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Rayxanber II
  PCCDShooter_HorizJ  
  opened by paleface at 02:56:55 06/07/04  
  last modified by paleface at 12:25:50 03/05/24  
  paleface [sys=PCCD; cat=Shooter_Horiz; reg=JPN]
           
Data East's US-based wing, Data West, made this horizontal shooter, and those dudes must have been some bad-ass shmuppers because this game is hard as heck.
 
Hard, and not all that fun. How do robots that stay in place thrusting their arms at you for an instant kill sound? Or how about ships that float slowly backwards along the screen, taking up about two-third of the screen height, and just shoot little ships out of their top and bottom over and over? How about three of them? How about a weird pincer thing that comes out of the back of the screen with no warning and kills you instantly? Fun yet?
 
No, not really. Dig this first boss: a big impressive, Gradius-style organic monstrosity taking up the right side of the screen. All good so far. Now, he does hit pattern: open arms, fire spread shot. Repeat. Over and over, doesn't do anything else. You can sit in a gap between the shot spread and just hold fire until he dies. It takes a while, sure, because his arms keep closing to block most of the shots, but after a minute or so it dies. Whee.
 
I don't like the powerup system much: a ship fades in, you shoot it, it leaves a little clock-like circle with a hand revolving in 90 degree increments. Get the thing and it gives you a shot type based on the color, which shoots its main shot in the direction the clock was facing when you grabbed it. So yeah, your main shot could be going up, down, or backwards. Fixed. And yet this is a horizontal game where you only ever fly to the right. Maybe having a gun fixed up, down, or left isn't nearly as useful as one that shoots right? You'd certainly think so.
 
Some of the graphics are okay, and they move quickly enough, but then there are the annoying things like the girders flashing by in the foreground in the first stage, and the ship sprites in general look a little weedy and generic. The sound effects are dull, but the music isn't too bad.
 
It's just that the game isn't really fun.
 
  paleface 02:58:06 06/07/04
           
The game uses a checkpoint-style system, so when you die you usually have to go through the previous half of the level again. Boooo.
    
 
references:
· Rayxanber III (PCCD)

 
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