Ha, I hadn't! Cheers, that is fascinating stuff! Jesus Christ,
LOVE PENGUIN looks horrifying!
Brrr, I'm glad that thing didn't appear in Act III's climactic underwater sequence, that shit would be Ecco levels of sleep paralysis demon.
Seems like a pretty decent scrap too, although I wouldn't trade him for BugMax (always liked the raw physicality of mowing him and his pollen to ashes with nonstop bullet-cancelling Phoenix Force; can't compare with SHARPSTEEL or any of the beasts beyond the door for panache, nor indeed with Love Penguin! but I think he and the rando Shmup Snake™ beforehand are really there to let you recharge while cathartically tearing a couple mid-carders to bits with learned hyperaggression).
I guess Gunstar vet Melon Bread pulled rank on him for the game's "creepy sphere thing with bludgeoning appendages" spot!
I'm conflicted on the unused Epsilon-1 cutscene; it's awesome cinema, perfect for an opening attract mode; but it's also the kind of delay I'm glad the finished game goes without. I particularly love how Epsilon-One arrives in an eerie calm, following that relentless facility invasion; the uneasily gunfire-illuminated corridor firefight and tower climb, into another "turn lemons into napalm" exchange with Sunset Sting, and the subsequent ambush by Viblack, who suffers an all-time great boss pratfall, blind and on fire, crashing into Back Stringer's web, promptly getting his face devoured off; before a particularly vitriolic "kill this motherfucker before he drags you to hell" exchange, atop the poor dead bastard's twitching corpse. Apropos only the furiedly technical action... has this place gone to shit already? Half of these fuckers are at one another's throats, it seems! Just passing through, you fuckin feral abominations to Man Beast and God alike!
And after this wordlessly furied upward climb through hellish techno-jungle, bang, straight into dodging a ruthless hail of targeted lasers aboard the orbital elevator, before the BGM quiets, and the screen fades to white... fading back in to the one moment of peace and quiet in a very long stretch: a screen-spanning vision of cybernetic raptor death, hovering silently overhead. Not the deleted scene's spectacular show of force, just a wickedly personal, understated reveal. How'd this monstrosity get this close without Fou noticing? And why didn't it attack, bristling with killing technology?
Hatred ~ I've Waited A Long Time For This Moment , I would venture - as per the intro crawl and manual, this showdown is quite literally as personal as it gets.
And then all hell breaks loose.
AS uses lots of similar ellipses, giving it combined extremes of character and pace that actually make the midgame unskippable cutscene not only well-earned, but preternaturally welcome (I think so anyway; game's relentless!). It says something when your relaxing interlude is a scene of biblical destruction and mortal fury most other action games never dream of.
The game's dev process was by Suganami and Maegawa's accounts a nightmare ("a dangerous birth," the former memorably calls it); but it's the spectres of Silhouette Mirage and especially Guardian Heroes I think of, both of those games being easily on par with the MD Treasure Box trio (and Sin & Punishment)'s irrepressible hardcore joie de vivre, but also full of pace-sapping dialogue. But closer to home, also Hard Corps; I'd so shunt the st1 Cyclops's iconic walk-past to the earlier streets, a Cool Foreshadowing Detail™ to pick out amidst the rocketing pace; only for the big boi to just
*WHAMMM* crash down out of nowhere as you reach the building summit, car in hand for a quasi-jumpscare. Didn't you notice him noticing you, amidst the pincering robo onslaught? Didn't you know your hunters were now the hunted?
Now that's Interactive Fiction!