WHO OR WHAT IS MEIOU?
This is not your cheap Allumer shmup anymore.
Allumer is back to the Arcade Archives scene, and this time they've brought their best shot.
This time is the obscure, yet incredible shooter War of Aero: Project MEIOU.
Allumer's multi-directional shoot out in space.
Clones are the quick response to the growing market. Regardless if its toys, music or games, cheap money making demands one thing: Send in the Clones. Allumer is not a stranger in terms of game clones. Rezon is their R-Type/R-Type II clone, and perhaps the first of them, predating Pulstar, Allumer-published MOSS' Mad Shark is an excellent Raiden clone and Zing Zig Zip an 194X clone with experimental features. Raiden, 194X and Gradius are the most cloned shmup types, but what about IREM's games? We already know that cloning R-Type has a very high risk due to the demanding difficulty, but IREM is more than the eternal struggle between the R-9 and the Bydo Empire. They also released another shmup: Image Fight.
The question was ¿Could making an Image Fight clone is possible? And the answer was yes, and it was Allumer took up the "Cloning IREM Challenge" once again.
War of Aero: Project MEIOU takes cues precisely from Image Fight, mostly on the concept of the pods and multiple weaponry for your ship which made a few adjustments over IREM's shmup. To begin with, you don't have the option of picking a blue, then red, and so on. Once you pick a Pod, you can choose if you want to aim front or backwards by pressing the second button. Another change in the game's mechanics is the Aero's weaponry. While Image Fight gave the OF-1 a cannon to replace the basic frontal fire, in War of Aero, your ship switches the Vulcan without needing an equipment unit, thus, it lacks of the 1-hit shield. Just like Rezon omited the Force, War of Aero omits the multidirectional aim in the pods, resulting in a completely basic "front or rear" switching. You are also allowed to switch speeds, but unlike Image Fight's four speed configuration, you're limited to a basic "2 Type" speed configuration which not only changes your speed, but also transforms your aircraft.
This is one of those fights that require more brain than brute force.
Boss battles go beyond the basic premise of "I'm the big ship that takes a ton of hits". Sometimes, you'll have no learn its attack patterns as they can split and close giving you a brief chance to pass from top to bottom of the screen and avoid being crushed.
Enemies so huge you're gonna need multiple screens to engage them!
One interesting aspect of the game is that the game throws you a large battleship stage in the style of the second level of Image Fight and the third level from R-Type, but unlike those, the giant battleship won't be destroyed, but only damaged. The only problem here is that the game doesn't made the destructible parts blink when they took a hit, suffering the same problem as Thunder Dragon. But like in Image Fight, this stage puts the back shot in good use for the first half of the level since the second part of the stage will take place on Earth and it will be more focused on frontal firing.
Trial of Speed. Konami fans will like this one.
Rather than adding the evaluation and "Penalty Stage" like Image Fight, it replaces it with a Gradius-like Speed Zone, which is more fair and easier to navigate than those of Gradius II and III. This makes the game more like a shmup rather than a game with chores to do in order to progress in the level.
Lose your Pods and you'll be suffering for a while.
IREM's R-Type and Image Fight are known for their outrageous difficulty and Allumer took note of that for War of Aero, especially in Stage 8, as we have obstacle navigation that combines tight spaces with scrolling obstacles and enemies in front and behind you that will make beginners quit in disgust. I say this because the Pods are not gonna help that much since you're not given the option of aim to the sides like the red pods from Image Fight making things much harder than they should be. Just try to survive Stage 4 without the Pods or second player support. Aside from that, it is more fair than Image Fight which required to have a specific pod type in order to clear a level (level 5 boss) or the brutally unpredictable laser patterns of the third boss. But at the same time, the lack of the multi-aiming red pod nerfs some of the game's potential.
Courage is stronger when combined.
For an Image Fight clone, War of Aero has something that IREM's shmup lacks: Simultaneous 2P Action. You've heard right, kids. You and a wingman can play at the same time rather than alternating turns in pure Super Mario Bros. style. But simultaneous 2P isn't just for team up, it is used to fuse your ships. Like in Strike Gunner S.T.G, the ships can combine into a larger one and the fusion also affects the Pod's power, making them even stronger than their individual level 3 Pods.
Dark Orange... To the heavens and beyond.
The difficulty, combined with the obscurity that sorrounded Allumer's titles were possibly the cause that War of Aero: Project MEIOU lacked of distribution internationally. Being published by an obscure China/Taiwan publisher called Yang Cheng Electronic Co. Ltd. only contributed to make this game one of the rarest shmups out there, and that also means it didn't had home ports on consoles or computers which was kind of a tragedy since it looked like the "Hit Kit" that would position Allumer as a good arcade developer. It would took a Leap Year Luck for this game to get a home release and it did. On February 29th on 2024, 31 years after its debut on the arcades, Hamster released it as part of Arcade Archives, becoming a miracle for another obscure shooter just like Mad Shark and Zing Zing Zip.
"Colony" plays in the background.
Graphically, it looks a bit inferior to Zing Zing Zip, but still excels over the standard Pre-Raiden II vertical shooter of the 90's at the point of feeling like a Neo-Geo game, something that Allumer already did with their puzzle game Magical Speed. Despite being a shmup, it is "Magical" and has "Speed" because the use of parallax scrolling on large backgrounds are like magic indeed. The attention to details are very impressive and excels what we've saw on Mad Shark (except the attract mode CGI of course), take the Space Station in Stage 1 as the best example of what I'm talking about. Some stages are multi-screened, breaking a little with the traditional "linear" vertical shmup formula and adding even more challenge than any other shmup.
That's clearly not a Bydo invasion.
While keeping the Sci-Fi, War-in-Space theme, it drops bio-organic enemies in Stage 4, and just like they did with Rezon and its R-Type themes, the enemy and bosses there are clearly Bydo-inspired, mostly on the looks of the water cavern level of R-Type II/Super R-Type where the boss retains the somewhat suggestive look like the second boss from R-Type II.
Looks like it also nods Taito as well.
R-Type and Image Fight aren't just the only things referred in War of Aero. One of the bosses of the game is basically a clone of Dynamo from Rayforce, and its design predates Spartacus from Raystorm. Also, the space colony scene predates Axelay's stage 2.
Blazing fast effects are the opener to the action.
The "Speed" is on the velocity of the animations, because the opening sequence there's some visual effects that bring the speed to the action, anticipating the full intensity of what you're about to expect. Once you're in the game the animations are also well made, starting off with your ship which makes a rolling arrival from the sides of the screen rather than the traditional "from the bottom of the screen". Everytime you change speeds, your ship transforms going into a shape shifting animation and what's best, you can switch modes and shoot while its transforming. One impressive thing is how the scenery switches the scrolling speed when the situation requires it. This is mostly seen in Stages 4 to 6 as we navigate the "maze" of the alien cave or climb the space elevator all the way into outer space while engaging the enemy. Seems like Allumer decided to do a larger investment developing this game as we've saw a top quality graphic department, Cool cinematic introduction, amazing speeds and multi-screens, this isn't the Do-it-Cheap Allumer we've got used to in Rezon and Blandia, no man, this is a whole different developer this time, an Allumer that will definitely surprise you with a game that you'll never expect from them.
In terms of music, Allumer finally got rid of the crappy loops that plagued their shmups (and its figthing game Blandia) and added a pounding rock-electronic soundtrack that brings velocity, tension and sometimes, suspense. It lacks of voice samples like Zing Zing Zip, but let's say War of Aero: Project MEIOU was made more in the style of a classic arcade shmup; all what matters was the gameplay, and it succeeded.
WAR OF TRIVIO: PROJECT CURIO
Yang Cheng CEO: Quick, we need a flyer to advertise Allumer's new game!
Yang Cheng Employee: There (censors the pilot's visor). I'm a genius.
- The Yang Cheng flyer stole the artwork of IREM's Image Fight (Ironic for an Image Fight clone).
- The engrish on Allumer's flyer says "Can you stop the MEIOU Project!". The exclamation mark might imply a typo since it sounds more like a question (should be "Can you stop the MEIOU Project?"), but also the exclamation could be more like "You can stop the MEIOU Project!".
- Since the name "MEIOU" is written in capital letters it implies the name is an acronym for something, but not even the flyer or the Arcade Archives manual bother to explain what it means.
- Another problem with the lore is that the game never mentions what is MEIOU.
- The Arcade Archives release is the first home port and arcade perfect release on a console.
- During the takeoff cutscene of NMK's Gunnail, you can see two ships that resemble Player 1's ship on the bottom right part of the screen.
Whatever this "MEIOU" was, it just ran off.
Arcade Archives: War of Aero: Project MEIOU might be an obscure Image Fight clone which combines the 2 Player fusion from Strike Gunner S.T.G, but it brings stunning visuals and the gameplay feels like if you're playing a spin-off of IREM's classic shmup or even a sequel of arcade quality better than Image Fight II: Operation Deepstriker. Yeah, the cutscenes were nice on the CD Engine, but that's nothing when it comes to full arcade gameplay. I don't know why this game didn't got IREM's attention, 'cos this feels like one of their games. Just change the logo and name it Image Fight: Project MEIOU and that's it. Hell, After saying this, you could imagine what could be of Image Fight (and IREM shmups overall) if that happened, like having the Aeros in R-Type Final 2? With an amazing graphic and sound display in motion, it was more than clear that Allumer wasn't going down without doing its last shot. That last shot was done with higher quality than Rezon, Zing Zing Zip or Mad Shark which was released on the same year as War of Aero.
If IREM grade difficulty shmups, Image Fight and shmups that involves pods with multidirectional aiming are your specialty, you'll be feeling right at home with War of Aero: Project MEIOU.
"Project EDALUNE SCALE" got a positive result.
Well done, Allumer.