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Thursday 6 March, 2008
GAMEPLAY
If surviving this game wasn't hard enough, the designers also put in a special "chain" scoring system that adds even more difficulty to this game. I've played to the point that killing everything in my ships line of fire in any order of color has become relatively easy. However, the chaining system simply boggles my mind with what must be done to keep a "max chain". Chaining works like this: the player must destroy 3 of the same colored enemies to make one chain (ie: 3 red baddies or three blue and vice versa). After destroying 3 of the same color, the player is free to alternate colors to keep the chain going (ie: 3 red, 3 blue, or 3 red, 3 red 3 red, 3 blue... etc...). After 8 chains the player acquires a "max chain" boost which awards the max amount of points. The object of utilizing this scoring system is to keep a "max chain" for as long as possible. With 20 enemies of different colors on the screen shooting multicolored bullets at you, you can see why chaining 3 of the same color continuously would become rather difficult. I've managed to chain the first 3/4 of level one, but after that, it simply becomes too hard for me. However, I'm always up for a challenge.
The last interesting thing about this game is when you absorb enough of the enemies shots (you also get points from this), you can use a "special" which shoots out up to 10 bolts of energy of your current color to seek out the enemies on screen. Because which enemy each bolt seeks out is random, it becomes hard to use this to keep a chain (it is possible though).
DESIGN
The graphics in this game for a SHMUP and especially for a dreamcast is utterly stunning. The designers did a good job in giving the backround a nice 3D feel, truly immersing the player in the fantasy world. This is rare in a SHUMP, because most of this "scroller shooters" depend purely on gameplay rather than 3D and great graphics to capture an audience. The bosses are also beautifully animated and challenging which gives a real sense of completion of each of the five levels. Don't let the five levels trick you into thinking this is a game with a small quantity of gameplay. It probably took me 20 to 30 hours of game time simply to beat the game on easy (without chaining), and I have been attempting different difficulties since as well as utilizing the chaining system. The five levels have definitely kept me entertained for the past year when I first started playing.
Even though the difficulty of this game would probably turn many players away, my advice is to stick with it, for it is one of the finest SHUMPs ever made.
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