| paleface [sys=PCCD; cat=Shooter_Horiz; reg=JPN] |
| | | Cute horizontal shooter in which you block up lots of weird things in your Fantasy Zone-like egg-shaped ship on your way to rescuing your would-be girlfriend from some demonic freak who kidnapped her while the two of you were engaging in some flirtatious graffiti.
The speed at which stuff zips past from right to left is pretty impressive here. One early stage in particular comes to mind where when you blow someone up, their explosion just whips past you at breathtaking speed, and you feel like it's all you can do just to hold on for dear life.
The combination of wacky cartoon characters with this high speed chase is unusual but pretty kick ass. Of course, things stop when you get to a boss, and you have to slug it out toe-to-toe, immobile-like, but the bosses make up for this with super size and extra weirdness.
I love the weapon system: you have three different upgrade paths to choose from, similar to some of the Gradius/Parodius games, and everything you get just adds something to make you more kick-ass--so much more enjoyable than those shooters where you have to avoid getting powerups because you don't want to swap away your current weapon.
I don't usually notice sound effects particularly but right off the bat the sounds in this game jumped out and struck my ear in a "hey! pay attention" kind of way. Good stuff.
Some sound dropout can occur when a lot of stuff triggers at once, however, and you can hit serious slowdown when you have a bunch of options and side weapons and a bunch of enemies fire at you simultaneously--which happens pretty frequently really, this is a game that doesn't waste time mucking around (after you kill a boss there's a load of a few seconds, then you're whizzing right along in the next level without having to wait for a score update, intro sequence, or other such delay). It is difficult and tricky and quirky, and well worth playing. |
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