitely worthy of praise.

[Austin]

Einhander? It's pretty good, yeah.

[Rastan78]

I literally haven't played this game since I bought a new copy on release. I remember thinking it looked cool, but just not clicking. Maybe it was the finicky weapon swapping and ammo limiting. Maybe it was the heavy use of nighttime or twilight dark scenery and generic edgy industrial metallic looking mech designs throughout. And lots of edgy grating techno going on. Give me a colorful vista or a slimy organic guts and brains tunnel once in a while. Give me a soothing ambient sounding or melodic track to break up the techno beats (again I'm going by memory of my impressions, there were probably some examples of this variety but I can't remember them). Maybe it was that it felt like the ship design plus large weapon attachments were sort of awkward and took up a lot of space on the screen. Maybe it was that they constantly had to remind you of the fact that its a 2.5D game by pausing the action to tilt the camera. It was an odd combination of something very impressive and polished with a cinematic feel not usually seen in the genre, but somehow bland and uninspiring (to me) at the same time. That sword weapon was pretty cool though.

I do remember that R Type Delta came out later and had the opposite effect on me. I don't think the Einhander disc went back into my console once I had Delta. Felt like a more pure and refined shooter. Nice variety to the stages, soundtrack and enemy design. I got addicted to Delta while it felt like I was playing Einhander trying to like it.

Then you've got G Darius. A game that oozes personality and creativity and has IMO one of the best shmup soundtracks of all time. When you're making a game about flying robot fish, why not throw in a stage full of palm trees and dinosaurs? The atmosphere of this game was almost unmatched at the time. I know it's not everyone's favorite, but I'm extremely hyped for the upcoming G Darius HD.

[xxx1993]

Now what about the boss battles with Schwarzgeist and Hyperion? In my opinion those two are the best parts of the game.

[Rastan78]

Now what about the boss battles with Schwarzgeist and Hyperion? In my opinion those two are the best parts of the game.

Are they towards the end? I remember the last couple stages or so where you blast off and leave into space being my favorite part of the game.

I didn't have the chops to clear the game back then without using extra continues. I bet I would appreciate it more if I went back to it now. Shmups tend to get better with more time put in and knowledge of the game. But then there are so many of them and so little time!

[FRO]

Einhander is great. I love the look and feel of it, the weapon stealing mechanic, the soundtrack, the crazy robot bosses, etc. It's all really good. I just wish I was better at the game

[opt2not]

Einhander. IMO the best shmup on the PS1.

It's great, but if I had to choose between this and Gradius Gaiden, I'd take Gaiden.

[Elixir]

einhander

[BIL]

Best Mechagony STG out there. When I systematically dismember and behead enemy robots with my selection of cannons, machineguns and EDGED WEAPONZ, I can barely contain my cheeto dust.

You can do some Benny Hill speedkills to bosses if u git gud @ keeping 1337 weapons, but tbh that's a lot of great oldschool STGs and adjacent action games for you (of which this is one despite its pumpin choonz)

Points docked for lacking anything as memorable as King's Knight's KID THIEF TOBY, the boy who did not let being born with two left nuts hold him back.

Hooray for violence! Hooray for choonz! Hooray for Einhander!

[Tarma]

Great game, one of my favourite all time shmups... such a shame Square never produced any more games in the genre.

[xxx1993]

It's okay. I feel like Square just wanted to take a short break from RPGs.

[BIL]

It's okay. I feel like Square just wanted to take a short break from RPGs.

Worth noting Einhander was directed by Tatsuo Fuji, who'd previously worked on Gradius II and XEXEX at Konami. Good guy to have at the helm, I wonder how involved he was at the concept stage.

XEXEX
VERSION JAA
OUR DREAMS COME TRUE
© 1991 KONAMI



Last seen programming menus for Kingdom Hearts games, IIRC. Man's gotta eat. :/

Actually, XEXEX's ship isn't entirely dissimilar from Einhander's. Similarly insectoid displacement of the cockpit from the body. I think Jonny2x4 mentioned there being multiple ex-Konami staff onboard, would have to go look 'em up though.

[Rastan78]

There were definitely multiple ex Konami arcade staff involved in Einhander. Another programmer had worked on Gradius II and Simpsons. You really get that Simpsons vibe from Einhander. The composer did sound on games like Sunset Riders and GI Joe. Not sure but maybe just sound effects and/or sound programming rather than OST.

That being said even if the game were programmed by complete shmup noobs within Square's former RPG devs that wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing. The original Gradius was programmed by a team who hadn't really done a game before. The director didn't know anything about games when he got hired by Konami. In the 80s game companies were hiring people out of college and tasking them with figuring out how to make a good game. From what I hear Nintendo still prefers this approach to some extent bc they don't want to hire people with preconceived notions of exactly what a game should be.

Hiroshi Iuchi had never done a shmup before doing RS. He also did some work on Simpsons BTW. Maybe Simpsons is secretly the GOAT? So good ideas can come from people and teams that aren't hardcore into shmups like companies such as Psikyo, Raizing, Cave etc. As great as those companies were it can seem they were constantly iterating on a single formula rather than making something completely fresh.

A company like Psikyo could never have made Ikaruga. These games that have an outside perspective on the genre can have more crossover appeal to new players. More people probably got into (or back into) shmups because of games like Ikaruga or Einhander than highly refined, but by the numbers shmups like Gunbird 2.

But wait Ikaruga isn't a shmup. It's a puzzle game. But wait aren't all shmups really puzzle games?

[PerishedFraud ឵឵]

But wait aren't all shmups really puzzle games?

Only heavy memorizers. Stuff like R-Type Final.

[xxx1993]

Xexex is a classic. I feel like that game would have worked perfectly on the Sega Saturn or PlayStation.

[BIL]

Indeed - here's hoping this gorgeous image isn't just for show, and more of those names will get ACA releases.

[xxx1993]

I've been hoping for a console port of Solar Assault Revised also.

[Matsunaga]

I hadn’t played it for a long time. Just fired it up in an emulator, amazing how good those psx polygons look upscaled to 4K.. Cool game, I’ll probably continue playing for a while.

[Bydobasher]

I haven't played in awhile either, but this is one of my favourites. Actually, Einhander, R-Type Delta and G-Darius are all in my top 5 or 7 shmups. And of those three, I think Einhander is the best one.

I really enjoy the weapons management actually. Especially when using the ship with 3 guns, you get less ammo and have to manage carefully. It's kind of fiddly, but I like it. The graphics are music are so effective, and they have aged well. I will play a game of this soon!

[papa_november]

Einhander is my pick for best shmup of all time.