Gall Force: Eternal Story (Famicom Disk System) Review

Gall Force: Eternal Story (Famicom Disk System) Review

Date Released: 19 November 1986

Date Played: 31 May 2022

Gall Force: Eternal Story is actually the first commercial release by HAL Laboratory, who are better known for for the Kirby series. It's a vertical shmup based on the anime of the same name.  While very primitive and unbalanced, it has some unique ideas that set it apart from other games in the genre as well as some ideas lifted from other games that aren't quite as successful.  If you are a shmup fan and have a Famicom Disk System that you can actually get to work, chances are, this one is on your radar.

Gameplay:

The game is a basic vertical shmup.  At the beginning, you have only a single fire button and you'll soon become very aware of the game's outrageous difficulty.  Enemies fly in at lightning speed all with the intention of crashing directly into you.  Not only that, there are tons of enemies that fly in from behind you and cause you tons of damage that seems unavoidable.  There are powerups hidden around the stages in various blocks of both the visible and invisible varieties.  This is an idea lifted directly from Square's abysmal King's Knight and the game would have been much better without it. If you want to know the general distain that old school gamers have for this idea, read any King's Knight review (preferably mine) to see the myriad of ways that they are a bad design choice.  In essence, these blocks get in your way and always seem to prevent you from being able to shoot the swarms of enemies flying towards you. Imagine being at bat in a baseball game. The pitcher launches the ball towards home plate, but before you can hit it, you have to knock down a giant sandcastle that's right in your way. Think you have time to hit the sand castle, draw back, and then hit the ball?  You don't.  And you don't have time to blast through all of the obstacles in this game before you get smashed in the face by the bad guys.  It's no issue for them. They can fly and shoot right over all of the obstacles with no trouble at all. If you're lucky enough to find a powerup hidden inside, you'll be treated with a more powerful shot, speed up, shield, or even a 1UP.  These are highly needed and you'll spend most of your time frantically searching for them instead of focusing your attention on actually killing the bad guys.

You start off on Terra which is green and lush.  Once you make it to the end of the stage, you're greeted with the option of choosing the next stage from several choices. It's kind of like Mega Man, where you can pick the order of the stages.  Except in this game, all of the stages feel and look the same and most of the levels end up being pointless. In each of these different space levels, you'll blast your way through tons of enemies, space stations, turrets, and plenty more boxes before facing off against a boss.  These bosses are all very similar and are much easier than the stages themselves.  They mostly have the same sort of attack patterns and even with your basic shot, you should be able to dispatch them relatively easily.  Sadly, they take about 100 shots to kill... so they can take a lot longer than you'd expect.  Also, if you're unlucky enough to die on one of the bosses, it doesn't just kick you back to the beginning of the stage, it kicks you back two whole levels.  How annoying.

Once you take out one of the bosses, you will rescue one of the other characters from the all female cast of the movie. These extra crew members power up your ship.  This will then kick you back to Terra to play through another stage before selecting which crew member to save next. Each one of these characters has her portrait displayed at the bottom of the screen.  You can press select to highlight the portrait and the press the B button to activate her ability.  One becomes a mobile turret at the bottom of the screen, one gives a side shot (actually useful), one gives a spread shot (highly useful), one gives a backwards shot, and another gives an all around shot.  After you save the final crew member, you'll get to make your assault on the final boss of the game... assuming you're good enough at this game to actually get that far.  

The game is brutally difficult and extremely relentless. It feels like everything in the game homes in directly on you and you'll constantly be taking damage and praying for a reprieve.  Luckily, the game doesn't have 1 hit kills and instead opts to have parts of your ship get destroyed piece by piece (three total) and after you get down to just the fuselage, that'll put you into 1 hit death territory. On top of that, you also get extends at 30k, 100k, and then every 200k (I think).  So you'll be racking up quite a few extra lives as you play.  Obviously, these were added in to ameliorate the insane amounts of unavoidable damage that you'll be taking.  On top of that, your ship heals between every level... another blessing. It's a symptom of bad game design. They didn't know exactly how to design interesting and well thought out stages, so they just throw a bunch of junk at you that you have to tank your way through, then they throw some extra lives and healing at you to smooth out everything.

One other interesting mechanic of the game is that you can fire your basic shot just as quickly as you can tap the button.  This is a rarity from the time as games loved to limit how many bullets could be on the screen at any given point.  The downside to this is that the game has no turbo option (stupid hardwired famicom controllers) so you're going to be hammering the ever loving daylights out of the fire button.  After an hour, my thumb was so sore that I actually had to put an adhesive bandage on it for padding.  If you could hook up an NES advantage to the Famicom, it would greatly improve the gaming experience of this game. Too bad that isn't an option here.

Presentation: 

The game looks fine for a somewhat early Famicom Disk System game.  The sprites have some good detail and there's a much welcome lack of flicker and slowdown, something you'd expect from a game from this period with so many sprites on screen.  Terra is nice and colorful and reminds me a bit of Xevious in terms of its art design.  However, the space levels where you rescue the girls all take place over a boring starfield and look the same.  After a while, the repetitive nature of the levels sets in.  You fight on Terra, go to space, back to Terra, back to space, etc.. Repeat this 14 times... then you get to go to the ending of the game.  It's overly long and could have been cut down significantly.  You can tell they were trying to get as many characters from the anime into the video game as possible. 

The music is fairly catchy but also repetitive.  I'm not sure if it's the theme song from the movie or not, but it's only about a 30 second loop before repeating.  After a while, you'll zone it out and totally forget it's there. 

Conclusion:

Gall Force is kind of fun to play.  It's primitive, of course, but that doesn't make it a bad game.  The all female cast is a nice touch, but I wish each new crew member provided better powerups.  Only a couple are useful, and it makes your ship feel like it reaches its maximum potential in the first 3rd of the game.  The levels and music get repetitive... as does constantly mashing the fire button, but these are all relics of the time period.  Sadly, the unbalanced difficulty and intentionally frustrating enemy placement and bullet patterns sort of kill the experience.  Instead of learning the best way to kill everything, the game is more focused on trying to get lucky and take the least amount of damage possible to make it to the end of the level or until you earn (or find) another 1UP or get healed.  Also, spending all of your time destroying blocks while looking for powerups instead of blasting enemies. At 15 levels (and around 45 minutes) it's overly long for a shmup.  On top of that, there are no continues, so seeing it out to the end is only for the most hardcore. It's not called, "Nintendo Hard" for nothing.

If you're a fan of old school shmups or early games in general, give this one a try.  It's pretty unique and will keep you occupied for a while. However, it's not a game you're going to come back to very often.

Final Status: Played

Final Score: 6/10 (a little good)

Strikers 1945II (Switch) Review

Strikers 1945II (Switch) Review

Date Released: 25 January 2018 (Originally 1997)

Date Played: 29 May 2022

When humanity looks back on the life of Adolf Hitler, I feel like we all think the same thing; "Now there's a man who died doing what he loved... transforming tanks into giant robot crabs."  

Of course I'm joking, but this kind of bizarre humor is exactly in line with the Strikers series.  Developed by Psikyo, an often maligned and notorious B-tier shmup maker, Strikers II tells an alternate history of WWII where giant mechs hide in every battleship, train, and zeppelin on the Western front and you're more likely to encounter a giant alien brain for a boss than Field Marshall Rommel. It is the direct sequel to Strikers 1945 and shares a similar look, playstyle, and mechanics, while improving on them in many ways. Despite the unfair reputation that many Psikyo games have in the community, Strikers 1945II is a really fun and solid entry into the shmup pantheon of games.  It is currently an Honorable Mention on shmupsforums top 25 shmups of all time and has even made it onto the top 25 list in the past.  Sadly, this review is for the Switch port of the arcade game and just like all of the other Psikyo games that have been ported to Nintendo's system, it is lazy, laggy, and almost unplayable for anyone other than the most casual shmup fan.

Story and Presentation:

I hit on the general premise of the story in the introduction, but there is some other overarching plot of a secret faction known as the F.G.R. that has taken over some other faction's technology to create giant mechs.  I'm not really sure what's going on, and I had to grab that information off of Wikipedia just to write this review.  As with most shmups, it's not important.  What IS obvious is that the game is very straight laced and generic during most of it's 8 stages.  It looks like a WWII shmup in every way.  We've all seen it a million times, and if you were to glance at the screen of someone playing this game, there's not really anything to differentiate it from the 19XX series.  That is until you get to one of the game's bosses.  Each one of them starts off as some sort of normal object like a aircraft carrier, a bomber, a tank, etc.. After you deal it enough damage, it will transform into a giant mech that you will have to dispatch.  It's kind of a cool idea, and some of the mech designs can get weird (e.g. the crab boss mentioned above).  However, they aren't nearly as strange as the first Strikers game that had you fighting ghost detectives, aliens, and crystals.  This time, you'll just be dealing mostly with mechs and the occasional alien brain. 

The game's 8 stages work just like most of the other Psikyo games where the first 4 of them are in a random order with the final 4 being set in place every time.  This is a strange design choice on Psikyo's part and a lot of the shmup community aren't huge fans of this mechanic.  While it does add some variety to the game, the randomized stages are different based on which order they come in.  So you may play one time and have the trainyard stage be your first stage and it's a cakewalk.  The next time you play, it may come 4th and will be much more difficult.  It makes memorizing enemy patterns and routes much more laborious because they change so much based on where they fall in the rotation.  In essence there are four variations of each of the first 4 stages, meaning you'll have to learn 16 variations in total.  Then, you'll need to learn the final 4 stages after that.  It's an obvious carryover from the arcade days and you can just tell that Psikyo designed their games this way to gobble up more quarters.

The stages themselves are all pretty pedestrian and unmemorable. The first four stages are the North Pole which is an icy water level, the East China Sea which is a non-icy water level, France which is grey and brown city, and The Grand Canyon which is a trainyard.  The final four stages are vary from desert to jungle settings before moving onto the enemy base.  They are just as unmemorable as the first 4 stages and the muted color pallet does little to differentiate between them.

The color pallet and settings aren't very interesting to look at, but they are done well and the pixel art is competent.  It's not a very pretty game, but it doesn't look bad either.  As for the music, it's vastly improved over the first game in the series.  The first Strikers game had mostly forgettable music, with a few stand-out moments.  Some of these stood out because they were so good... others because they were grating and painful to listen to.  This time around, I'm glad to say that there's not a bad song in the bunch.  All of them are energetic and suit the game well.  There's some catchy melodies and epic chord progressions that really help to elevate the excitement of the game. It's not going to hang in there with the best soundtracks of the genre, but it's good enough to listen to outside of the game and you'll find yourself humming along to some of the more memorable sections.

Gameplay:

The game plays just like Strikers 1945 and most of the other Psikyo games.  It's a vertical shmup with tons of enemies, lightning fast bullets, mid/end bosses, and simple scoring mechanics. You have a standard shot, a charge shot, and a bomb.  All of these vary greatly between the 6 different plane choices you have.  Your standard shot is exactly what it sounds like but has a sub weapon that fires along with it and really is what sets all the ships apart. It can be powered up 4 levels by collecting "P" icons. These will increase your damage output drastically and each upgrade feels like a noticeable change.  As you kill enemies, a gauge will fill up at the bottom of the screen for a maximum of 3 levels.  At any level, you can fire your charge shot which will be a powerful attack that's great for taking out bosses and tougher enemies.  Of course, this shot become more powerful based on how many levels of the charge gauge are full.  Finally, each ship is outfitted with bombs that vary greatly from plane to ship, but will usually clear the screen, block enemy fire, and deal high damage.

The planes themselves are all based on actual WWII era aircraft.  It's a nice touch, but they resemble them in appearance and name only.  All of the different options play very differently, but they are all fun to use.  Not only that, they are all viable ships to use if you're going for a full clear.  Some feel more powerful than others, but none feel useless.

There's the P-38 Lightning that has a narrow, straight ahead shot with homing missiles as it's sub weapon.  The charge shot launches some high powered bombs that deal massive damage.  Its bomb brings out a formation of helper planes that shoot everything on screen and shield you for a short time.  It's a good all around ship but is rather slow and quite large.  It makes dodging dense bullet patterns more difficult.

The F5U Flying Pancake is a real plane from WWII and is well represented here.  It has a tiny spreadshot with semi-homing lasers for it's standard/sub shot.  The charge shot fires out a straight ahead laser that deals a lot of damage.  Bombing brings out 2 huge gunships that shield you and deal OK damage.  It's the fastest and smallest plane and is good for maneuverability.  It's homing laser subweapon is great for crowd control, but in general it feels a little weak when facing tougher enemies.

The Focke-Wulf Ta152 is a very slow plane with a powerful straight ahead shot and straight ahead missiles.  The charge shot releases a purple orb the slowly advances up the screen dealing massive damage and blocking shots.  The bomb is a quick and giant rocket that shoots straight ahead.  This plane has a very weak standard shot, but it's sub-weapon, charge shot, and bombs are very powerful. It will tear through almost any enemy, but has a difficult time dealing with attacks from all angles.  It is pretty difficult to use and is for more advanced players.

My favorite plane of all is the Ki-84 Hayate.  This tiny plane is moderately quick and able to dodge most enemy patterns.  It's standard shot is a medium sized spread shot that will eradicate most popcorn enemies.  The subshot is awesome and consists of these little options (helper planes) that zip all around the screen point blank firing into any enemy they see.  They always seem to take down any baddie that you may have missed and will really help chew through any dense enemy patterns.  The charge shot sends out a long helical column of bullets.  It deals fair damage but doesn't block any shots so it's purely offensive.  The bomb, unfortunately, is rather weak.  A large plane comes down and covers a little more than half of the screen.  It unloads on the enemies with its guns, but doesn't deal a ton of damage.  Luckily, it blocks shots that come in contact with it, but usually there are quite a few that will sneak around it.  So, you'll have to stay on your toes.

The J7W Shinden is a fan favorite and is probably the strongest ship in terms of damage output.  It is armed with a wide, straight ahead shot and a blue missile subweapon.  When these missiles come in contact with an enemy, they slow down and slowly crawl over them as they pass by.  This deals a ton of damage and you'll find yourself letting some of your missiles hit an enemy and slowly taking it out while you move on to the next threat on the screen.  This subweapon does most of the work for you and is a blast to use.  The charge shot fires a larger version of your sub weapon, but it doesn't seem to slowly drag itself across the surface of the enemy as much.  The bomb is a sweeping plane formation that covers the whole screen and blocks all shots.  While this plane is very powerful, it struggles with large crowds of enemies and you'll often find yourself overwhelmed.  You really need to have memorized the enemy placements and routing of the stages to succeed with this one.

The final choice is the DH-98 Mosquito.  It's very slow and has limited mobility despite it's zippy name.  It is armed with a medium spread shot and fast straight ahead missiles.  The charge shot is a flaming figure 8 pattern that does some really good damage.  This charge shot charges up pretty quickly, and you'll need to heavily rely on it when using this fighter.  The bomb seems to be pretty powerful and is a carpet bombing followed by a quick wall of fighters in formation.  This ship is all based around fire... which is ironic, because this plane was made completely out of wood in real life.

After you chose your ship and one of the game's many difficulty rankings (from Monkey up to Very Hard) you'll get thrown right into the action.  In general, the gameplay is very straight forward and not too complicated.  Each level gets more difficult than the previous one but most are pretty manageable until stages 7 and 8 where things really start getting ramped up.  If you've ever played a Psikyo game before, you'll be quite aware of it's notoriety for blazingly fast bullet speeds.  Some of the shots that the bosses take at you are so quick that there's basically no time to react and you need to know they are coming beforehand.  In my opinion, these kinds of shot types are what drives most people away from Psikyo games.  It's just so extreme, off-putting, and frequent that it always feels cheap.  Behind the scenes is a draconian ranking system that makes the game get more difficult based on how well you're doing.  The better you do, the more bullets will be fired at you, the faster they'll travel, and their density increases greatly.  It's a mechanic that's common to many shmups and I'm not really the biggest fan. It makes me feel like I'm being punished for doing well.  It's difficult to know what all factors go into controlling the rank, but dying or crashing into an enemy seems to lower it a fair amount.  Crashing into an enemy doesn't kill you in this game.  Instead it powers down your plane a level.  So, to keep the game in check, you'll need to balance crashing your plane into enemies to power it down while still trying to maintain enough firepower to actually make progress.  It's a touch balancing act and I'm not too sure if it's worth it, but it seemed to work for me. To help out with the extreme difficulty, you'll get an extra life at 600k (around stage 6) if you can hold out that long.  

The scoring is simple and seems to be exactly like the first game.  Shoot stuff to score points and occasionally, these gold bars will appear on the ground.  They have a sort of glimmering sheen to them and if you pick them up right when the glimmer is its most shiny, you'll get bonus points.  Mastering your timing when picking up the gold bars is the real crux to achieving a high score in the game.  It's tricky to do, but rewarding when it happens.

In terms of difficulty, this game is... extreme.  All of the Psikyo games are quite tough and this one is no exception.  The almost bullet hell density of some of the enemy shots mixed with the comically fast bullet speeds makes these games a herculean feat to master. Getting a 1 credit clear on the lowest of the 7 difficulties is doable, but getting up to Normal difficulty or beyond is only for the most hardcore of players. It'll have you pulling out your hair and becoming very frustrated in no time.  But, it's a shump, right?  It's what you signed up for.

If you have a perfect run, the game will loop for a second run through.  These are infamous for how difficult they are and will add even faster bullets and the dreaded suicide bullets from enemies you kill.  Getting this far is only for the most battle-hardened players out there.  Good luck.

This game is already very challenging for anyone but that is only exacerbated by...

Porting Issues:

All of the Psikyo games on the Switch have been ported over by City Connection and to say that these are lazy ports is quite the understatement.  Not only that, but they are essentially unplayable for most serious shmup fans.

Firstly, there are no extra features to the game.  There are no training modes or ways to only practice sections you're struggling with.  Keep dying on the last boss?  Well, play through the entire half-hour long game every single time you want to practice against him.  These are essential for home ports of shmups.  We're not in an arcade and we don't want to keep practicing the same sections we've played hundreds of times just to have a crack at one midboss so you can make another $0.25.  These training modes have been standard in most shmups ported from the arcade to the home console for the last 25 years.  Its absence here is appalling.

But more appalling is the nail in the coffin for ALL of the Psikyo ports on the Switch... the input latency.  Every game that has ever been released has some amount of lag or latency involved with it.  This is the amount of time that passes in a game from when something happens until you're able to see it actually occur on the screen.  In most modern games, this isn't much of an issue, but these old school arcade style games required split second timing to have any sort of chance at completing them.  

Strikers 1945II has at least 6 frames of input latency. With a flat screen monitor (these add more latency) you can bump that up to 8 frames or more.  Now, you may be telling yourself, "That's not that much... it's only 1/10th of a second."  Let me tell you, that in a shmup that's near unplayable.  Remember those ultra fast bullets I was telling you about?  Well, they are so fast that when you combine them with the latency of this port they become undodgable.  Meaning, the bullets have been fired and they have hit and killed your ship before you ever see it on the screen.  It's like when a star goes super nova a billion years ago, but it's light hasn't made it to Earth yet.  Yes, the event has already happened, but we still can't see it because the information hasn't made it to us yet.  Or, how when someone fires a rifle from 300 yards away, you can see the flash and the smoke but you don't hear the sound of the gun fire until half a second later.   Imagine in this scenario that someone shoots you from 300 yards away while you're not looking.  You feel the bullet strike you, then half a second later, you hear the gunshot.  That's what playing this game is like.  You see a bullet fired at you (it actually was fired about a 10th of a second earlier), you press left on the joystick to dodge it, 1/10th of a second later you see your ship move on the screen.  You didn't dodge far enough... so you go to press the bomb button to save yourself.  You press the button, but instead of bombing the screen, you see your ship die.  Why, because you were already dead before you hit the bomb button.  There is a reason that old school gamers and speed runners use old CRT monitors and original hardware.  The modern conveniences of flat screen TVs, badly emulated ports, and wireless controllers have added so much delay to gaming that these old school games become impossible when played in a modern setup.  

Know that ultra fast shot from the boss is coming up that you're waiting to dodge? Doesn't matter.  It already happened and you're dead.  About to fly into a stray bullet and need to bomb to save yourself?  Doesn't matter, you've already collided and are dead.  Trying to time the perfect point to pickup the gold bars on the ground to get the bonus score?  Can't do it because the chance has already passed.  It's so frustrating and is unfortunately a common occurrence on the Switch.  The arcade PCB has 2 frames of lag (which is standard), the Steam port has been updated and has 3 frames of lag (much better).  Hopefully, the upcoming PS4 port of this game will improve over the Switch version.

Conclusion:

Strikers 1945II is a really good shmup and is one of Psikyo's best by far.  Any fan of the genre should play it and spend some time getting to know it inside and out.  If I were to score the game based on it's actual merits, I would give it 8/10.  Unfortunately, the porting job by City Connection is so horrendous that it renders the game almost unplayable in the way that it was meant to be played. If you want to casually try out the game and don't care about achieving a competitive high score or getting a 1 credit clear and are just planning on credit feeding your way through the game, then the Switch port is fine.  However, most shmup fans don't do this and try to master the game. If you want to spend dozens of hours learning to perfect your runs, it can't be done on this version.  

It's a shame that this keeps happening over and over and publishers need to learn that just because a game technically "runs" on a console doesn't mean that it is ready to sell to the public.  It also doesn't help when game reviewers unfamiliar with the genre play through the game once while dying 50 times and then give it a review that says, "9/10 old-school shooting fun!"  The dedicated shmup community has been very vocal about the substandard quality of these recent Switch ports and hopefully the publishers out there are taking notice and will seek to improve on their future endeavors.

The Switch port of this game is good enough to let you see if you like the game so that you can then go out and play a better version on a different system... 

Final Status: Beaten (1 Credit Cleared on lower difficulties.. I can do much better on other versions)

Final Score: 5/10 (would have been 8/10 with a competent port)

Stinger (Nes) / Moero Twinnbee (FDS) Review

 

Stinger (NES) / Moero Twinbee (FDS) Review

Date Released: 21 November 1986

Date Played: 24 April 2022

I have played Stinger several times in my life, but have never played the original Famicom Disk System version of the game, Moero Twinbee.  Needless to say, I was disappointed after pulling out my Twin Famicom, inserting the disk, replacing the disk belt, adjusting the spring, holding down the load trigger mechanism, and having to sit 3 feet away from the system itself to constantly manipulate the magnetic arm to make the game load, only to discover that the game is exactly the same as the NES version except for the fact that you can play with up to 3 people.  Of course, no one is going to play a 35 year old game with me and my daughter just rolls her eyes when I ask.  So, it was hours of time wasted trying to get the Famicom Disk System to work... which is par for the course if you've ever used one before.

I popped the American copy into the NES and decided to play it instead so I could use a turbo controller and save my thumb from the constant tapping of the fire button.  It was a wise decision and booted up on the first try.  Regardless of all of this prep-work, I was going into this entire event knowing that I wasn't going to have a good time.  See, Stinger is the 2nd game in the Twinbee franchise; and if you've read any of my other Twinbee reviews, you will be very familiar with how much I dislike these games.  Stinger is no different.  Even though it is an early and simple entry in the series, it shares many of the same frustrating mechanics that the other games have.

This time around you're trying to save Dr. Cinnamon from his kidnappers and you have to shoot your way through 6 stages. The gimmick in this one is that the game alternates between a horizontal shmup on odd numbered stages and a vertical shmup on the even numbered stages.  Your orientation doesn't do much to change up the game mechanics or the general feel of the game and whether you are flying toward the top of the screen or to the right of it, you'll notice that it feels pretty much the same.  There are still tons of zany enemies like coat hangers, shoes, fruit, TV sets, etc. to shoot before they shoot and/or crash into you.  You can really sense that the developer, Konami, is leaning in the the comedy side of the cute 'em up genre and are working pretty hard to cut out their own little niche.  Luckily, for the most part, they nail it.  The game is colorful and charming to look at.  As far as the aesthetic of the Twinbee games, I think they're all really great.  Who doesn't love a cute little space ship with boxing gloves? At the end of each stage, you'll face off against a whimsical boss that's just as random as the enemies in the stages.  You'll have to dodge seeds flying out of a giant slice of watermelon, or avoid the bubbles coming out of a maniacal faucet.  I really can't get enough of the clever ideas Konami comes up with for these games.  Even the music is fun and really works to elevate the light-heartedness of the game.

It's just too bad that the gameplay is so wretched.

I hate that I'm having to air my grievances over the mechanics of this game once again... but here we go.  The powerup system in this game works just like all the others.  You shoot clouds and golden bells pop out and quickly cascade towards the bottom of the screen.  If you collect them before they fall off the bottom of the screen, you get a point bonus.  Or, you can shoot them to juggle them in the air.  As you continue to shoot them, they change to different colors that all align with a different powerup.  Blue is for a speed increase, white is a double shot, pink is for a laser beam, etc..  It seems like a good idea in theory, but in practice, it's one of the most frustrating game mechanics I've ever seen.  

Sometimes you have to shoot the same bell DOZENS of times to get it to rotate to the powerup you need. It takes forever and is really tedious to manage this while also dealing with the insane amounts of enemies and bullets on the screen.  If you miss a shot, the bell falls of the screen and all your work is wasted.  If you accidentally shoot the bell while it's the color you need, it will cycle OFF of that color and all of your hard work is wasted.  Also, the bells block your shots.  That means if there are a ton of enemies on the screen, and you're currently juggling 3 or 4 bells, they will block a significant number of your shots at the enemies.  This often leads to one of them smacking you right in the face and taking one of your precious lives.  Even when you are really, and I mean REALLY trying to focus on getting a powerup you need, I bet 80% of the time, something goes wrong and you miss it.  A bullet gets in the way and you have to dodge which causes your to miss the bell.  Or, you'll tap the fire button one too many times shooting at the enemies and the stray shot will hit the bell and make it rotate off of the correct powerup. Usually, you'll be juggling multiple bells and you'll have one of them right where you want it and as it's coming down, it overlaps with the other bell you're trying to manage and you accidentally hit the first one and ruin it.  It's so extremely irritating, and I hate it so much.

On top of that.  You also have to deal with bombing ground units in both the horizontal and vertical stages.  On the horizontal stages, it's not so bad and the ground shot button is tied to your straight ahead shot button.  So, just tap away and dodge, and you'll be fine.   But, on the vertical stages, you have a reticule a set distance in front of your ship.  You have to position it directly over a ground unit and press the B button this time to hit the ground.  Trying to position yourself correctly, avoid the swathes of enemies and their bullets, and manage juggling all of the bells makes the game an incredible tense chore that I just don't enjoy at all. I don't like this mechanic either and even in games like Xevious (where it originated) and the much heralded Layer Section (Galactic) attack, I never really enjoy doing it.  If those games can't make me like it, Twinbee definitely isn't going to have a chance at converting me over to its side.  Not when it's making me want to pull out my hair over the bell juggling.

However, I will say this, if you DO manage to get fairly powered up and can start ignoring the bells, the game gets infinitely better and is actually pretty fun. On the occasions where I was able to do this on the first or second stage, I was able to plow through the game without much trouble.  But, getting up to that point is so difficult that it's not really worth it. Obviously, the game suffers from terrible Gradius syndrome and if you take a hit and die, you loose all of your powerups and become too weak to make any decent progress.  Meaning that you pretty much have to clear the game without getting hit or it's too difficult to recover and will blow through your remaining lives in no time unless you get super lucky.

I can't say I would recommend ANY of the Twinbee games to anyone.  I'm pretty active in the shmup community, and there is a general disdain for these games from a lot of people who are really into shooters. If you're really into shmups or even old school arcade games, the Twinbee games just don't play the way you would expect. They take away all the fun of shooting enemies and dodging bullets and instead make you focus on the task of juggling a bunch of bells and multitasking. It's more of a positioning game than anything.  I am fully aware that some people really like this mechanic, but it's just not for me.

I only have one game in the entire Twinbee series to play... and I can't wait for it to be over and done with.

Final Status: Played

Final Score: 4/10 (a little bad)

King's Knight (NES) Review

King's Knight (NES) Review

Date Released: 1989

Date Played: 21 April 2022

Introduction:

Have you ever heard the story where the game developer Square had lost all of their money and were going out of business?  They had one last ditch effort to make something good... one Final game.  They made a fantasy RPG, aptly named Final Fantasy... It saved the company, became one of the most beloved and highest grossing franchises of all time, and made Square one of the biggest media corporations in Japan.  But, what no one ever mentions is why they were going out of business in the first place.  Well, the reason is that they were making terrible games!  King's Knight is one of those games and is pretty much despised by everyone who has ever played it.  There is an interesting genre mashup concept here, but the execution is so dreadful that it makes this game a bit of a nightmare to play.

Gameplay:  

The game is supposed to be a blend of a vertically scrolling shmup mixed with an RPG.  While there are a few tangential mechanics that you might associate with an RPG, it doesn't really feel like anything more than an overly convoluted and frustrating shooter with mechanics that make the game less fun instead of more deep.  You can tell Square were highly influenced by the game Knightmare on the MSX computer as the graphics, gameplay, and overall presentation are very reminiscent of that game.  While Square's attempt is more... ambitious, it falls far short of that game in terms of fun and playability.

You play as 4 different characters, Rayjack the Knight, Koliva the Wizard, Barusa the Monster, and Toby the Kid Thief.  All of these characters are played in this order and each one has its own stage.  If you die as one of the characters, you lose them for the rest of the playthrough and you move onto the next in the line-up and attempt their stage. This continues until you've played as all four of the characters.  Finally, all of surviving characters team up to take on the 5th and final stage of the game and save the princess.

Gameplay consists of auto-scrolling stages where you shoot enemies coming down from the top of the screen like any other vertical shmup.  Only this time, the screen is absolutely inundated with tons of environmental obstacles that you have to either destroy or avoid.  These consist of pitfalls that are invisible until you hit them, trees, mountains, tomb stones, spires, and all other manner of annoyances.  You can destroy these with your shot to reveal powerups, healing items, items that hurt you if you touch them, secret spells, alternate underworld entrances, etc..  More often than not, though, you'll reveal an enemy that bum rushes you and takes a significant chunk off your health bar. In fact, most of the enemies in the game come from destroying these obstacles. Even though you don't want to destroy any of them because baddies come flying out, destroying these blocks is really the main objective of the game because they contain the items and powerups you'll need to succeed.  It's just unfortunate that most of the screen is covered with them, so you'll be zipping around, destroying everything you can while avoiding the hail of enemy bullets in an attempt to locate what you need. The focus of destroying these blocks makes the game feel more like Breakout to me.  Half the time you ignore the enemies on the screen to focus your shots on destroying part of a hillside or something. It become abundantly obvious that you essentially have to memorize the levels and the locations of all of the powerups to have a chance to progress.  Not only that, you'll have to memorize all of the hazards of the level like the stone walls that appear out of nowhere and cause you to get into situations where death is certain because of the scrolling. There are also sections of every stage where the character has to venture out into the water.  When this happens, there is a strange sort of slippery inertia that makes them feel like they're slipping around on ice.  It's almost impossible to control any of your party with any sort of accuracy and these sections usually spell certain death for the weaker characters.  I could see having something like this one or two times in the game, but it feels like it makes up about a third of each character's stage and is controller throwingly frustrating to play.

The overall objective is to powerup each character as much as possible so that when you reach the final level, they are all powerful enough to tackle the final boss. Sadly, this is more or less of a pipe dream because of the terrible execution of the game.  Firstly, the game is brutally difficult to a point there the developers feel like they are trolling you.  Most of the obstacles you destroy provide you with a negative benefit like an enemy to the face or a health down.  This makes all your hard work tapping away on the fire button feel fruitless and even with a turbo controller it isn't much better.  Secondly, every single character has to make it through their stage alive or you can't complete the final stage.  Lastly, every character has to locate all of their hidden spell tokens during their own stage which can be hidden not only in the stage itself, but also in the underground alternate paths you can take.  If you miss a single one of these on any of the characters, the game will put up an impassable wall at the end of stage 5 and prevent you from even attempting to fight the final boss. This means you have to play perfectly, find every single secret without missing anything, make sure to find all the powerups to max out your characters, and know exactly when to use all of your spells during the final stage.  It's basically just a repetitive exercise in memorization.  

Once you reach the final stage, all of the characters form up into a circle with the one located at 12:00 firing forward.  There are tons of symbols scattered around the floor of the stage that will let you rotate your character's formation by 90, 180, or 270 degrees.  You're supposed to memorize the order to hit these rotations so that the correct character will be in position at the correct time to use his magic ability.  If you miss one of these moments, you won't really be able to finish the stage and will have to start the whole game over. It just adds about another 20 chances for you to make a mistake and completely ruin your chance at finishing the game.  The developers couldn't have possibly thought this was a good idea when they were playtesting it, and I'm not sure I understand how it made it through quality control.

If you do manage to memorize where every single item is, collect them all, play through all of the stages without dying a single time, memorize the exact time to use each character's spells during the final level, and kill the final boss,  then, you'll get to say you finished the game.  All in all, it takes about 23 minutes or so.  So, I guess the enjoyment of this game is supposed to be derived from learning where all of the items are located, but playing the game is so frustratingly difficult that there is little here to spark any sort of joy in the player.

Presentation:

The game looks pretty bad even for an NES game.  Each character's stage is made to suit them thematically.  Rayjack the Knight fights through a colorful and forested area that is the most fun in the game.  Kaliva the Wizard fights through a white haunted town full of white ghosts, white tombstones, white buildings.   This would be fine, except that the enemy bullets are ALSO white.  So, it can be very difficult to see them.  The wizard is the weakest character of the game and his stage is the most difficult.  So, your failure on the second stage is what will usually ruin your run at the final boss.  The third stage is a green and swampy are.  You play as Barusa the Monster... who is also green.  And guess what?  The bullets are green as well.  So, you have the same issue as the white stage.  Luckily, the monster can take a bit more of a beating so you have a tiny chance to succeed.  Lastly, Toby the Theif's level is similar to the first one and has a bigger variance of color.  The bullets are contrasting this time so you'll have an easier (not easy... just easier) chance of seeing what you're doing.  

On top of the strange color pallet choices, the game is also blocky and without much definition.  It kind of gives off a Ghostbusters vibe, if you've ever seen that on NES.  There's very little texture or shading on any of the sprites and the whole experience feels muddled and flat. 

To accompany your frustrations is a short, repetitive, and oddly uplifting soundtrack that you will begin to tune out after it loops for the 10th time in one stage.  I probably got to listen to it 1000 times while playing this game, and I don't think I could hum you a single bar of it.  It's a shame, because Square is typically renowned for their stellar music.  If only that were the case here.  Square had a chance to save face with some better music, but once again, they squandered their chance in this category as well.

Conclusion:

King's Knight was built around a cool idea of leveling up a team of characters over several stages before they meet up for an epic final battle.  Even rolling this idea into a vertical shmup is a cool premise.  The problem is that the game is more focused around locating and memorizing hundreds of powerup items, secret objectives, alternate routes, and guaranteed death hazards.  To make matters worse, you have to play perfectly and find every secret or the game locks you out of completing it.  That's just unfair even for "Nintendo Hard" times.  This game can still be had pretty cheaply and if you're a big collector like I am, you'll probably pick it up at some point.  But, if you do, don't spend hours on it.  Play it a couple of times just to experience it and then put it back onto the shelf, because this game is nothing more than a curiosity and isn't really worth your time.

This game feels like some executives were out drinking one night and came up with a hairbrained idea for a video game.  They then took it to the design team and just gave them a bunch of random ideas they had scribbled on the back of some cocktail napkins.  The development team didn't really understand what the executives were hoping for and were too embarrassed to ask any questions. Plus, they didn't have the technical skills to execute it anyway, so they just phoned in the whole project to get the executives off their back...

Final Status: Played

Final Score: 3/10 (Awful) 

 

Ketsui Deathtiny (PS4) Review

 

Ketsui Deathtiny (PS4) Review

Date Released: 20 November 2020

Date Played: 25 June 2021

Introduction: 

Ketsui is a legendary vertical shmup developed by Cave for the arcades back in 2003.  Its full name is Ketsui: Kizuna Jigoku Tachi and has been ported several times to various consoles ranging from the Nintendo DS, PS3, Xbox 360, and finally this definitive edition on the PS4.  It was ported by the venerable M2 and is part of their ShotTriggers series of games in which they recreate the arcade experience for home consoles as accurately as possible while adding insane amounts of extra features, modes, and training systems. Since its release, Ketsui has reigned at the top of many lists of the best shmups of all time and makes it onto almost every fan of the genre's top 10 list.  It is, without a doubt, one of the most beloved, copied, and hard shmups ever made and is an essential entry for any arcade game lover to play.  It is universally heralded by almost everyone and as of the writing of this review is ranked #1 on Shmups Forum's list of the greatest shmups of all time. 

Story:

While most people, including myself, don't really consider the story in a shmup to be that essential, it can serve to add a little mystique to an already great game.  This is definitely the case with Ketsui.  And, since the game is in Japanese and it's difficult to decipher what's going on unless you speak the language, I'll give a brief overview of the setting for you. In 2054 the world is in disarray because global warming has led to the icecaps melting and covering much of the inhabited parts of the world under water.  Because of this, there is a huge shortage of resources that humanity requires. This has lead most remaining nations of the world to be in a state of perpetual war with each other in their need to gather as many of the remaining resources as possible.  Despite their best efforts, the United Nations has been unsuccessful stopping any of these conflicts because an arms dealer called EVAC has become a tremendously wealthy war profiteer by selling hyper-advanced weaponry to all sides of the conflict. This has led to a huge decline in the world's remaining population and EVAC seems to have no regret in contributing to an even more post-apocalyptic world. Negotiations with EVAC have been unfruitful as they refuse to cooperate or cease operations in their pursuit of money and power.  Their profits have been so massive that they have created their own cities, military installations, and combat force.  Since the UN can't attack them officially but needs to stop them, they create two superpowered helicopters that are each equipped with a pair of pilots.  These helicopters are designed to look like EVAC vehicles so the pilots can sneak into the enemy cities and take them out.  Since this stealthy attack musn't be allowed to be traced back to the UN, the pilots are on a suicide mission and even if they succeed will have to sacrifice themselves and their helicopters and never return home.  In return for this, each pilot is awarded one wish by the UN for their sacrifice.  

It's a very dark premise, but I think it's quite brilliant that your goal in the game is essentially to wreak as much havoc as possible since you know that you'll never get to return. It really embodies the modern doctrine of, "you only live once" and I really like seeing the hordes of enemy vehicles explode by your hand.

I wonder what their wishes were...

Gameplay:

I'm not going to beat around the bush, Ketsui is one of the most difficult games ever made.  Many fans of the genre even say it is THE hardest shmup ever.  This is saying a lot since many gamers consider bullet-hell shmups to already be on the more extreme end of the difficulty scale and relegated to the domain of the niche gamer and otaku. But, there's no need to worry.  M2 has sorted out this issue with this version of the game.  I'll touch on their brilliant solution shortly.

The game is a military based vertical shmup that plays like most of Cave's other games. You have the standard spread shot that lets you maintain your ship's normal speed and is good for taking out large waves of smaller enemies, and you have a focus shot that deals more damage but slows you way down.  The spin, this time around, is that the focus shot has a lock-on mechanic that allows you to keep blasting the enemy even when you move out of a direct line of sight. It's a really, really nice and refreshing mechanic that allows you to focus on dodging the waves of bullets instead of having to aim your shot.  These abilities are modified even more by selecting one of the two available ships in the game.  The first ship has a wider spread shot, fast lock-on speed, and slower movement while the other has a narrow spread, slow lock-on, and faster movement.  Both ships feel really balanced and it's possible to clear the game with either of them.  So, pick the one that suits your playstyle and start learning how to use it as best you can.  Both ships also have the standard bomb that does massive damage and can save you in a pinch.

Ketsui truly stands out in the gameplay department and is a masterclass in refined and interesting enemy placement, bullet patterns, and set-pieces. The whole experience is exhilarating, fluid, fun, and so well constructed that it puts most other shmups to shame.  Learning the levels and finding a way to route through them is basically every shmup fan's dream. In terms of arcade style gameplay, Ketsui is practically perfect and I've never heard anyone voice any negativity about it. The reason for this adoration stems from its simple, yet challenging and brilliant scoring system.  Now, normally, I tend to play for survival when it comes to shmups, but in the case of Ketsui, it's so good that even I got into it.  I'll do my best to explain it here, but keep in mind that reading about it is far more difficult than experiencing it for yourself. 

The game essentially rewards you for risky behavior (it is a suicide mission after all). When you kill enemies with your spreadshot, they drop these green chips. The closer you are to an enemy when it dies, the more valuable the chip is worth and these chips are totaled together to give you a multiplier and increase your score. The value of the last chip you picked up (5 is the highest value) is locked in and you can switch to your focus shot to make all enemies you kill drop chips with this same value regardless of how far away you are. The goal is then to chain this focus shot for a huge multiplier which essentially boils down to getting right up in the enemy's face and trying to dodge the onslaught of bullets until a wave of popcorn enemies fly down and you switch to your focus shot and grab tons of multiplier chips. If you use your focus shot when you're not chaining, it subtracts from your multiplier. Whatever your multiplier is when you finally defeat the end boss becomes a bonus. I know that's a lot of information thrown at you all at once and hopefully it made some sense. You'll just have to trust me that it doesn't take to long to get the hang of things once you figure out what's going on.

The game takes place over 5 stages that each include a huge mechanized mid-boss as well as a final boss.  The first four of these stages have a perfect length and are memorable and action packed.  The final stage, as is the case in most Cave games, is overly long and tends to overstay its welcome. But, overall it's almost perfectly paced with no lulls or downtime.  The waves of enemies fly out at you in way that is reminiscent of a rhythm game and once you memorize everything and get into your flow, it's almost trance-like. 

While I do find this score system to be fascinating, it doesn't really fall into my playstyle. I'm not a, "get up in your face" kind of gamer. However, it was so intriguing and fun that I did learn some routs and timing for the first half of the game that allowed me to get a fairly decent score and pick up a couple of extends. In addition to this, there are a couple of secret 1Ups hidden in stages 3 and 5 respectively and if you're able to snag them will be a huge boon to your success. Believe me when I say that you're going to need these extends because the game, as I mentioned before, is absolutely brutal. If I had to put it into words, I would say that Normal Arcade mode is like... extreme mode on most other shmups. This is even referenced in the game's title. Even the easy difficulty in standard Arcade mode will give most shmup veterans a run for their money. Ketsui roughly translates to, "Determination." And, that's something you'll need in spades to truly tackle this monster of a game.

To help with this, the masters over at M2 have added in a ridiculous amount of features and modes into this PS4 port to help you learn the game and tweak its characteristics to your liking. Firstly, there's a much desired Super Easy mode so anyone can have a chance at this game. It's an absolute blast to play and is one of the biggest features of this version of the game. It really slows down the bullet speed and thins out the massive amount of them that you normally have to deal with. Yet, it doesn't make the game feel like a passive endeavor as there is still plenty of engaging gameplay there for even experts. Additionally, there's the titular Deathtiny mode that acts as an arrange mode that has completely redesigned scoring mechanics and different survival tactics and is the big draw for the PS4 release for huge fans of the game as it rewrites the way the game is played. Not only that, there's a super hard version of the game that was used for a shmup competition years ago that has been previously unplayable until now and is so comically difficult that I'm surprised there's more than a handful of people in the world that would even have the slightest chance to clear it. There's even a custom arcade mode where you can set and change almost any parameter of of the game and has 10 different difficulty settings to tune the the gameplay to your specifications. It really helps you slowly ramp up the difficulty of the game to gradually get better and better and makes getting a clear on the game much easier since you can start from any section of any stage and build up your skills over time. This will eventually let you work up to the 100% perfect port of the arcade version of the game included in this package. If this weren't enough, there's also the Arcade Challenge mode that's become a mainstay of the M2 ShotTriggers releases. It gives you the opportunity to play through every single section of the entire game, on every difficulty, on every loop. You tackle each section of a stage (5-6 each) and if you die, the game rewinds and gives you another attempt to try again. You'll have a set number of attempts before the game makes you restart from the beginning of the section. If you're able to clear that section, you're graded on how well you do and how many attempts it took you before it will allow you to move onto the next one and give it a shot. It basically turns each section of the game into a mini-game that allows you to clear the entire game in segments and is a massive training tool and is the most valuable part of the entire package. Not only that, the game also gives you save states, records spots in the game where you die repeatedly and allows you to replay them whenever you want, and has plenty widgets to let you know how you're doing and where you need to improve. These tools give you everything you need to succeed if you're willing to put in the work.

Presentation:

The graphics of this game are pretty good and have that standard chunky sprite-work that Cave is so well known for. The backgrounds and settings of each stage are standard fare with military bases, ship ports, and cityscapes. With the military theme of the game, you'll encounter an assortment of tanks, planes, helicopters, ships, and other vehicles that are appropriate but aren't really anything special to look at. Unfortunately, this is the same for the bosses and mid-bosses who, while they are huge war machines, aren't particularly inspired in their design and are rather forgettable. All of this is set in a rather drab and dull color pallet that certainly looks like it's straight out of wartime and is most likely exactly the look that the designers were going for. Sadly, none of it is very interesting to look at and is rather boring and generic. I've seen so many shmups like the 19XX series, Strikers, etc. that have this same military based aesthetic but seem to stand out just a little more. Maybe it's because there's no real way to present a war-time game without making it look muted and covered in greys and greens, but it feels like I've seen it all countless times. I wish Cave would have gone with a more outrageous art style and put as much thought into the look of the game as they did with the gameplay.

Sadly, in addition to this, the soundtrack of the game is rather boring and repetitive. It has a sort of rock mixed with electronic EDM feel that is present in a lot of Cave's most known games. Sadly, the chord progressions tend to just shuffle back and forth without ever really going anywhere and there's very little melody and the only slight hook that I can recall from the soundtrack is at the end of stage 4 and is too brief. The sound effects sound good an punchy but are nothing to write home about either and blend in too much with the music the give an overall muddled sound. A truly memorable soundtrack could have propelled this game into the stratosphere and cemented it in it's throne on the top of the shmup pile.

On a positive note, this version of the game contains rearranged music that you can choose to use instead of the standard soundtrack if you want to mix things up. Unfortunately, this music is all based off the original score and just doesn't have a good enough base in terms of its composition to be turned into anything exceptional.

Final Thoughts:

This leaves us with shmup that has an interesting premise, near perfect gameplay, but has a really boring and generic looking art style with mediocre music. The game is extremely difficult on the standard arcade mode, but this release gives enough alternate modes and training tools to provide worthwhile gameplay for anyone who wants to give Ketsui a shot. Despite it's mediocre presentation, the gameplay alone is good enough to not only carry the game, but even launch it into rarified air. While I do side with the general consensus of this being one of the hardest games of all time, I disagree with it being the #1 shmup of all time because of its aesthetic shortcomings. It is such a fantastic game, though, that it probably would have been my favorite shmup of all time if it had better art style, character design, and music. As it sits, it's still near the top of the list, but doesn't quite grab the top spot. Yes, it's so difficult that people spend years and years learning the game and honing their skills just to be able to do the 2nd loop, but that isn't really a requirement to have a worthwhile experience with the game. While I do love the game, and put in enough time to get the platinum trophy for it, I don't want to dedicate my life to its mastery... as that is what the highest levels of the game requires from its most devoted players.

This is honestly the best package I've ever seen on a shmup. The features, modes, and just general gameplay are all top notch and it's truly remarkable what M2 provided with the release of this game and I'll purchase any other game from the ShotTriggers series that they decide to make. There's really nothing more you could ever want from a shmup release.

I would recommend this game to anyone and everyone. If you have the ability to play it, you should do so as soon as you can. It's a must have for anyone who has even the slightest interest in playing shmups and an awesome experience even for the casual gamer.

Final Status: Completed (platinum trophy acquired, 1CC on several modes)

Final Score: 9/10 (almost perfect gameplay set in a boring world)

Bullet Soul (Xbox 360) Review

 

Bullet Soul (Xbox 360) Review

Release Date: 7 April 2011

Date Played: 23 January 2022

Introduction:

Bullet Soul is one of those region free shmups for the the Xbox 360 that all fans of the genre are clamoring to get and commands a pretty high price these days.  It was developed by 5pb, the creators of Phantom Breaker and purveyors of copious amounts of visual novels, and released only in Japan.  Sadly, while the Xbox 360 is a shmup powerhouse, it wasn't popular in the East and this game never really garnered the attention that the developers hoped for.  It was met with a lukewarm reception by both critics and the public alike and it wasn't long before 5pb updated the game and released another version called Infinite Burst that is more well regarded and commands an even higher price.  When held up against some of the other truly fantastic shmups on the system like Deathsmiles, Ketsui, and the DoDonPachi games, Bullet Soul didn't really stand a chance.  However, that doesn't stop it from being a really fun, and albeit very barebones and simple, shmup that is better than everyone makes it out to be.

Gameplay:

As stated above, Bullet Soul is a pretty basic shmup that steals most of its gameplay mechanics from the venerable developer, Cave's various games but dumbs them down to a point that's honestly more refreshing than insulting.  Firstly, there are no difficulty options and you're stuck with the one and only skill level available.  After that, you chose from 1 of 3 ship types.  There's the Blue ship piloted by Yun, a sexy police officer, that has a balanced attack and speed that focuses on a lock on laser, a Red ship piloted by Zenichi, the attitude filled "bad boy" who is the fastest and weakest of the ships, and finally the Yellow ship piloted by Sadahl, an extremely powerful king with lock-on missiles and the highest attack power and slowest speed by far.  Some of the criticisms of the game like to point out that these 3 ships are unbalanced and that Zenichi is so weak that he's practically impossible and that Sadahl is so powerful that he makes the game a skilless and boring endeavor.   Other people have exactly the opposite opinion and and see Zenichi as the strongest while Sadahl is nothing more than a walking (...flying) bullseye.  Whatever the case, I found all of the ships to be viable and very different from each other.  My first 1 Credit Clear of the game was with Zenichi as I found his speed to be very beneficial to my playstyle. However, I was almost able to clear the game on my first try with Yun. Zenichi's power makes him formidable, but really changes how you play.  Whichever you decide to choose, don't listen to the peanut gallery of the internet and let them deter you, they are all a fun and worth your time.  

After you select your ship, you're dumped right into battle.  Gameplay is a fairly standard vertical shmup.  You're given two shot types, a spread shot that is better for weaker enemies and allows you to maintain your speed, and a focus shot that concentrates your firepower on a smaller area but slows you down greatly.  This, of course, was lifted directly from the Cave games that Bullet Soul tries to hard to emulate.  It's a tried and true method that works well here even if it isn't very original. You also have access to bombs to save you in the nick of time that also have a wonderfully forgiving option for them to auto-bomb if you accidentally get hit. In addition to taking ideas from Cave games, this game's gimmick is the bullet cancelling mechanic.  In most Cave games if you kill certain enemies after they've fired at you, the bullets that they've spewed all over the screen disappear and turn into tokens to increase your score.  Learning which enemies do this, and figuring out the timing of when to eliminate them is one of the charms of playing a shmup from Cave's catalog. Seeing all of those deadly projectiles suddenly turn harmless is a dopamine rush and it's exhilarating to see how far you can push it. Bullet Soul, on the other hand, takes this idea to the max and allows you to bullet cancel every single enemy in the game.  This turns the bullets into "ghost bullets" that you can collect to increase your score multiplier.  This means, if you learn to rout the level correctly, you basically won't have to dodge hardly any bullets at all for most of the stages.

Of course, this flies directly in the face of what most people love about playing shmups.  Where is the skill in hanging back and relaxing, right? It's a stubborn take, and it's not entirely wrong.  However, Bullet Soul doesn't really play like that.  In order to collect all of those "ghost bullets" that you need for a high score, you need to get right up in the face of most of the enemies as you take them out so the "ghost bullets" don't have a chance to spread out too much for you to collect them.  If you're playing for score, this will ramp up the difficulty for sure and will give you plenty of a challenge if that's what you're looking for. If you just want to get the 1 credit clear, sit way back and try to pop off the enemies from a distance.  It certainly makes your life easier.

As for the difficulty, the internet is once again all over the place. One commenter said something to the effect of, "when you can just sit in one spot, never move, hold the fire button, and clear the first two stages of the game, you know you have a balance problem."  Others called the game, "very challenging" and were upset there was no easy mode to help them succeed.  Once again, I would advise you to form your own opinion or, better yet, blindly listen to me because I feel like the difficulty was fair and I would put it in the lower-medium range for a shmup. You can't just sit back and never move like that commenter said as you still have to somewhat memorize the patterns of the enemies and take them out quickly before they have a chance to overwhelm you with insane amounts of bullets they throw at your ship. On the other hand, you can take far riskier moves since you know that you'll neutralize the bullets before they can hit you. Knowing how to time all of this is really nice and the stages have a fantastic flow to them. I would say that the game would be fantastic choice for someone looking to get into the genre.

The bosses are a bit of a juxtaposition however.  Unlike most of the other enemies in the game that usually die rather quickly so you can rack up an insane score multiplier, the bosses are overly tanky and take far too long to kill.  They typically have many destructible parts that will allow you to cancel some bullets here and there to give you a little breathing room, but most of the time it feels like a true danmaku bullet hell game.  Some of them have 6-7 phases each and can take several minutes as you slowly chip away at their health bar.  On a positive note, the bullet patterns on the boss fights are pretty unique and have some of the coolest ideas I've seen in a long time. The developer had some real potential for coming up with inspired dodging ideas and it shows.  It's really fun to learn to weave through all of the bullets blanketing the screen and you really get into a nice flow-state when you're in the thick of things.  It's just a shame that they go on for too long and either repeat the same pattern over and over or fly through a series of them before you have a chance to even see what they do.

There's also a score attack mode as well as a training mode, but they really only let you to select a stage and tackle it from the beginning. If you're stuck on a certain stage, this will be handy for some practice, but I honestly never needed it and was able to 1 credit clear the 30 minute long game after about 3 hours of playing it from the beginning each time I had to continue.  If you're interested in just playing through the game and have no desire to 1 credit clear it and don't want to play for score, you get extends every 60 million points and there are unlimited continues that put you right back where you died.  So, you'll have no opposition if you want to credit feed.

There's also a simultaneous 2-player mode if you want to experience the game with a friend.

Presentation:

When the game starts up you're greeted by a very cheaply done anime theme song that has hardly any animation and is composed primarily of the same few pieces of artwork from the game's promotional material.  It does the job, but feels very phoned in and you can tell that the developers just didn't have the time and/or funds to put into this intro.   As for the characters, they have really nice art styles that I enjoy. Sadly, you only really get to see these in the menus, title screen, and as borders to the playfield and consist of the same artwork used in the into.  The gameplay itself has a decent but somewhat uninspired 3D rendered look to it.  It's pretty chunky and has a lot of muted colors that don't stand up to the gorgeous sprite work that is employed so often by Cave or games from the 16-bit era.  But, it's not ugly and can even have some nice effects during the game's 5 levels.  You'll travel over a city scape, through space, a bug infested forest, and dash through hyperspace before coming to the enemy base.  All the levels feel pretty different and each have their own distinctive look and feel to them.  

As for the story, there's none to speak of.  You're not given any exposition or revealing cutscenes or anything.  Even an internet search didn't turn up any information about it.  Maybe there's something in the manual, but unfortunately, I don't read Japanese so I'm at a loss.  The character designs are so unique and interesting that I would actually like to learn more about them. Why is the police officer hanging out with a king?  Is the red guy a pirate?  What is going on? I can't believe I'm saying this, but I wish this shmup had more story to it... 

One really highlight of the game is the soundtrack.  It's a rocking fare with wailing guitars, pounding drums, and a ton of low end to really push your sound system.  It starts off with a bang and never lets up for the entire game and there are plenty of cool guitar harmonies and epic chord progressions to scratch that Japanese power metal itch. You can tell the developers knew they had a banger score on their hands because the game came with a soundtrack pressed to CD right there in the case. That's a pretty awesome bonus and I'm really thankful that they decided to include it.  Most of these songs I wouldn't mind listening to in my car and there is no doubt that my opinion of the game is elevated somewhat by the excellent music as it really does amp up the overall experience. 

 

Conclusion and Final Thoughts:

Everyone is simultaneously both right and wrong about this game.  All of their criticisms are justified as the game does ripoff most of its ideas from other games. Despite the fantastic music, the presentation is pretty humdrum. The character artwork is nice and inspired, but I feel like they never do anything with it. During gameplay, the game looks like a thrift store version of a Cave game... which I guess is actually what this game is.  There is no difficulty select... and the game can either be too easy or too hard based on which character you select and how you decide to play with them.  If you pick the yellow guy and hang back, you're going to get overwhelmed with bullets.  If you pick the red guy and get too close, you're going to be smacked by a ship flying right into you.  I can see how someone would get frustrated or bored going into the game and it not really play the way they expected.  You really do need to understand how the characters work to get the most fun out of the experience.  Sadly, because of the bullet cancelling mechanic, even if you're not playing correctly, you can continue to succeed in a sort of dull and meandering way until the later stages where things really jump up in difficulty before getting demolished.  

Still, I had a really good time with Bullet Soul and enjoyed every minute of playtime with it. I had a lot of fun playing through the levels and really liked the boss battles despite their bloated length. If these had been tweaked somewhat, that would have gone a long way to bringing this game up to the level the developers obviously wished for.  I'm sure this was addressed in the updated version that came out not long after the original.  I may actually have to go out of my way to get my hands on a copy.

Not every shmup needs to be extremely complicated and packed with tons of mechanics and scoring systems. Nor does it need to have such an extreme difficulty curve where it takes dedicated players years to master the game.  Sometimes, you just want to sit back, shoot, and dodge a few bullets here and there. Sometimes, you want to inch right up to the danger zone and see how long you can maintain before meeting your fate.  Bullet Soul does both of these really well and bridges the gap between very casual games and brain meltingly difficult bullet hell shmups.  It won't take anyone very long to get the hang of it and get to experience it to its fullest.  However, because of this, it doesn't have the staying power that die-hard fans in the community crave so desperately.  

Final Status: Beaten (1 credit cleared)

Final Score: 7/10 (A fun shmup lacking in features)