Herr Schatten wrote:It's no surprise at all, that's just the nature of all of Treasure's games. Either you think their approach of including everything and the kitchen sink is pure genius, or you find it annoying and wish for a more focused gameplay experience. IMO, having an abundance of creativity is not necessarily a good thing if you're a game designer.
Most Treasure games include many facets and I can say to a degree Treasure games seem at first as though they were designed to assault the senses and really overload the player. Most, not all.
I think in this regard, Gradius 5 makes the best use out of the new option type system and as I've seen in replays (as I've yet to clear it myself) it fits in quite well with many of the sections of the game. The change in direction of scroll and different types of patterns and difficulty to be found later on feel very much the mold of Treasure, and with Treasure having a staple of games infested with boss fights it's not surprising the ones found here are up to par and plentiful. To cite my own issues, it will simply rest in the fact it's a considerably long game, although I find most of the Gradius games can suffer a similar fate whereas only Gradius 3 comes close to 5 in length. That's not to say it's an isolated incident, personally I find many Gradius games drag on too much or often have dull entry stages. I speak again for myself when I say if I need to spend more than 40 minutes to clear a loop that's a long time and as I've seen pardon Gradius, only Gradius 2 can manage a quick clear, although again is plagued by unbalanced stage length, stage risk/interest and stage scoring. This again is hardly isolated as a quick look on Gradius 3 may serve.
As for Treasure, the horse representing Ikaruga has been beaten to fine gourmet dog food and as such I'm not amplifying anything by saying Treasure took a good idea from Radiant Silvergun and made it far more flexible and expansive. This game is a great example of a Treasure (perhaps specifically Iuchi and Nakagawa) game that allows the player based on their means (comfort or skill) to choose their own end. It still has the familiar onslaught of eye-hand co-ordination found as early as the beginning of Chapter 2, while most prevalent in Chapter 3 and 4 but it's not strictly forced 99.9% of time. Simple and appealing idea with options for beginner to advanced execution. To this end, Ikaruga is very focused with what it tries to achieve, and it's far less convoluted and more flexible than Project RS1. Gradius 5 perhaps due to length, no checkpoints, and the cut-scene tries to do too much but it does cover most of the Gradius canon and again with Treasure being Treasure and no longer being Konami it was never guaranteed all bases were to be covered (Moai stage, less factory/installation stages, etc..) if Konami definitely wasn't designing the game themselves.
Herr Schatten wrote:Agreed on challenge and score, but G5's visuals are in no way a step forward from Gaiden.
This is comparing
apples to
oranges. Gaiden, pardon Generation/Galaxies/Advance and Rebirth was the last 2D based Gradius and it does look good. It shows the dedication and direction the series had taken since it's inception. Gradius 5, with some help from G.REV, can in no way be denied the fact it's one of the best looking 3D scrolling shooters made to date. I think this can be countered with the aspect a lot of what is seen in the backgrounds is factory/base type and is stale. What isn't in a base does look fantastic and as Treasure has done time and time again, the graphics lend themselves to their high standards. The only aspect I think about between the two is the odd nature that both Gaiden and 5 were bound to home consoles.
FF1 outclassed DQ1, but they caught up quickly. I am Enix Fan X! ^_~ so you don't want to go there.
), a great soundtrack, and Mr. X.