UNHOLY WEEK 2025: NINJA FAILURE, BUT THERE'S GOOD MUSIC
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.
The Holy Week's a few weeks away, but the "Unholy Week Special" of this year is now.
Being a reviewer is not easy. Especially when it comes to "The Other of Many LJN's" (because Breakthrough Gaming's not the only "Other LJN" out there) EastAsiaSoft when they publish bad low budget shmups. Its like every time there's a Showcase of them, I can basically hear AWACS Galaxy (Project Wingman) yelling "This is AWACS Galaxy to ALCON, I repeat, This is AWACS Galaxy to ALCON, ALCON, ALCON" before the Cordium cruise missile bombardment that preceeded the Cascadian Calamity Event. ¿What does Project Wingman's "Consequence of Power" have to do with reviewing trash shmups? Well, because trash gaming spams both console and PC mercilessly, ending with a "Video-Calamity" where the casualties are your wallet and your fucking time wasted on the shit you've got for a game, and this game is a fucking example of that.
Time for a no-brakes descent into videoshit with Tiny Pixels Vol. 1 - Ninpo Blast (Volume 1? May God have mercy.)
The Trash Dimension in 2D
"CRAP CORRIDOR"
Tiny Pixels Vol.1 - Ninpo Blast by EastAsiaSoft (along with Khud0 and Elezeid) is another of those small budget indie shmups that hit the poor ol' EastAsiaSoft. Well, the gameplay has an interesting idea of giving you not one, but three weapons: Kunai Gun, which is your full-frontal vulcan with a reasonable firing rate, the Shuriken Gun which is the mid-rate three way spread shot to take enemies diagonally and the Katana, a screen clearing Sword slash which acts as the bomb, but this one requires to charge with time. A small price to pay, but you can use it as much as you want. It also gives you a score multiplier that increases the enemies value up to 5, so you have to be fast and constantly using the Katana to rack great scores in your run because the gauge depletes faster than you can take an enemy down. Throughout the game you will be facing small waves of enemies. Small numbers of enemies across the levels doesn't sound difficult enough, but the real difficulty comes from your power. There's no power up drops in the game and if you get hit, there's no health items either. Dying once is Game Over, forcing you to start all over. While there's no Turridamage, your afterhit invincibility time is really short bordering into the dreaded Turridamage. Basically, you'll be dying again and again and again and again. Making this game desperating and irritating at the same time. If you want to play a game that guarantees immediate frustration, is this game.
Even Megaman X made a better job in the "You VS Spider" battle.
The initial assortment of bosses are Spider, Cocoon and flying Snail. During the battle they will be backed up with enemies to make you lose your focus and get killed with "wall enemies" and auto-aim bullets. Like the rest of the game, their difficulty is not on the attacks, but on your Hoverbike's status when you fight them.
Base game sucks already.
Why not check the store to pursue the full game experience?
Wanted to know why this game is fucked up? Well, this is the part of the game when we learn why everything's fucked up: The store, which is where you're just supposed to buy upgrades, it is where do you have to buy EVERY-FUCKING-THING to have the complete game: Extra Hoverbikes, more energy, new stage backgrounds, even more bosses to fight. Yeah, something that should be given for granted like a reasonable amount of bosses is now up to a separate transaction. Fortunately, it only needs the Gears you've got on the game and there's only one Gear. Unlike Ginga Force where you get different credit items with different values, Ninpo Blast only drops a gear that's worth 1 credit, and not all the enemies drop a gear, requiring you to take the bosses for 7 Gears or so, and to make things worse, the price tags increase on each upgrade, requiring constant grinding in order to obtain everything.
Here's the price tag of every upgrade in the game.
KUNAI GUN: The frontal machine gun of the Hoverbike
Power (Weapon strength): 10>20>30>50
Projectiles (Twin Shot>Triple Shot): 50>75
Rate of fire (Bullets on screen): 25>50>75
SHURIKEN GUN: The 3-Way spread fire
Power: 5>15>35>50
Projectiles (5-Way>6-Way): 25>50
Rate of fire: 15>35>50
ENVIRONMENT (New game background and music): 50>75>100
HOVERBIKE (Alternate vehicles): 25>50>75
SCORE: This section covers the Score-related upgrades
Extra bosses (Winged Ant, Crab-like monster and Mantis-like Mutant. Each sold separately. New from Mattel): 50>75>100
Max. Multiplier (Adds an extra multipler for each defeated enemy x6 to x9): 15>30>45>60
Magnet power (Increases the range required to attract Gears): 50>75
NINJA
Health (Adds 1 Heart to your Zelda-styled lifebar): 50>75>100
Katana recharge (reduces charging time): 50>75
Invincibility time (Extends the time of the afterhit invincibility): 25>50
While the weapon pricing is challenging, on the Hoverbike is useless. The reason of this is because the bikes are just cosmetic changes rather than being vehicles with unique weapons (think the Aero Fighters jets or Blazing Star's ships) Also, this idea of buying everything is horrendous. Ironically, after maxing up the shots and the Katana, it starts to feel like a score-hunting shoot'em up. I could understand the idea of increasing my starting lives or the extra hoverbikes, but all this grinding for your weapons? It was way too much.
But you know what's the worst part of this game? That after spending 3 hours or so upgrading your ship, it turns out that the game lacks an ending, so there's no "survival" as the ad-blurb of this game says. It's an endless shooter that will actually end with your demise. A No-Win scenario.
The Mantis Monster from Videogame Hell.
Graphically, it resembles the Gameboy Color more than the NES, but with fast scrolling parallax effects on the sides of the screen which is very reminiscent of the NES shmup Zanac A.I., but I think the sprites could be a little better because retro and "Inspired by classics" is no excuse to pull 8-Bit. Why not borrow inspiration from Nichibutsu's 1985-1986 era? Magmax and Ninja Emaki are great examples of hi-quality classic arcade graphics when others were more simple. For a game based on Ninjas, the only ninja thing is a member of Foxhound...er, the rider of the Hoverbike because he fires Kunais and Shurikens with the hoverbike's cannons and uses his sword to kill everything on screen (except bosses, they're immune to the slash).
The music is an entirely different story, since Elezid combines PC-Engine-esque chiptune music with real instruments, mostly japanese flutes and chords to give us an eastern feel, it has some good enough rhythm to fit the shmup pace. "Ninpo Blast" (Main Menu) is a prelude that has Amiga-styled instrumentalization combined with Japanese chords. "Factor 5 a la Japanesque" if you want to call it like that. "Continue" (Game Over) is a "Jim Power goes Feudal Japan" as if Chris Hulsbeck made a Japanese themed game. "Jungle Jam" (Green Tunnel) is an oriental styled tune that runs with a frenetic pace that makes justice to the use of the word "Jungle".
The track "Rusty Gearhead" (Gear-themed background) drops the japanese instruments for a more industrial-electronic beat. The first seconds kinda remind me of Toxic Seahorse stage from Megaman X3. "Crystalline" (Crystal Tunnel) is another electronic only track which seems to borrow influences from Konami and Capcom's shmups at the same time with a bit of Megaman on it, giving one great melody as a result. But the song "Icy" (Ice Background) is the best of all with Soldier Blade's intensity is perhaps the best track of the game.
TRIVIA PIXELS VOL.1-and-LAST
That was a surprise. Nodding a stage of an obscure shmup.
- First (and maybe last) entry of the Tiny Pixels series.
- The upgrade store wrongy names the Shuriken Gun, Score and Ninja sections as "Kunai Gun".
- The "Credits" option is also wrongly named, being called "Controls".
- The gears background is similar to one of the later stages of NMK's Gunnail.
Words that describe trash gaming as it is.
Sounds very repetitive, but the way Galaxy says "By God..." in horror and disbelief sounds exactly like my consciousness when I found myself playing a videogame that turned out to be an atrocious shit like Ninpo Blast, and THAT'S WHY I KEEP POSTING THAT PROJECT WINGMAN QUOTE AS PUNCHLINE. Simplified Explanation: Feel what I feel, kid. Feel my mental pain reading my trash game reviews just like I have to suffer enduring those videogame horrors.
Well, despite the quite impressive music, Tiny Pixels Vol.1 - Ninpo Blast is a disaster in all the expression of the fucking word. Claims to be bullet hell, but the hell is because you start with a way too weakened state against stronger enemies. With tedious grinding and the concept of "Buy EVERY-fucking-THING" is just horrendous. I hate to say it, but it looks like a macabre glimpse to the future of gaming: Want to fight the second boss? Buy the DLC! It's not the gaming future you're looking for. A true shame since this game has some really good music. The best metaphor to describe this game is if you grab excrement and put it in a DJ turntable but playing an amazing soundtrack as the needle runs through the shit. Sounds weird but its true, and Ninpo Blast is proof of it. Now you understand why the "ALL CONCERNED" thing when EastAsiaSoft announces a showcase?
4 R-9s in the R-Scale. 3 Are the good music aspect 'cos gameplay fails and graphics are the 1 in the score:
Once again Eda's the collateral victim when I review a game.
▶ TO BE CONTINUED
The "Spring-Unholy Week" Special continues with a mistake of a dive into videogame horror: Marine Survivors.