70s-Style Robot Anime Geppy-X - PS5 Review

70s-Style Robot Anime Geppy-X by developer Implicit Conversions and publisher Bliss Brain—Sony PlayStation 5 review written by Nick with a copy provided by the publisher.

Estimated reading time: 5 minutes 

Read More

R-Type Dimensions III - Xbox Review

R-Type Dimensions III by developer Kritzelkratz and publisher ININ Games—Xbox Series X review written by Nick with a copy provided by the publisher.

Estimated reading time: 5 minutes

Read More

ZPF - PC Preview

ZPF by developer ZPF Team and publisher Mega Cat Studios—PC preview written by Jim with a copy provided by the publisher.

Estimated Ready Time: 3 minutes

---

ZPF is a new shoot-'em-up game that looks, sounds and plays like a Sega Genesis game. The demo I played was short with three levels and three different heroes (ships) each with their own play style. 

First up is Knight, a ship that looks like a Knight and shoots swords in a straight line. Each Ship has its own melee attack that is just a short-range attack. Knight's is an attack that shoots out straight and doesn't go very far, but seems to do a decent amount of damage if you want to get close enough to use it. Like most shooters like these, you also get bombs that damage everything on screen, but these all look the same no matter who you play as. Next is Gladius, my favorite out of the three. It looks a little like a motorcycle without wheels and can fly. It shoots in different directions making it easy to hit every enemy that pops on screen, although they seem to do less damage than Knight's attacks (this could just be though). Its melee attack makes a circle appear around the ship and goes around once and disappears. I found it to not be very helpful in a fight. Lastly is Gold. Gold shoots a laser straight and its melee attack is a few balls coming out in front of you to hit anything in short range of you. 

Each ship is shaped differently. The smaller ones are more easy to dodge incoming bullets while Knight, the biggest, seems to do the most damage out of the three. There are three levels in the demo I played. The first one being a fantasy level called Magical Journey. The level is very woodsy with enemies looking more fantasy-based, although they still have a bit of sci-fi to the enemy design. Next is Megalopolis 20XX, a city level in the near future with tanks and helicopters as enemies. Lastly is a sci-fi level called Space Infestation with alien creatures in space. It was definitely the weirdest-looking level in the game. 

I was able to beat Magical Journey pretty easily, but the the other two levels I had to raise how many lives I got in the options menu. At the start of each level is a shop as the demo ends after every level. I wasn't really sure how these worked. In the full game will I get to buy stuff like 1ups after every level? I could raise the number of “medals” I get in the options menu so I could buy things. If I had to guess this will be something in the full game. 

One neat thing about the shops is each level has its own shopkeeper, so each one looks different, a neat little detail. There are of course power-ups you can get on levels that make your shots do more damage and 'secrets' that at the end of the level the game tells you the percentage you found. Though I found some I never really knew what it was I found. You can tell just by looking on the Steam page that the developers are going for a Sega Genesis look, sound, and feel and after playing the demo I must say they did a really good job of capturing the feel. The music and sound effects especially. 

My time with ZPF was short. I was able to see just about everything in the demo in an hour. It did leave me wanting to see what the other levels will be and what setting they will take place in? Time will tell.

Read More

Raiden III x MIKADO MANIAX Review

Raiden III x MIKADO MANIAX by developer Moss and publisher NIS America—Microsoft Xbox Series X review written by Nick with a copy provided by the publisher.

Estimated reading time: 5 minutes

Raiden III x MIKADO MANIAX is a bit of an eyeful when you see the title, but it’s also a shooter packed with content, and is my favorite entry in the long running series. That being said, it’s unlikely to convert non-fans to the shoot-‘em-up genre, while veteran blasters will feel right at home here, even if Raiden III x MIKADO MANIAX doesn’t really add much new to the genre.

At first pass, there aren’t a lot of surprises to be had here. We have a vertical scrolling that mostly pushes from the bottom up towards the top continuously. I say ‘mostly’ because the devs do a really nice job with the background environments. There’s tons of movement, and even as you’re still working your strip of vertical space as you play, there is sometimes a bit of horizontal swerve to your trajectory. In one of the later stages, they make you feel as if you are flying up and down depth-wise as well. It’s just a neat trick of the background, but it looks cool.

Generally speaking, that is one of the greatest strengths of Raiden III x MIKADO MANIAX – the visuals are often quite excellent. I could argue that at times, there’s almost too much going on – especially on higher levels of difficulty. Your weapons take up a big part of the screen, you have constantly shifting background environments and plenty of ships with return fire… it adds up. It can lead to some frustrating moments as at their core shooters like this are about learning patterns and figuring out how to best move around in them, but if you lose sight of the oncoming projectiles, it can feel just a bit unfair at times. In these instances I usually found myself relying on my screen-clearing bombs to try and get out of trouble.

While there’s not much of a story to be had here (a common theme for this genre and a few others like 1-on-1 fighting games), you are basically the last hope against an alien race looking to take over the world. Nothing earth-shatteringly new here. Additionally, the sound is a bit of a mixed bag. I don’t dislike the soundtrack necessarily. It’s appropriately pulse-pounding and generally matches the action, but it’s never particularly memorable either. The varied sound effects fare a bit better though you are performing a lot of repetitive shooting, but there’s enough myriad sounds mixed into the design that it didn’t get annoying either.

The primary aspect however, is the shooting gameplay. Without that, everything else would fall apart and by and large Raiden III x MIKADO MANIAX delivers the goods. Flying is responsive, the three different primary weapons all serve a different kind of purpose and overall it’s a title that’s fun to play through multiple times. There’s a lot going on, as I mentioned before. Not just visually, not just with the bullets flying all over the place, but in terms of the power-ups and various pick-ups you find along the way. There’s little glowing orbs of bonus points to be sucked up, and the way weapon upgrades work is both interesting and at times kind of annoying. You’ll shoot something down that drops a primary or secondary power-up, and these power-ups cycle through different stages every few seconds. Grab it at the wrong stage, and it will change your weapon type. Grab it at the right time, and it powers up your existing weapon.

The three primary types are pretty distinctive, with a gun that shoots out a wide spray of low-powered projectiles but covers the majority of the screen, allowing you to focus more on evasion than aiming. There’s a sort of wrapping, homing laser that leans into enemies in the direction you’re moving, given you good coverage – but not as much as the machine gun. Lastly you have a very focused, high-power laser that shoots straight out from the front of your ship. This makes you focus a bit more at what you’re targeting at, which can get you shot if you’re not paying close enough attention to what’s going on right around your ship – but the reward is fast damage, and they can all be effective in creating plenty of carnage.

While everything about the classic gameplay hits that nostalgic arcade vibe I expect from the genre, I have to say there’s a solid number of options in here to help add some replay value to the overall package. You have a Score Attack mode and a Boss Rush mode that attempt to mix things up a bit. There’s a lot of ability to tweak your difficulty, from bullet-less ‘practice’ mode where you can learn the levels and enemy patters more safely to some seriously intense higher difficulties where the bullet spray is fast and plentiful. There’s some co-op in there as well as a really strange Double Play. It’s an interesting enough idea, but I just could not wrap my head around it and the control scheme, as you are piloting two ships at the same time. Just something about trying to guide two ships at the same time through that with two different sets of controls on the same controller? It was a bit odd for me.

All in all, Raiden III x MIKADO MANIAX is a very good offering for shmup fans. The presentation is solid, the gameplay is sharp and enjoyable and there’s a lot of ways to customize your gameplay experience. This version has added some levels to the original, giving you plenty of options to try out, and the core experience is just solidly done. It’s not the best in the genre, necessarily – but fans of the genre will enjoy what Raiden III x MIKADO MANIAX has to offer.

Score: 7 / 10

Read More

R-Type Final 3: Evolved Review

R-Type Final 3: Evolved by developer Granzella and publisher NIS America —Sony PlayStation 5 review written by Nick with a copy provided by the publisher.

Estimated reading time: 4 minutes

R-Type Final 3: Evolved takes us back to a classic horizontal shoot-‘em-up series. Whether or not this is the ‘final’ iteration or not is probably unknown at this point, but I can say it is a good entry into one of the long-running franchise.

The original R-type is a pretty old game – it released in the mid-80’s. For those who don’t recall the history here, it was actually the last arcade game that Nintendo ever released. Ironically, when it came to console during the 8-bit era, it landed on the Sega Master System – not the Nintendo Entertainment System. Why is that important? It’s probably not to most people, but as someone who had a Nintendo almost right out of the gates and had to wait a couple of years to get his hands on a Sega, the original R-Type was one of those well-reviewed, awesome-looking games that I wanted to get my hands on for some time.

Once I finally did? It did not disappoint. The most popular image from that game had a creature that looked like it came from the movie Alien, but with more of an orange and brown hue than the movie creatures. While R-Type was certainly a very challenging game, it was very rewarding and a lot of fun for me.

This image from the original R-Type is forever seared into my mind now

More than three decades later. R-Type Final 3: Evolved brings a lot of those same qualities that the series became known for, but with more bells and whistles. Some of them work better than others, but on the whole fans of the genre should find a great deal to enjoy here. The R-Type series certainly makes demands upon your reflexes, but it was never quite as quick-twitch as some other contemporaries. There’s always been a heavy emphasis on learning and understanding patterns, especially during stages where you are navigating obstacles or dealing with boss fights where they occupy a large amount of screen space, forcing you to hover and fight in cramped quarters.

R-Type Final 3: Evolved is a tough game. If anything, that has always been one of the hallmarks of the series, and that holds true with this release as well. Of course, as the name would indicate, it has evolved with the times a bit. For one, you have a lot of different types of ships and powers you can choose from. This release is more of an upgrade to R-Type Final 2  - you could almost argue this is a 2.5 version given the many re-used levels and how your prior unlocks from that game carry over. The naming convention here is sort of amusing – like a Capcom Street Fighter game with it’s hyper-ultra-super-flashy-pro-edition. All jokes aside however, the seven new levels in this release are most certainly welcome. They add some excellent visual variety and some new challenges in navigating the landscape.

It's worth noting that as of when I played and wrote this review, there were some online options, with a place where you can see other ships or a sort of ‘home’ space for yourself with some yet-to-be-released multiplayer options that have been proposed, but not fully baked as of yet. These types of features could offer a bit of separation in a genre that doesn’t traditionally have an interactive community, but it’s not really fleshed out at this point.

However, the content that is found in R-Type Final 3: Evolved is well done. Series creator Kazuma Kujo helped to design these seven new stages for this release, and generally look and feel more interesting that the holdovers from the prior game. Visually things look fluid, there has always been a great use of color in the series, but that can almost be a distraction at times. There’s often a lot happening on the screen, and various particle effects and bright bits of background can kind of obscure obstacles best to be avoided and in a game that is already pretty unforgiving, leads to a some cheap deaths that certainly left me feeling a bit frustrated.

Summary

For those willing to take on the challenge, there’s a lot to like about R-Type Final 3: Evolved. It’s interesting to look back at how the series started, and it helps me to appreciate where it’s gone. I will always have a soft spot for the R-Type games, and this one is no different. There is a lot of content here between unlockable ships and levels, though some of them are just rehashes of a release that came prior. The new stuff however, is thoroughly enjoyable. Fans of the shmup genre will find a very good game worth playing here.

Score: 7 / 10

Read More

Raiden IV x MIKADO remix Review

Raiden IV x MIKADO remix is developed by MOSS and published by NIS America, Inc.—Microsoft Xbox Series X review written by Nick with a copy provided by the publisher.

Estimated Reading Time: 5 minutes

Raiden IV x MIKADO remix is a classic shoot-‘em-up title that feels like an excellent homage to the past, even while it still holds up in the present. If you are a fan of the shmup genre? Raiden IV x MIKADO remix is going to feel pretty comfortable and there is a lot to like here. If the idea of a ‘bullet hell’ scares you? Well, Raiden IV x MIKADO remix offers some features that make it somewhat more approachable, but it might not do quite enough to convert you to being a fan of the genre.

What we have here is a vertical scrolling shooter. It has a sort of narrow strip of screen as you fly upwards with stationary graphics flanking either side, as these titles were popularized for arcade machine cabinets. From there, you continuously fly upward through waves of enemies that are shooting things at you or attempting to bodycheck you into submission. The screen is often sprayed with an almost dizzying assortment of colored projectiles that fan out or move in patterned waves to dart around while you return fire to take them out.

It's about as tried and true a formula as exists in video gaming, and the genre remains one of my guiltiest pleasures. These titles tend to be challenging, even brutal at times, but fair as you learn the patterns and the waves and progress incrementally further each time. That being said, Raiden IV x MIKADO remix has some quality of life settings to adjust difficulty levels (right down to a training difficulty that means no shots are fired, making it easier to learn the enemy patterns, If not their projectiles. You can tweak some other settings too to make things easier or harder on yourself as well, and even when you run out of lives, there is progression now that allows you to pick up at your last completed stage. If you’re willing to die and learn (here’s looking at you, Souls fans), you’ll eventually progress.

Beyond the core mechanics of dodging and shooting, you have some different types of shots you can fire, both by picking settings on your ship at the start and augmenting them with powerups found throughout the game. These combined with the traditional screen clearing ‘bomb’ so often found in the genre, you are pretty well-equipped to handle waves of enemies as you figure out which weapon sets you prefer. That said, there are shooters out there with more variety in their weapons, something the Raiden series always feels just a bit light on.

One of the other cool features here, is this title merges different releases together and creates differing styles of play. There are some “Additional” levels, as well as modes that encourage you to take chances in different ways. One offers bonuses for clearing enemies out as fast as possible, encouraging you to learn patterns so you can basically ambush them. I liked the Overkill mode, in which after you kill some enemies, they leave a ‘junk heap’ in their wake. You then have a few moments to fire at that scrap and the more damage you do to it before it blows up, the bigger the points multiplier. It’s a fun bit of risk vs reward as it sometimes leaves you in one place a bit longer than is healthy, as in this genre being stationary is seldom a good idea.

On top of this, you have somewhat more standard modes such as boss or score attacks that have you trying to beat certain criteria within limited / standardized gameplay options. There’s multiplayer available too, if you just need more chaos on your screen at once.

In terms of the presentation and polish, it all looks and sounds slick. The pulsing soundtrack is fantastic and fits the bill nicely, and there’s a lot of fun effects with the backgrounds. A lot of shooters are relatively static with their backgrounds, and some get really involved with moving parts, additional ground-based enemies and things of that nature. Raiden IV x MIKADO remix leans a bit towards the latter, with some fun moments where things zoom and twist around, giving you a sense of flight and movement despite the fact you are always just scrolling upward the entire time.

Still, there are some limitations here to point out. Raiden IV x MIKADO remix is not a very long game – I saw most of what there was to see on easier difficulties in an afternoon. There’s not much variety in the ships or weapons, no secrets or unlockables to dangle in front of the player either. The original arcade game released in 2007 and the age shows a bit, not that the genre has advanced by leaps and bounds in the last decade and a half, but there are deeper options out there for shmup fans. These are pretty minor quibbles in the grand scheme of things though.

Summary

Simply put, Raiden IV x MIKADO remix is a lot of fun. Fans of the shoot-‘em-up genre should enjoy the ride, even if it’s not a particularly long one. It’s a polished experience that is both challenging and well-balanced with plenty of options to tinker with. The presentation (especially the music) is well done, the gameplay is polished and it’s a worthy update to the Raiden franchise.

Score: 7.75 / 10

Read More

Natsuki Chronicles - PS4 Review

Natsuki Chronicles by developer Qute and publisher Rising Star Games—Sony PlayStation 4 review written by Nick with a copy provided by the publisher.

Estimated reading time: 5 minutes

Natsuki Chronicles is a fantastic horizontal shoot-‘em-up game that fans of the genre will absolutely want to add their collection. It has an enjoyable blend of old-fashioned gameplay mixed with some modern design that gives the title a great balance that makes it a whole lot of fun to play.

Set in the same universe as last year’s Ginga Force (another shooter from the same team, but vertically oriented instead of horizontally), Natsuki Chronicles is a more polished, deeper spinoff. That being said, Natsuki Chronicles can stand alone just fine, with plenty of exposition baked into this game as well. The devs deserve some credit for trying to tell a story, even if that’s not really something the shooter genre is particularly well known for.

One of the areas where Natsuki Chronicles is lacking for me personally is the constant dialog that tries to explain what is happening – because there is no English voice acting option. Granted, that’s not unusual in a game like this when it comes over to North America, but it’s pretty hard to try and read the text in the upper right corner when everything on the screen is trying to shoot you dead at the same time.

Beyond that quibble however, the presentation is pretty slick. Visuals are bright with clean graphics and the soundtrack is appropriately catchy and fits the pacing of the game. There are plenty of options that help you to customize the experience as well, such as bullet tracking and more. As is the norm for these genre, there is an awful lot happening on the screen at any one time, with the screen perpetually moving, new enemies entering from all directions and bullet spray covering the screen. Each stage culminates in a boss battle, and they – like the stages – become more intricate as you progress through the campaign.

Early boss battles amount to little more than dodging their bullets and shooting them as you get openings. Later though, they come at you in a variety of different ways. Some of them use different types of attacks, others jump behind your ship while others certainly give a ‘throw the kitchen sink’ feeling. Stages become more intricate as well. Earlier stages pretty much just scroll left to right, but later stages add obstacles at ground level to be avoided, or narrow passages to fly through as doors open and close to the screen moving up and down for short bursts as well as horizontally. This really impacts the pacing and difficulty in positive ways.

This ties into the fantastic weapons systems in Natsuki Chronicles as well. There are three types of weapons your ship is equipped with. One is your primary weapon – think what you fire forward. Highly concentrated laser, homing missiles, angled attacks, large wave shots and more get unlocked and purchased with credits you earn by playing through the stages. There is also a secondary attack which functions very similarly and tends to be focused more on shooting behind you or at angles. The early stages can pretty much be aced with a focus on forward firing, but from about stage six and on? You need to be able to deal with threats that come up behind you, because your ship can’t be turned around or pointed in any direction except to the right.

Lastly, there is a ‘special’ weapon that has a few different flavors but is primarily a shielding mechanism. You can unlock different types of patterns from the default ‘block your front’ to protecting top and bottom or having orbiting protections and more. These run on a recharging shield mechanism that causes damage to opponents and blocks their fired attacks, helping to compensate for otherwise very tight spaces that might be impossible to escape cleanly. It helps that this is not a one-hit-and-you’re-dead kind of game. You have shields, and they regenerate slowly as long as you’re not getting hit.

The variety and purchasable nature of the weapons is one of the more modern, RPG-like aspects of the game, but Natsuki Chronicles’s actual gameplay is very much like an old-school arcade shooter. Just tough as nails, constant pressure coming from all directions. However, Natsuki Chronicles tries to make itself as accessible as possible. As you unlock stages, you can revisit prior ones to earn more credits and experience. Each stage has multiple levels of difficulty you can choose from as well. Higher difficulty has greater experience modifiers. And as I just mentioned… experience. So that’s an RPG-lite element to Natsuki Chronicles that I thoroughly appreciated. There are actually two different experience systems at play here.

There is the player level, which unlocks new weapons for purchase as you gain them. There is also stage experience, which is one of those areas that marries classic punishing difficulty the genre is known for, with a more modernized progression. When you play a level over and over again, you start to learn the patterns and you simply get better at the game. That’s how the genre has always helped the player improve. However, stage experience gives you some additional shields at the start of the level. You can earn up to fifteen of them on any given level, and those extra hits along with your improved knowledge of the stage’s enemies made me feel like with enough patience, I could always push through the stage no matter how much was thrown at me.

For those looking for a more traditional, skills-based arcade experience with less of the other stuff, there is an arcade mode as well as the story one, with ranked leaderboards for those who really want to show off their skills.

Natsuki Chronicles is a smooth, polished shooter that has some great, modern RPG-lite features that make it accessible despite the shoot-‘em-up genre being one traditionally known for being brutally challenging. A bit more effort in localizing the audio would have gone a ways for making the in-stage narrative easier to soak in, but that is a pretty minor complaint about an otherwise very entertaining game.

Score: 8.5 / 10

Read More