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| | | Tonkin House isn't known for having put out many super games, but this certainly is one. Your fairy woman Sylphia (I guess she was a normal Greek lady until the demons mauled her while she was trying to defend her city and then the gods or someone gave her super fairy power to fight evil) flies along on her little insect wings using four different elemental weapons to combat all sorts of mythological creatures, giant automatons, and the like.
I don't usually like color-coded weapon schemes with multiple weapons where you can only hold one at a time, but here it works okay--they all at least have their distinct advantages, and they all share one power level so you don't really get screwed if you grab the wrong color accidentally.
The mythological settings are fantastically realized, with little centurions in armor running around on the ground below, chucking spears, or giant bronze statues breathing fire at you, or a giant gorgon or minotaur mixing it up with you (maybe they're not giant and you're just tiny, who knows). My favorite boss so far is a huge suit of robotic armor, so big in fact only his head, shoulders, and hands fit onscreen, and as you fly up to him you see a little dude run along a gangway and jump in to a door in his chest, then the thing comes to life (and on another automaton boss I noticed a little figure bail out and run off as the robot blew up). Nice details.
The balance and pacing are good, the intro is neat, the music is nice and moody, each level is distinctly different with completely different enemies, the bosses are gigantic, and the setting is stunning and unique (as far as I can recall off the top of my head) to the genre. A superb shooter. |
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