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)
