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Project S-11
  GBCShooter_VertUC  
  opened by paleface at 20:24:19 08/31/03  
  last modified by paleface at 12:27:18 03/05/24  
  paleface [sys=GBC; cat=Shooter_Vert; reg=NA]
           
I picked this up after having played Paragon 5's later game, "Hardcore Pinball." Like that title this one has fantastic sound. It also sports visual effects truly impressive for the GBC hardware. Besides which, how many vertical shooters are there on GB?
 
So you float upwards in your ship blasting quick badguys and big bosses in lengthy 2D levels, pretty much just like any other vshmup. The weapon system is a bit different (aside from the standard Bomb attack): there are six or so weapons, and weapon powerups cycle between them, Raiden-style. However, when you get one, while it switches you to that weapon, it doesn't lose all your power levels in the other weapons, so when you get another powerup that switches you back you'll have your old weapon back stronger than ever.
 
Some aspects of this game bug me, however. First and foremost, the sluggish control: your ship moves smoothly rather than reacting immediately to your input, and it just feels incredibly unresponsive as it curves drunkenly about. Bad, bad move. It's so unresponsive that you can't really dodge fast shots/ships. Of course, you have a lengthy health meter for each life, and this is another thing I don't like but I suppose it goes hand in hand with the sloppy control, since the game throws super fast projectiles at you which you can't move quickly enough to dodge but since they probably won't kill you outright, you can at least get on through the game a bit. But man, give me instant response and one-hit-death any day.
 
There's no battery back-up, just a password thing to continue your progress later. I hate passwords... even when I try to follow along and write them down, I just can't bear to go back to the game and have to look up the password, input it, then probably get another one, write it down, etc, ugh. The final weird thing is that you can't fly up to the very top of the screen. Normally you wouldn't be up there anyway but sometimes powerups sit up there for a while, out of reach.
 
Something of a disappointment, I'm glad that Paragon 5's later stuff shows improvement over this early effort.
    

 
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