Perikles wrote:Now onto the SFC!
Followed by a few PCE shooters:
Bouken Danshaku Don - The Lost Sunheart: exceptionally weird title even by PCE standards. Superb graphics in favour of a bizarre oculophilia, not sure whether that is explained in the manual or the cutscenes in-between stages in any way. Found out this game is actually broken in various ways at once: boss milking (which would be rather tedious), stage milking and checkpoint milking (by earning several extends from a weird creature without fail). Somewhat appropriate considering the Dalí oddness of the visuals. It's respectably tough for a console-exclusive, with a great variety of bosses that require some twitch dodging (especially the nasty final boss!), the harsh length of checkpoints (usually only one per level) seems somewhat unnecessary, though. Not all of the crystals/ship upgrades are equally useful, it's great fun switching around those that are, regardless. I wouldn't go so far as to call it a hidden gem, an inveterate 16-bit connoisseur will most likely enjoy this one quite a bit, however.
Darius Alpha: scoring higher here means to embrace the time-out cubes which is a surprisingly frightening endeavour even under the complaisant circumstances of some of the easier bosses. On paper, this game should work perfectly (just cut to the chase and present one boss after another, thus, the main appeal of the series), the lack of build-up (both regarding the progression within the game and working on your ship) nullifies that, unfortunately. It's also a shame they couldn't somehow design a Great Thing fight as it is somewhat disappointing to end with one of the less memorable final bosses in the series.
Dead Moon: another HuCard specimen with splendid graphics. It's a shame the actual gameplay is akin to a slightly more demanding Darius Twin as the fast movement of your own ship and a few (mid-)bosses seems like a promising complement to the visual splendour. Doesn't help that the scoring system is ridiculously lopsided (accurately destroy rocks in space for ~85% of your score). Would've loved to see the art direction (mainly for the backgrounds and the bosses) in a PCE X-Multiply epigone or something along those lines. Still a perfectly serviceable game, mind you, but unlikely Bouken Danshaku Don, there are no distinct traits to the gameplay whatsoever.
Deep Blue: genuine phrenesis of mine lead to me trying (and eventually succeeding) to also boost my high score in this one. I will concede that there are a small handful of other shooters on the system which I consider to be worse (Barunba and Legion immediately come to mind), that's not an endorsement for this one in the slightest. What saves it from being the worst of the worst is that with just a minimal amount of familiarity, it is very much manageable. It embarrassingly took me all this time to find out that you don't want to use autofire in this game as the purple laser without it is by far the best weapon in the game for almost every situation. I'm also still convinced it's entirely impossible to survive the final stage of loop 2.
Gradius II: finally tried its "Professional" difficulty. The default setting is obviously a finely calibrated affair already, being very similar to the arcade game, with higher loops having the problematic tendency to produce massive flicker during particularly demanding spots. Professional is an excellent remedy if you just want a meaner variety from the get-go without any technical issues. The additional enemy speed can lead to some frightening situations in the final stage when duckers start to dash across the screen in an instant, the PCE-exclusive stage is likewise prone to create a complication or two if you don't position your options just right. I definitely wouldn't want to play more loops on this setting, but it's definitely a worthy addition for the superb default settings if the mood arises.
Image Fight II: started out just to dabble a bit with it again, then proceeded to exert the most venerable of Irem scoring techniques: checkpoint milking. I'm usually not the most excitable person when it comes to that, the nature of this particular checkpoint as well as the fact that you don't have that many lives to burn while also boosting your score significantly elevated the dreary premise into something decidedly fun - doubly so as I've managed to breach the 1,000,000 points barrier. I furthermore used the black hole blaster armament all the way to the end after picking it up in stage 8, I wasn't even aware it could kill every single boss in less than a second! Really liked the game afore, my appreciation still only improved - after the drama that is PCE Image Fight's Brobdingnagian hitbox handling in what feels like a postage stamp of a playing field, the small hitbox in this one was the one and proper way to address the issue. And unlike Rayxanber II a bit further down, this game has a steady difficulty level: it starts out pretty tough for a console-exclusive, yet never becomes all that much harder. My only real complaint in this game is that some of the proximity bombs in stage 8 are deliberately placed within the black background so that you can't see them before it's too late. I love the idea and most of the execution, but I hate being fooled by charlatanry like that.
Nexzr: decided to tackle Hard difficulty on a whim, loved it while it lasted. This time, I used the little option guys for most of the game after first receiving them, to great effect. It's really interesting how the typical Soldier template of ceaseless action becomes so exalted with just a minimal embellishment of Irem level design and reasonable checkpoints (instead of being overpowered one moment and then essentially in a game over state after the first death in defiance of having tons of lives left). I'm not sure why it took me so long to truly appreciate this game, it's simply phenomenal, a true highlight of the 16-bit shmup realm.
Rayxanber II: was a fierce challenge while it lasted, as usual. The first three stages are trivial once you know the entire layout, but even getting here can take a couple of attempts (always the case for me when I return after a while). Those pretty much serve for building your cushion of lives for when the real game starts with stage 4. I found that the best available option here is to go along with the technical deficiencies: once the parasitic worms arive and then the multitudes of enemies, your autofire will just fail after a while. Instead of switching to manual mashing as I did before, I decided to attempt an irenic method; it pleasantly surprised me with how well it worked. Since enemies will linger around for quite a while before they eventually leave or die on their own, you can induce massive slowdown if you play it like so, effectively reducing the difficulty considerably. Using the upwards blue shot to instantly kill the fifth boss and murdering the final one in its first cycle was supremely satisfying as usual. The uneven difficulty progression is definitively a flaw in this game, despite that I tremendously enjoy it once I get accustomed to it (some of the idiosyncracies can be frustrating at first, for sure). For all its minor foibles, it has an applaudably fair checkpoint system, the pithy length of the game likewise alleviates frustration. Also love the lugubrious theme - at first, its your preposed dirge, then, it's the
naenia for this somber alien race. There is an implied tragedy when these giants ghastly howl upon their demise, leaving behind decuman husks.
Tenseiryuu - Saint Dragon: pathetic port of a rather odious arcade original. The primogenitor actually embodies what a lot of people merely ascribe to Irem games: it's almost entirely memorization, with barely any deviations allowed. As a result, it's incredibly frustrating to play with a naturalistic approach (i.e. without watching replays and/or using savestate practice) and not particularly fulfilling even once you've figured it out. The port maintains a phenotypical semblance (albeit severely attenuated), yet removes
all of the challenge,
and adds horrifically unbalanced sound effects that drown out everything else. It's tricky to say which version is worse - I'm going to go with the arcade version since the port "only" has outright broken scoring whereas the original has one of the most idiotic design choices (surplus lives are converted into millions of points, but at the same time random as hell).
I think I shall end my little 16-bit tour with revisiting Dennin Aleste again, it's been too long.
Edit: had a quick go at
Winds of Thunder (MCD) beforehand. I actually enjoy the overpowered sword in this version (compared to the PCE CD original where the sword is hardly useful at all), I'm a bit miffed at some of the hit detection (in both versions, that is) nonetheless. The "small man" aesthetics should be imbedded in an appropriate gameplay surrounding, yet in some of the environments, it's clearly not the case. Most of the dodging and moving around is just fine, some sections (e.g. almost the entirety of the final stage, including the boss) dangerously border on Euroshmup territory with how you are at odds with the massive hitbox of your warrior, though. Still an eminently delectable game, it stands out all the more of it, regrettably.