| | Side-scrolling shooting games are good. Giant robots are good. Put 'em together and what do ya got? Well, a fun but not great game.
Configuring your mech from different body sections is a definite plus and adds that magic "replay value" crap that everyone loves. Depending on what legs and body you pick your robot might be able to double-jump, and you get to pick from hand-to-hand and missle weapons of varying strengths.
Then you run along smashing other robots and tanks and things and the occassional very large boss. All good fun. I particularly like how once your robot is destroyed, you jump out as the pilot and fight on even though you're just a tiny little pygmy with a jet pack. Of course, you'll probably get smeared instantly.
And that brings me to the main problem I have with this game: you get hit, a lot, and there isn't really any way to avoid it as far as I can see: a bunch of robots come along, fire bullets everywhere without a gap that your robot can fit through, so you're going to get hit at least once, probably several times (your robot can take six or seven hits). You'd think the aforementioned double-jump might come in handy here except it isn't a regular double-jump, instead the second one jets you straight forward, which isn't very helpful most of the time. There's also a ground dash move but in addition to the control input not being incredibly intuitive (of course, I also suck at dashing in Mega Man), it's not like you can dash beneath most incoming fire. So what's the point of it? Eh.
Oh, the game is also pretty short since continuing starts you right up where you died (yes I am weak and use continues). So you just rip right through and then you're done and you can play in the other mode but I'm not sure what the difference is except maybe the playthrough in the "PlayStation" version is a little longer because instead of choosing one of two levels to go to after each level, you tend to just go through both one after the other.
Now shooters tend toward brevity but most of 'em challenge you to get through unscathed, so you gotta practice a lot and in this way get a lot of play time out of an otherwise short game. Wolf Fang's controls and attack patterns are too sloppy to allow precise play like that so it's hard to see the point in playing through again: 'can I take just 20 hits instead of 30 this time?' just doesn't really motivate me that much. |
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