EXTREME MEASURES REQUIRED
Sorry for the wait, but I had a lot of bad games to review.
Continuing with the Space Invaders Marathon, here's "Part IV", this time is Space Invaders Extreme.
THE SPACE INVADERS MARATHON SO FAR
PART I - Super Destronaut DX-2
PART II - Space Invaders Gigamax 4SE
PART III - Space Invasion by Pix Arts (Also: Trashfall II - Part III)
Nostalgic shooting with a twist.
First game in the Space Invaders Forever complilation, the PS4/Switch port of Space Invaders Extreme is based on the 40th Anniversary Edition rather than the standard Nintendo DS port. At first it might look like the same old Space Invaders, but you'll notice immediately the first batch of features, being the stage layout, which is now comprised by waves of Invaders in different formations, positions and even sizes. Making them easier or more difficult to hit them. However, you have a set of features to help you. You can increase your cannon's rate of fire by killing Invaders, but this will require to fill the gauge to level up and don't taking a hit or else you'll power down. Also, you can rack combos and multipliers by constantly killing the Invaders.
Suddenly, they went "Pop! Turns to UFO's".
Most of the times, the Invaders will change into UFO's, making the stage to take an unusual twist from the traditional core gameplay, and this is only the first of many twists. The game introduces new elements to improve what was once an old, simple game. Starting off with the UFO change, and even Shielded Invaders that have two types of shields: Bullet reflecting and barrier-like which take a few hits to destroy. The worst ones are the "Suicidal" ones which drop all the way down and you have to be quick. Sometimes they're explosive type and if you kill them too close to you they'll take you in the blast. The game also features the "Same" type bonuses: Same Shape, which involves the consecutive elimination of 10 Invaders of the same type in a row (Example: 10 medium Invaders without hitting other types in the process), and Same Color, which means eliminating 10 invaders of the same color regardless of their type. There's also "Rows" and "Columns", Rows are the Invaders forming and horizontal line and Columns are the vertical ones. These bonuses can be stacked multiple times; Rows can be repeated 3 times while Colums can be 5. Together with the Same Shape and Same Color grant you a special bonus for achieving all of them.
Devastating weapons now at your complete disposal.
Along with the score mechanics and new Invader techniques, you have the ability of utilizing weapons like the Laser which obliterates all the enemies in sight, explosive bullets and wider shots. While these consume with time, you can hold the energy consumption by holding either L1 or R1. Also, you can "Power up" the Cannon by destroying enemies without dying, this will level the up the Cannon allowing a faster rate of fire. You can also do "Chains" that multiply your score along with "Rates" by taking enemies, all of them are evaluated at the end of the Stage. For a final bonus addition to the game, if you destroy a rainbow colored UFO, it will send you to a "Round" where you have to complete a specific objective without missing or getting hit cause that will drop a penalty on you. Fail the Round and you'll be back to the game. But if you complete it within the time limit you'll enter the "Fever" which will send you with a random weapon to destroy multiple waves quickly in order to get Jackpots, which means even more bonus points.
Invaders from the Dance Floor.
After clearing all the waves of Invaders, you'll be facing a boss. While most of the bosses are weakpoint based or rely on splitting their bodies in half, those are easy to get rid of, but the boss of Stage 4 was meant to flummox the player off the bat and even make newcomers ragequit unless they know what's up with it. To give you an idea, the boss that I'm talking about is an oversized Small Invader with a golden force field covering from your frontal attacks and bouncing your shots back at you. At the same time it will send you blue Medium Invaders with golden force fields. Killing the Medium Invaders will drop the Laser Item, which is a green bullet variation rather than the murderbeam from the waves. To kill this boss you have to shoot a shielded Medium Invader with the Laser, but here's the catch, the Invader's shield must be hit on the specific side where the beam will bounce and it has to be on the same "altitude" where it can hit the giant Invader. THAT is some screwed gameplay mechanic.
Be on your guard!
Like in Darius, this game relies on a branching system, but in Space Invaders Extreme's case, you can only go down if you have either Rank A or S, otherwise you'll be always going to the A-Route. While this is a nice idea, the ending is basically the same as we have the word "Congratulations" with different Invader animations, making the branching system almost pointless.
Graphically, the game re-utilizes the same Invaders from 1978, just giving them gradient colors, while the oversized look very "Overpixelated" when the Invaders deserved a modern look retaining the classic original shapes. One of the characters that indeed got a modernization was the cannon which is more like a space ship with spinning pixels in the center. All the game takes place in a graphic display of art patterns that reminds me of urban art and citylights, but it is quite hard to appreciate since it takes just a rectangular part of the middle screen. The music breaks with the traditional weirdness of Zuntata as it heads for a more ambient style with "Interactive sounds", which means that, like in Rez, the player's shots produce musical sounds adding rhythm to the stage music. One of the weirdest things is the random placing of capital letters like "invAde yOu" instead of "Invade You" for no discernible reason.
SPACE CURIOSITIES EXTREME
So the mid-size Invader was a crab?
- Apparently, all the Invaders are based on aquatic lifeforms, except for the UFO.
- This game is among the first entries in the series released after Taito was absrobed by Square-Enix.
Said and Done.
Space Invaders Extreme is a breath of fresh air for an old school shooter. If you're up for a trophy hunt, this game will provide you some challenge since getting Rank S is not gonna be something easy.
The "Emilie Scale" is on its positives today.