I GOT A LOT OF MY OWN PROBLEMS DOWN HERE.
AND THE TRASH FALLING ON SHMUPS ISN'T ONE OF THEM?
Time for more trash shooting. This time is Z-Warp.
DonPachi: Abadox Edition
Z-Warp's gameplay might look like Cave's DonPachi series, where you can use either a basic spread shot to take more enemies at expense of being a weak shot, or rely on a Laser beam, which causes more damage, but its frontal firing, the key feature in this game is the "Killer" which is the bomb attack of this game. Although this one is more of a screen clearer than the traditional bomb format since it has to recharge before its fully operational. You can unleash it with a low percentage, but the blast radius will be smaller. The Killer can also pass through enemies behind a wall (this happens only in Stage 2) and it can be used to obtain more green skulls which are the bonus items of this game. There's also the score multiplier that increases the score value of your enemies, and is also the challenge factor of the game 'cos the maximum value increases on each difficulty, being "x16" on Hardcore the highest of the game. Taking a hit drops it all the way down to "x1".
Boss fighting for a credits boost.
Boss battles are interesting when the game is played on Easy and Normal, but whatever you do, don't bother playing the game on Hardcore, there's times where the bullets are way too big and too crammed to dodge them. This is notorious on the first boss, where the second form will fire rings of large thick bullets that will outnumber you and get you with the Killer down. To put it simple, you'll be deader than disco before completing the first stage. Speaking of unfair bosses, things go downright unfair on Stage 3 as the boss fires most of its attacks from behind you, so you'll practially lose in this stage, making completing Normal and Hardcore almost impossible. Forcing you to play constantly for increase your credits.
That's right. At first you'll be sent with no continues. Only your 3 hits, and there's no spare ships, which implies to play the game constantly in order to get additional credits. If you're planning to rely on the trick of "Pause-Unpause-Mode-Pause-Unpause-Move" in this game, you can totally forget that idea cause like Sisters Royale, the game has the "Bad Unpausing" which means it has to count down from 3, like ESPGaluda the Dreamcast port of Triggerheart Exelica. Like the AVGN said about the "Hold On" from Batman Forever: "Hold On for WHAT?, ¿¡IT HAS TO [EXPLETIVE] LOAD!?"
The Never-ending blasting!
The third mode "Endless" is basically the same game, but played in random difficulty levels for the sake of random challenge. the only difference is that the game goes on and on until you finally die and/or run out of credits.
To quote Count from Ace Combat 7: "So Wiseman died for nothing".
After finishing the final stage and burning all of your credits, you'll be rewarded with the ending telling you that the Black Box you're supposed to find is lost already. "What a matter!" like the endings of Darius II said. To make things worse, the game tells you that you have to finish the game without using continues for a "surprise" ¿What surprise? I don't know, I guess that's gonna be a mystery destined to remain unsolved.
Despite the difficulty spikes, it is possible to get all the achievements (or trophies if you're playing it in the PlayStation 4). You only have to reach half a million points on both modes, picking an accumulated total of items, kill a total of enemies and bosses, clear all the stages regardless of their difficulty and there you go. 1000 Gamerscore Points, 16 achievements/trophies and the PlayStation Platinum Trophy are all yours to take.
The Deadly Inner War
Graphically, is a little step back from what Panda Indie learned in Project Starship X, as the pixel art is much more simplified and is slightly better than Void Gore, The bosses look quite good, but their level of detail is lower and overpixelated. The same goes for the large bullets which are big circles with thick borders. A clear testimony of "This could been better". Like Void Gore, the main theme of this game is the inner body and demons. Basically a bullet hell version of Natsume/Milton Bradley's Abadox: The Deadly Inner War as everything bleeds when they take a hit, even the walls in Stage 2. Unlike the Project Starship games, there's no pilots mentioned in the storyline, relying in the "Performed by You!" cliche like in Super R-Type. Speaking of nodding other games, The "Killer" bomb flashes a skull inside a red circle in the purest style of Truxton's "Skull Bomb".
Being a King rather than an Expert!
Z-Warp's tribute to Toaplan doesn't limit itself to Truxton's skull-shaped blast flash. It also nods Truxton II's skull panels.
Fabtek approves.
There's also place for Raiden, in this case the closing panels of the Attract Mode that separates the title screen from the demonstration.
It's going to be attacked aggressively.
Contra is also nodded. The brain enemies from Stage 5 easily remember Searle from Contra III: The Alien Wars. It might also be a reference to the Brain Golem from Salamander/Lifeforce too.
The music on the other side is incredible as it borrows the hard rocking of the SNES U.N. Squadron and the Thunder Force series, giving an intense action rush to the game. There's two "variations" of the music: The regular one, and the "Danger" sped-up version when you're out of HP. In the final boss, this is basically the best part of the game as if it was an arragement of some sorts.
Z-CURIOSITIES
I plan to take the Lewis and Clark to a safe distance
and then launch TAC missiles at the E.V. Horizon until I'm satisfied she's vaporized.
[EXPLETIVE] this ship!
- The game's original name was Z-Division.
- There's a typo on the opening text: "TheE.V Horizon," instead of "The E.V. Horizon,"
- Like Void Gore, the E.V. Horizon is a reference to the 1996 film Event Horizon.
Time to go home, Nina.
I've just played for the achievements.
Looks like Panda Indie Studio gave us a light, compact version of Truxton blended with some Abadox elements and hellish bullet patterns that will be the delight of "Lunatic" level Touhou Project and DoDonPachi aficionados. But sometimes the difficulty goes off the border and out of control for the average shmuppers forcing them to play constantly until they rack up enough continues to complete the game.
You've might want to pick this one for 16 Achievements/17 PlayStation trophies, but one thing is certain for sure: Is not gonna stay for too long in your console once you're done with the trophies.
Looks like Lea is not too happy with this game.