From the bottom of one's heart - Wipeout Edition
Gridd Retroenhanced is a mix between race and After Burner II-like shooting where the main objective is to defeat the Mainframe (You can call this game a "Race'em Up"). The gameplay mechanics are simple enough as you only have to shoot your only weapon: A laser shot which can be upgraded into a Twin and Triple Shot. This game grants you two energy bars: The Shield Gauge and your Energy Gauge. Recovery items for both types only restores a few portion of them rather than making a full recovery and I say this because you'll be needing that for the following reasons.
The game is VERY abusive with the damage not just at the point of having the "No afterhit recovery" better known as "Turridamage", but also, the draining goes way too fast, sometimes you'll end up losing the shield gauge and part of your energy by constant collisions, but that's not all. Your firepower depletes with damages. This becomes almost fatal because you're gonna need to be on level 3, otherwise, you're not gonna make it.
Another point against the player are the camera angles. Rather than being full frontal like After Burner II or Space Harrier, Gridd Retroenhanced tilts the angle of the camera making isometric views that give you a slight disorientation feeling and if that wasn't bad enough, the game moves at a very fast speed, making you wish you had a speed control and a lock-on missile-like weapon, and an extra weapon is something that you'll be wishing for later in the game because you'll be facing both objects and enemies with armor capable of bounce your shots back at you and you could get hit by your own attacks. While objects like blocks will disable their armor giving you enough time to hit them and clear your path, the enemies have permanent armor, making them indestructible the whole time giving an unfair game as a result of that.
There's an unlockable mode called "Endless" where you have to make all the progress possible in a never ending road. Unlike the main game, there's no boss battles and if you die you'll start back where do you left off.
Looks like you're gonna force your way rather than find a key.
During your navigation, you'll be facing with a gate which is apparently indestructible since the center regenerates with time. Guess what? You'll have to shoot on the little shining squares on the sides to prevent the door to catch the lightning bolts that regenerate the core's energy. Once they're down, then you can destroy the gate with no problems.
L00KiNG FOR @ 1UP - H@XX0RZ @RE TEH USER @ND K3YG3N iN TEH G@EM.
Well, although there's no continues in this game, you can pick extra lives or "Backdoors". During the Firewall sequence, you'll have to shoot the sides of a tetrahedron, each side will unlock a "pick all the gems" mini-game. Fortunately, its easy to get them all in this game. Doing this three times before time runs out will grant you an extra ship.
Watch out!, the Electro Brain logo is tring to kill you!
The majority of this game is comprised on the navigation across a never ending highway of energy and information, a clear reference to the "Information Superhighway" which gives the game an atmosphere similar to the Wipeout series of racing games. But the most notorious aspect of this game is the use of the 80's styled neon coloring and grids, which breaks with all the common concepts utilized on shmups (y'know; dragons, military, science-fiction, futurism and minimalism).
Even Cyberspace has killer asteroids to dodge.
After defeating the worm boss and your first fight with the Mainframe, you'll be running in a electro-futuristic landscape inspired by 80s high-tech like grids and landscapes. The whole thing reminds me of the song "Lady of Ice" by Fancy, something that we all saw in the sound menu of Vostok Inc.
LiEK @SCii @RT? SH00TiNG 4 H@XX0RZ.
Cyberspace and the 80's are not just the only references in this game. There's also room for ASCII art in the purest style of hacked websites and this game captures that style perfectly in the few instances they appear.
There's always Super FX'd references.
This one is inevitable, the final form of the Mainframe AI has an uncanny resemblance to Andross from StarFox, as we fought against a face that rips apart and we destroy its core, just like the Andross "cube".
As an 80's inspired game, the music style takes cues of the Synthwave. Basically, it reminds me of Peter Buffet, Kraftwerk and The Alan Parsons Project and it is all what it needs to go well with the 80's atmosphere that surrounds this game.
GRIDD: RETROTRIVIA
- The achievement and boss name "Facehugger" is a reference to the creature from the Alien franchise.
- There's a couple of Terminator references. The first one is obviously Terminator and the quote "I'll be back" by Arnold Schwarzenegger.
- Terminator is also the NATO name of the SU-37.
- The achievement name "Champions don't use drugs" is a reference to the famous videogame tagline, FBI/AAMA campaign and slogan "Winners don't use drugs" from the late FBI director Williams S. Sessions who passed away in June 12th, 2020.
Gridd Retroenhanced tries to be the new After Burner or the new StarFox, but the game simply goes out of control with the camera changes, lack of speed control and arbitrary punishments that only the hard difficulty loving gamers will enjoy.