Crisis Wing (XB1 - Series X|S - PS4|5 - Switch - PC)

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Sturmvogel Prime
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Crisis Wing (XB1 - Series X|S - PS4|5 - Switch - PC)

Post by Sturmvogel Prime »

Time for another indie shmup review, and this time will be no other than Crisis Wing.

I'm sure most of us have followed its development in the forum, so let's see how Pieslice Productions did this time.



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The Toaplan legacy is alive.

Pieslice Productions suprise us this time with this one. If you're familiar with Truxton, you'll be already familiarized with Crisis Wing. Its gameplay is basically similar up to its weaponry. However, Crisis Wing's weapons are quite unique and you've better be familiarized with them. The Red weapon is the Spread Shot, which is the esential for frontal, multi-directional attacks, the Green deploys side pods that provide a wider, frontal fire and the Blue weapon is the Missiles which are the slow fire rate, full frontal, yet powerful weapon that inflicts great damages. One of the most important things to learn about the weapon power up system is that you have to pick the same color like in Raiden, but not once or twice, THRICE to level up a single level, this also applies to the ship's regular shots since it is linked to the Sub-weapon powering mechanics. This could be a problem when you lose a life, because you might be facing the classic situation of fighting the boss on the lowest power level. I'm sure Pieslice Productions can correct this in favor of a more rebalanced gameplay and give the regular shot and subweapon their own power up items in favor of a quick player recovery after losing a life. Also, the game nods Capcom when you continue the game after dying since the game adds 1 point to the score after resetting thanks to the "Enter your name before the continue screen hits", to be honest, that should go too since for a Toaplan homage feels not just out of place, but also quite arbitrary.

The game features "Challenge-Fun" features that increases the gameplay. The first one is the Bonus Items dropped by defeated enemies, As they start from 100 points, the objective is to pick them without missing a single one and there's a heavy reason for it: They increase their value. 100>200>400>500>1000>2000>5000>10000 and even there's a special 100000 points bonus item that appears randomly in the game. The second feature is the "Bonus Wave" which is triggered after eliminating several waves of enemies without missing a single one. The enemies of this wave appear in a red colorscheme, and if you destroy all of them you'll get a 40000 point bonus.
For an indie shmup, being 7 stages long is already on par with the big commercial arcade games.


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You can be Player 2 anytime.
No second controller or user account required!


Although there's a Two Player option, you can decide if you want to be Player 1 or 2 ship in One Player Mode by a selectable option in the Options menu just like in Raiden IV.



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It's "Two against One", but memorizing their attack patterns can give you an advantage over them.

Like in OutZone, you will be pitted with simultaneous bosses once in a while, forcing you to rely on bullet pattern memorization rather than a full force attack strategy. This is gonna be the least of your problems as the later bosses will be firing more intense bullet patterns in a bullet hell scale that borders between Batsugun and Gekirindan, this is more notorious in Stage 3 and up to Stage 5.

After defeating the final boss, the game will say "COMPLETE!" and send you to an alternate colored second loop with the phrase "TRY THE NEXT ROUND", just like Flying Shark, OutZone and Truxton the game lacks an ending and is more of an exercise of "How far you can get?", although you have infinite continues in case you fail.


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Remember when they said "Dying is a waste of time"?, This game puts that into practice.

Crisis Wing is more than just Toaplan-styled arcade fun. There's two extra modes available: Time Attack Mode and Boss Rush Mode.
Time Attack Mode pits you in a short, timed stage where the objective is to reach the end or at least reach the highest score possible before time runs out. It is indeed possible to finish the level before running out of time, but that implies key factors: First, don't get hit. 'Cos if you take a hit, the game will take 15 seconds out, and second, learn when to use the bombs. This one is essential since you'll start the stage with a single bomb, and there's a single Bomb item in the level.
The second mode, Boss Rush Mode sends you against the game's bosses and mid-bosses but they're more difficult than in the regular game, adding a major level of challenge. There's also a Practice Mode for those who are new in this kind of games and want to give this game a try.

There's a good ration of Achievements/Trophies that despite being easy to get, they're fun and challenging enough to get them. For any pro gamer they might be way too easy, but after playing trash shmups like Breakthrough Gaming's Space 2, the achievement progression on Crisis Wing is way more encouraging and worth of your time and effort.



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We've been warned.

Before playing Boss Rush Mode, the game throws you a few words of advice that you should consider to play the Practice Mode before giving this mode a try unless you have a Top Gun attitude and the courage of an ace to take on the challenge as soon as the game's installed on the console.


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*"A Step forward into Terror" plays during the launch sequence.*

Graphically, it manages to catch the color palette and visual effects of Toaplan's classics like Truxton, Vimana, Batsugun and their later works when the ex-Toaplan staff worked on Taito (Gekirindan) and Cave (DonPachi). There's traces of Gekirindan on the multi-parallax backgrounds like in Stages 2 to 5 with the depth effect on the mountains and high tech walls. The enemy design is very influenced by Truxton, OutZone and a hint of DonPachi, while your ship kinda reminds me of Vimana. The newly introduced graphic effects like the brightness and cloud filters makes it look like a new type of arcade board. If we can speculate how the company would have evolved if they didn't splitted apart and made the step towards board hardware, this would be the hypothetical new Toaplan hardware we could even imagine.



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Heavy Metal Bombardment.

No Toaplan reference is complete without the skull explosion bomb. Unlike Gekirindan's Truxton-like explosion, this one appears as a summoned gas cloud/ghost like skull. However, the reference is more than obvious for an oldschooler.



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When the lightning strikes again and the lights go down.
And you might be near the end when the lightning strikes again.


The opening sequence has a deja vu feeling, not to Toaplan, but to Capcom (again). To be more exact to the short introduction of Varth: Operation Thunderstorm as lightning strikes when the player fighters appear on screen.

Time to talk about the sound department. The music and sound effects border between 80-90's arcade and the sound board of the Sega Genesis, completing the retro aspects of the game. But being chiptune-ish doesn't mean bad quality, the synth-like beats of the game are very catchy and with and this is more noticed in Stage 1 and Boss Rush mode.


CURIOSITIES WING
- Pieslice Productions is fellow shmups forum member pieslice.
- pieslice's inspirations were more than Toaplan, according to his post in Development, he mentioned Cho Ren Sha 68k and Viper Phase 1.


Crisis Wing is more than just an indie shmup, it is a full homage to Toaplan and its most memorable titles at the point it feels like a lost game of the company in terms of graphics and gameplay. It feels like the spiritual successor to Truxton, Vimana and Batsugun. To put it simple, Crisis Wing is so Toaplan accurate you can slap Toaplan and Romstar's logo and disclaimers and it will look like a legit product. Something like that is not seen everyday and pieslice made that possible.

Congratulations pieslice, thanks for bringing this game to existence.

You just definitely have to pick this game and give it a try. Now, we need an indie clone of OutZone.


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The Lea Scale is on its highest this time.

More than a happy Lea, his creation deserves much more than that for describe a positive review.

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'Cos sometimes a simple image can't say enough about it.
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