DUMPED MIRAGE
TRASHSTORM IS NOT A REAL STORY.
IS NOT EVEN GOOD FICTION.
IS TRASH GAME REVIEWS.
ALL OF THE GAMES FEATURED WOULD CAUSE A PERSON DISAPPOINTMENT,
ANGER, FRUSTRATION, DEPRESSION, MONEY LOSS INCLUDED.
TO PUT IT ANOTHER WAY: DON'T TRY THIS AT HOME.
Just when I've thought returning to the XBOX would be a nice experience after all the Arcade Archives reviews I've wrote, there's always the game that ruins that idea.
We've already saw the disappointment that was Cilla, and now today's review is not better. Time to check Cosmic Mirage by HugePixel and Desert Water Games.
The game's already saying:
"Toggle it, finish the game and get the achievements. I don't need them!"
You know what's the saddest and most pathetic part of this game? Is when the game gives you the "Cheat Menu" right out of the box. Yeah, you can access to invincibility, infinite ammo, nerfed bosses and more experience straight from the first startup, as if the game is saying "This game is shit, just toggle the crap on and complete it".
The basic three. A good rule to start your mission.
Before starting your mission on a planet, you have to select one of the three options. Shield is, like its name implies a force field that protects you from enemy fire. You can also use it to ram enemies, but here's the catch: They won't drop experience Crystals if you kill them with the Shield. Frost is a time-stopper in pure Flashman style. Freezes all the enemies on screen in place for a few seconds until the effect goes off or you destroy them, and finally you have the Mirage, which is like the Option on Gradius or the duplicate on Ninja Gaiden II, but rather than doing what the player does, the Mirage wanders around and shoots when it feels like it, making the concept of Option pretty much useless.
Love stupid restrictions and annoying reload times?
Then this is the game for you, Mr. "I-Love-Punishments".
For an horizontal shmup, indie games need to either innovate or stay in-line with the standard rules of major commercial games. Cosmic Mirage goes on the way of experimentation, but with methods that affects the player negatively and that's when disaster occurs. ¿Have ever played a shmup where your main weapon is ammo limited for a very few shots and it has to reload for a long time before firing again? Well, this is the game for you Mr. "I-Love-Pain", just fire like five bullets or so and wait for a long while until you can shoot again. Having a screwed up firing mechanic is just a signal that the game developer had no idea of how to put challenge to a game and did a stupid move in an ill-fated attempt. While you have a life gauge, you don't have spare lives, die once and its Game Over because the continue Option is on the Title Screen, but continuing the game will reset your ship to Level 1.
Good, Cheap, Fast...
But you can only pick ONE!
In the style of RPG games, you can level your ship up. But instead of getting stronger and more resiliant to damages, here you can pick one of three randomly available power ups. But how you can level up? Not by destroying enemies, but by destroying enemy projectiles. These will turn into "Magic Crystals" that you can pick to fill a green bar on the upper right part of the screen. That's your "Experience" gauge.
Bullet Grinding, anyone?
It is indeed easy to rack high levels without even progressing in the game! During the first boss battle just destroy its bullets while making sure you don't hit or kill the boss and rack all the power ups you want. Once you upgrade your ship's amount of rounds and reduce the reloading time to miliseconds, that's when the game starts to look and play like a normal game with no reloadings, making progress much more easier, but it is quite boring and absurd to just destroy enemy bullets for the sake of having a normal firing rate like a good game.
Surf's up!
*Nobody cares except you*
Along with the traditional enemy formations and the problematic weapon system, the game throws you stage hazards like tornadoes, waves and fireballs which at least are easy to navigate through and come in small numbers ¿Is the XBOX trying to piss me off?
Hard Corps-styled decisions.
In the style of Contra Hard Corps and Cilla, you're asked if you want to join the enemy or refuse and fight him. While the right thing is to say "NO", you have to play both endings in order to unlock all the achievements.
Lieutenant Kool-B Adasskid
After all your troubles, that's all what you get, your pilot thanking you for all your troubles. Like the AVGN said "it's like coming out of a brutal fight, being the winner, but achieving nothing for all your troubles but some bloody bruises and broken bones. It's just not worth it", along with the achievements you've got throughout your playthroughs.
Graphically, is boring beyond belief. Despite taking place in several planets, all the sky backgrounds remain the same. Space, space, space. I guess the developer followed the words of the Angry Video Game Nerd from his Action 52 review: "Make a black background, cover it in dots and call it space". But at least it makes a little effort by using a basic parallax scrolling for the background, and that's one thing that I have to give it credit for; they've pulled a small effort rather than going 100% "On the cheap".
(Sarcastically) Man, that phoenix sure looks scary. I'm gonna have nightmares over that.
Could they have made the phoenix look any more cute?!
Some of the character designs are a joke, like the wasp in stage 5 which I guess they were trying to make a nod to the incredible Amiga shmup Apidya, if Apidya was a zero-budget atrocity. But the major offender is the phoenix boss of Stage 4 which looks like a baby chick. Yeah, a baby phoenix as a boss. ¿Did the game designers ever played Gradius II? That phoenix was far more menacing than this shit. The only "good" design was the crab boss from Stage 3 which looks pretty decent for 8-Bit like graphics.
Sense of vintage arcade deja vu.
One of the levels has a sense of deja vu for old schoolers since it looks very similar to the first stage of Silk Worm, most exactly when the sky turned dark and you fight the helicopter boss at the end of the level. The sound department is a crappy NES-like series of tunes that for some reason reminds me of the cheesiness of obscure NES developers such as Sachen and Mindscape as if Sachen and Mindscape tried to pull a Megaman... Megaman on Fentanyl mixed with Bydogen.
MIRAGED CURIOSITIES
Highway to the Rip-off Zone
- The Mirage seen in the intro cutscene is a carbon copy of the F-14 from Konami's Top Gun game, just with a few touch-ups to avoid legal issues with Northrop-Grumman, Konami and Paramount.
- Ironically, the artwork depicts the ship even more like the F-14 than what we see in the game.
- The vertical ship sprite in the weapon select screen resembles the F-15 Eagle more than the F-14 Tomcat.
Nuff said.
Overall, Cosmic Mirage is another addition to the ever-growing list of bad ideas in shooting. With dumb restrictions that require forced upgrading, it feels like an unplayable game which will make you regret of buying it. For 10 miserable achievements its not worthy.
Now you understand why I focus more on reviewing Arcade Archives shmups than this? Stick to Arcade Archives: Strike Gunner and Arcade Archives: Aero Fighters if you're looking for a good F-14 shmup. THIS is one of the reasons I lose faith on indie shmups, THIS! Being retro doesn't mean being stupid, unfair and lazy with your game design. AARGH!!
Just as we expected.
The Eda Scale just blew out.