FullBlast (XB1 - Switch - PS4 - PS Vita - PC)

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Sturmvogel Prime
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FullBlast (XB1 - Switch - PS4 - PS Vita - PC)

Post by Sturmvogel Prime »

Back with some more shooting action, this time is FullBlast.

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Urban warfare...cheap phone app styled.

This game gives you the option of picking 1 or 2 players, once you make your choice, you're given the option of selecting your starting stage. There's a total of 12 stages in the whole game.

The basis of this game is to make tribute to the classic arcade shooters, using simple enemy formations. At first looks lame, but any old schooler will realize that sometimes simple formations can pull a good challenge. An example of this was Kuhga: Operation Code Vapor Trail, so we know what we can possibly expect. Fortunately, your ship has a good arsenal of weapons. Those are the weapon changers that switch from full frontal to a three way shot, so we have a Raiden styled weapon variety which address wide and frontal firing, but lacking of a homing weapon, we have other good items that give us a hand in our mission, even if they're only temporary. One of them is the Fast Fire, which increases the fire rate of our shots for a considerable period of time, there's the Shield that provides a spherical force field that protects your ship for a few seconds, and finally, the score multiplier that duplicates your score for a while.
You have a "Nuclear Bomb" which is actually a 5 ship formation doing a carpet bombing just like the Support Bomber from Aero Fighters and the B-52 Carpet Bombing from Strikers 1945 III.
Also, there's "punish items" in the game which can be obtained by picking a red mine. One of the punishments that i've picked was the Slow Fire, which reduces the fire rate of your ship.

If you pick the game in Hard you'll face a great disappointment, because the game's difficulty looks the opposite. Enemies that throw you baby-level three bullet shots that hardly could be called "curtain". This game hardly puts a challenge as you can navigate through 80% of the game without getting killed. Yes, you'll die once or twice in the only instance of challenge available in this game, and that's during two boss battles: in Stage 06 where the bosses attack you using intense bullet curtains and in Stage 12 where the final boss uses a series of tentacle attacks that appear at random giving little time to evade, resulting in taking hits and losing one or two ships.

Speaking of bosses, the game lacks strategy in a specific boss battle and that's the scorpion that relies on the "hit the real boss" trick of splitting into three, so you expect the real boss is in random positions everytime it uses the trick. But guess what?, the real one was always on the right (at least in my gameplay), and you'll face that boss again later in the game and the "real" boss is in the same position. Zero strategy and fully predictable in my opinion. Looks like in some gameplays, the true enemy really changes places, but it wasn't my case.

¿Do you know what's the most pathetic part about the game? It took me zero tries and zero deaths on getting all the achievements, IT ONLY NEEDS TO PLAY THE FIRST FOUR STAGES TO DO SO. Heck, even AlienCruise and Triggerheart Exelica were more demanding and challenging than this game.
As for the whole game completion it took me zero tries and a few lives lost because of the curtain hell of the Stage 06 bosses and the random tentacle attacks from the final boss, but the rest is extremely easy, even on Hard. Wish i was kidding, but its true.



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Electrifying beach battles! ¿Didn't i saw that beach in my previous 3 missions?
If you're looking for hot, beach menacing action, go somewhere else.


Graphically, the enemy has a specific thematic: Insects. Your enemies will be based on dragonflies, spiders, butterflies and mosquitoes. It also throws sea creatures like mantas, and horseshoe crabs. Unfortunately, the designs are somewhat simplistic and some of them blend cute-em-up elements (the butterflies to be exact). While the scenery like cities and forests are quite rendered and detailed, it goes all down to the waste bin due to its repetitivity. For instance, the first four levels is the same city level, only with minor changes on each stage. It's like "Didn't i saw that beach before?" feeling like 5 or so times, same for the forest stages, you'll see the same "T" river and the same military base repeated.



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Whoever sent them it surely has to dispose of its inventory 'cos I've faced a giant dragonfly before.

The boss battles are also a repetitive and ridiculous thing, 'cos you'll be facing oversized versions of the enemies you've shot down in your mission: Big Scorpion, Big Manta, Big Dragonfly, etc. The only difference between them are the color, attack pattern and the number of bosses unscreen; you've fought that big Dragonfly?, now fight two at the same time. Are both the game and the console trying to piss me off?
The game also pulls what i call out-of-place humor as there's onomatopeia in many instances: explosions are followed by "BOOM", items are picked with a "POOF", enemy lasers are fired with "WOOOSH" and when you die you leave a skull. ¿What they think this game is, the Adam West's Batman TV show from the 60's?

The music is perhaps the only decent thing about the game, as it tries to pull the style of Akira Yamaoka's metal pace. However, is not as heavy and intense as Contra Shattered Soldier, but it still has a metal feel to it, specially from the styles of Metallica, Pantera and Angra. So FullBlast is another victim of the Silver Surfer Syndrome of being a bad shmup with good music.

FULLBLASTED CURIOSITIES
- The UFO Crash logo appears in the first 4 stages as the billboard on the buildings



In conclusion, we're with a sad attempt to an old school game. But this one fails miserably since it falls on repeating many things and recycling bosses again and again.
FullBlast is between the borderline of being the new Silver Surfer and the Shaq Fu of shmups if you ask me. Really, i hate to call a shmup a bad game, but this one is unfortunately one of those bad games since its achievement unlocking challenge factor dies out at the first four stages.

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Can't believe i wasted my money on this...
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