Override (PC Engine)

Vertical
Checkpoints OFF
1 Difficulty level
6 Stages (loopable)
Ship speed selectable
- - - - - - -
Developed by Sting
Published by Data East in 1990

After playing Override for a little while it’s easy to notice a good amount of influence from two developers that helped shape the 8 and 16 bit console scene back in the day: Compile and Hudson Soft. As far as I know they have no saying at all in this relatively obscure vertical shooter, which has a counterpart for the Sharp X68000 computer system under the name Last Batallion. As usual in the case of obscure titles, both were only released in Japan.

The good news is that Override incorporates some of the best traits from 8/16-bit Compile, such as frantic action and a flashy weapon gallery, all of it exquisitely programmed to run with absolutely no slowdown. On the other side, the game fails to harness the potential to be one of the best shmup outings in the PC Engine library, mainly by looping eternally with little increase in difficulty while still preserving a generous extend scheme of an extra life for every 70.000 points scored. To keep it PC Engine only, it suffers from the same unfortunate fate of Toy Shop Boys, another example of wasted raw material.

Regardless of the above observations, there’s no denying that a good deal of quick fun awaits those who decide to try Override. The story goes that alien creatures once again were threatening the world, invading the underground and building secret bases in order to kill the planet from within. How do I know that? Because I’m a psychic and I have just concocted this story, of course! Outside from the cool display of the spaceship in the ending and the brief take-off animation after you press START, there are no other special frills in this game. So prep your controller, make up your own story and off you go blast aliens across six levels of decently sized duration.

Forests must be protected from alien scum

Command inputs are simple: button II shoots, button I switches between three preset speeds. Special harmless carriers zap across the screen from one side to the other at defined intervals and release items when hit. These stagger down slowly before disappearing, and range from the ever-present power-up (P) to color-coded weapon icons and energy recovery cells (E). Each E refills one lost cell in the energy gauge, which comes with three slots and allows a good survival window before you lose a life. P is responsible for upgrading the main shot, whereas auxiliary orbs are only generated after collecting the first colored weapon item.

Color items always cycle in the same order: blue (trailing options, forward laser), purple (fixed options, side shot), red (fixed options, 45º shot with homing ability at max power), yellow (moving options, directional reverse-shot), green (rotating options, forward wave shot), then blue etc. The first color to emerge is always the next after the one you’re currently using, so if you want to take the same color for a much needed upgrade (maxes out at 4) just wait to take the item as it approaches the bottom of the screen. As a rule of thumb, unless you’re desperate for a specific item there’s no need to rush to get it.

The last observation about the gameplay is actually the most important one. By refraining from shooting you’ll notice a green flare appearing on the tip of the tank-shaped spaceship, and if you wait a little longer the ship will start to glow. Push the fire button and watch as an outward blast of pure awesomeness devastates everything in front of the ship, enemy firepower included. This special charge blast is in fact the most effective way to deal with bosses, especially when you start to notice their attack patterns are built around the recharging time of your ship. It’s also a very useful resource in offensive and defensive ways against a few enemies during the stages, and the best thing about it is that you can use it even with a bare ship.

Attract mode - Overriding evil with justice
(courtesy of YouTube user narox)

If Override doesn’t thrill you on graphics, at least it excels at providing fast moving sprites and several sections with nice parallax levels. The soundtrack is fitting, but the highlight in my opinion is the BGM for the first level. An aspect that bugs me a little is that I found the first speed setting to be fast enough for the whole game, so I never used button I anymore once I figured that out. A clear point of unbalance in the overall challenge lies in the 4th stage - it's much harder than the others, with lots of walls, overlapping enemy waves and turrets firing heat-seeking lasers that pour down the screen while giving you little time to react. It’s an awesome, intense level, but it should’ve been moved to the end of the game since it doesn’t seem to fit the stage order. A boss parade precedes the final boss in the last level.

I haven’t delved deep into the Soldier series on the PC Engine yet, but many people consider that Override bears the same style and vibe of those games. Therefore if you have a soft spot for them you might also end up enjoying this little shooter. Sadly, when you go beyond the basics and start analyzing the game as a whole you can’t help but think it misses many opportunities to be a top shooter. Excess power-ups give absolutely no extra points. Since the health/life system with no checkpoints feels too generous (just like the extend scheme), why not apply special bonuses for extra lives upon completing the game and do away with the loops?

The above paragraph is just some food for thought, even though it's possible to simply break the scoring system by safely milking projectiles from bosses. In successively looping the game I at least tried to get a no-miss on stage 4. I failed it, then took this picture in stage 6-2 before turning off the console.

Star Soldier (NES)

Vertical
Checkpoints ON
1 Difficulty level
16 Stages
Ship speed by icons
- - - - - - -
Developed by Hudson Soft
Published by Taxan in 1988

We all know that being late to the party often comes with some sort of loss, and chances are we’ll end up partying alone. Nevertheless there are occasions when this is actually a good thing, as in approaching a game that had a healthy share of praise and fame in the past only to find out it’s actually very disappointing at its core. And by keeping a distance from hype one gets to know the real content beneath raving reviews, nostalgia patrolling trolls and any sort of rose-tinted glasses devised by gaming or marketing phenomena.

In my humble ignorance for a long time I thought Star Soldier was originally an arcade title, mostly because it’s considered to be a spiritual sequel to Tecmo’s Star Force. Only very recently did I know that Star Soldier was actually born on home platforms, more specifically the NES and the MSX – since I can’t precise which one came first I’ll assume both were released simultaneously by Hudson Soft in Japan in 1986. For some reason I can only relate to clever reading of audience preferences back then, Star Soldier became very popular and spawned a series of similarly designed games, some of them as spin-offs and some as proper sequels.

Having played this for the first time ever, I was left wondering in what sort of trance gamers in the 80s were to even consider it a good game since almost everything about it rubs me the wrong way. Just for the sake of comparison, in my opinion Star Force for the NES is leaps and bounds a more pleasing experience in its basic yet brutal simplicity.

That's what a star brain looks like, Caesar!

On the outside Star Soldier looks a lot like Star Force. In every stage players fly through outer space then over terrain, destroying ground blocks and a series of different enemies that arrive in specific formations. The order of the enemy waves is always the same and no wave (or wave group) appears before the previous one has been obliterated or has left the screen, that’s why after a while you can have different enemies in the same places even between stages. The normal boss to be faced is the star brain, but every four levels you’ll be fighting a larger boss called super star brain. A hidden timer exists for every boss fight, and if you take too long to beat the boss you’ll have to replay half the level in order to have a second/final go against him. And if you time out again the boss will start to shoot nasty homing bullets.

Bullet count and overall enemy aggression is slowly increased as you make your way across 16 stages. These are of considerably repetitive nature since there’s no special aspect at all about the graphics, which basically just change colors and tiles from beginning to end. When you hit little Ps on the ground you release a floating S icon that serves as the basic power-up: the first one works as a speed-up and a firing rate enhancer, the second one adds an additional stream to the main shot an a single rear shot (2-way) and the third one grants the ship with the famous 5-way spread shot the game became known for, as well as providing a shield that protects the ship against bullets (collisions are fatal). Further power-ups will work as smart bombs and kill all enemies on the screen.

Besides the S power-up there’s also an extensive gallery of hidden items to be discovered, and this is one of the many aspects of Star Soldier that I seriously dislike. Just thinking about it makes me angry because what’s the objective point of having an item hidden in the scenery but only being able to uncover it if you have a certain combination of digits in your score? Make life unnecessarily harder, suck the fun out of the game? In all my sessions, for example, I was simply unable to collect any of the 1UPs even though I knew exactly where they were! I won’t discuss how you’re supposed to unveil this or all the other hidden tiles in Star Soldier, so I’ll just recommend the reader to check the Strategywiki page on the game. Suffice it to say, I think I haven’t dug up any of the other items except for a big P (instantaneous maximum power) maybe once or twice. It sucks, but at least you get three score extends at 50, 200 and 500 thousand points...

That being said, would it be okay to say that I probably lacked the patience to really appreciate Star Soldier? I don’t think so, especially when I remember how I first felt when my ship wasn’t able to shoot. When I started playing I thought those bursts of unresponsiveness were due to a faulty controller, but then I noticed there are chunks of the scenery where the ship “hides itself” from the enemy. It wouldn’t be that bad if it weren’t for the fact that you also can’t shoot while covered. Knowing when this cloaking effect will take place is impossible because there’s no clear border anywhere, and until you realize what’s really going on confusion kicks in hard, with the ship resurfacing over enemies and precious items being out of reach. Tip: if you find yourself hidden get out from the closest border and you’ll be able to fly back over the terrain.

Attract mode
(courtesy of YouTube user GAMEINFO)

What makes me really sad about this game is that it comes out as a missed development opportunity over all the good there was in Star Force. As if the above annoyances weren’t enough, if you get hit with the 5-way weapon the ship is downgraded to 2-way but the next S item won’t restore 5-way. In order to recover the 5-way shot you need to take another 4 hits to lose the shield, only then being able to collect the S for the 5-way upgrade (successive power-ups while shielded in this condition will only result in the smart bomb). If things become too hectic while chasing bullets in order to get hit, guide yourself by the music. There are only two BGMs in the whole game after all, one for a default-powered ship and another that plays while you have an active shield (there's a very brief window of invincibility when you lose it).

Given all the weird traits I pointed above, what’s left to go for in Star Soldier? I’d say try to kill everything possible, including the big head that materializes from four pieces before these pieces are put together (80.000 points). There are six hidden X tiles in each stage that can be easily uncovered and destroyed while increasing in value, and if you find them all the last one will be worth 80.000 points (don’t wait to destroy them in the lower half of the screen though, they become “invincible” in their way out). And if you manage to blast both big eyes that precede the boss fight at around the same time you’ll also get 80.000 points. Lastly, don’t even think of entering the battle with a stock controller… Turbo function is a must, otherwise you can kiss goodbye to most of these bonuses.

Honestly, I don’t think I was ever this annoyed with an NES shmup. I don’t find the idea of hiding hidden items even more the least bit fun. Being hit to power back up again? No-no. Being prohibited from shooting? This last aspect only made a little sense in the last quarter of the game. At that point enemies start spitting the same timeout homing bullets from bosses, which remain on screen for a few seconds chasing you around and to which hiding beneath the ground does become a valid resource (another way to avoid the homing missiles is to downgrade the ship to its default firepower).

Compared to the evil difficulty of predecessor Star Force, Star Soldier is at least fairly manageable. Both bullet count and enemy speed aren’t as crazy, and the few overlapping waves aren’t nearly as brutal. I’m glad I’m done with it and I just hope the next chapters aren’t as annoying as this one. When the last super star brain explodes you’re treated with the following screen showing your completion score. I played it straight and didn’t time out any boss. The next game in the series is Super Star Soldier.

Thunder Force III (Saturn)

Horizontal
Checkpoints OFF
3 Difficulty levels
8 Stages
Ship speed selectable
- - - - - - -
Developed by Technosoft in 1989
Published by Technosoft in 1996

Thunder Force III on the Sega Saturn! In my case, through an S-video connection that surprisingly doesn’t make the game any more gorgeous than it is on a good old Mega Drive. Is that supposed to be bad, some people might wonder? Of course not! That just confirms how much of a 16-bit marvel this game actually is. Make no mistake, my friends: for those who lived that era to the fullest Thunder Force III was pure bliss. It was the bee’s knees. We were kids, gaming was naively fun and Technosoft was then a young god on the rise.

The success on the Mega Drive was such that years later a compilation titled Thunder Force Gold Pack 1 brought both Thunder Force II and Thunder Force III to Sega’s 32-bit platform, for the joy of nostalgia buffs everywhere. It’s been 20 years since this disc’s release, and here I am savoring the Saturn port for the first time. Blame it on a great bunch of shmupping peers who never cease to gleefully push me to play games I wouldn’t dare for the most different reasons. And the most interesting aspect in this case is that we were supposed to play it on Normal difficulty, something I never really cared about since I always went straight to Mania (Very Hard).

Why straight to Mania, you might ask?

Opening animation for Thunder Force Gold Pack 1
(courtesy of YouTube user King Arthur Pendragon)

Even though this game is known for wowing players and onlookers alike, it does have an inherent problem that might let many people down: it's just too darn easy in its default setting. Of course we all die here and there when we start to play it because of instant walls crushing you from the sides or enemies zapping quickly into the screen. However, Thunder Force III becomes a cakewalk once you memorize these obstacles, power up the ship and figure out the importance of the hunter (H) and sever (red S) upgrades. On top of that you get one of the most benevolent extend schemes of the genre, which grants extra lives like candy both by scoring and by collecting 1UP items.

For example, it's hard for evil final boss Orn to stand a chance when you get to him with more than 10 lives in reserve because even if you die plenty it's still possible to pound him away. The most logical challenge factor here, obviously, is to beat the game while losing the miminum amount of lives since each one will be worth 10.000 points in the end. Remaining credits are a no-brainer since you'll be conquering a 1CC, with a useless ×1 multiplier for playing on Normal difficulty. And then maximizing score comes down to killing everything in sight and milking the little drones or missiles you see coming out of hatches/enemies.

In order to try and boost my score this time around I started the game on planet Haides. By doing that you come out of the first level with the hunter weapon and a shield, resources that help greatly in scoring (you won't get those by starting on default planet Hydra). Shield is self-explanatory, but hunter is particularly useful because it will home on anything, including hidden items that must be shot at to be revealed. I don't want to repeat myself too much, so for further info on gameplay details please refer to the text I wrote on the Mega Drive original.

Gargoyle's lair is so cozy!

The important thing to note here is that Thunder Force III is still fun despite being too easy on Normal difficulty. I always crank up the volume when I'm playing it because the music is amazing, as well as the sense of flow it lends to the action. One little drawback of playing the Saturn port is that since the sound emulation had to be accomplished with CD tracks you need to cope with those brief pauses when the BGMs loop. Everything else about the game is just like in the original, with an added bonus of a nice low-res animated intro that plays before you choose which title you'll be playing.

My first 1LC when playing on Normal resulted in the score shown below. Then I found out that trying to maximize the score is a bit tricky, seeing that in a couple of further credits I thought I had killed more enemies even though my final score was lower.

X-Multiply (Saturn)

Horizontal
Checkpoints ON
3 Difficulty levels
7 Stages (loopable)
Ship speed by icons
- - - - - - -
Developed by Irem in 1989
Published by Irem / Xing in 1998

I have mixed feelings towards X-Multiply. I do enjoy the organic setting that supposedly puts you inside the organs of a living being. It's as if Irem had deviated from the path established by R-Type and somehow entered the world of Konami's Life Force. The issue here is that the game falls a little short in its graphic design, which at times lacks background detail and doesn't quite feel like an evolution from the company’s previous titles. The music, however, is absolutely superb in its otherworldly, deliciously eerie nature. All of this makes me think of X-Multiply as a lost link between the first wave of big horizontals and their sequels/progressions, seeing that it doesn’t really belong to either category.

As explicitly stated in the title, X-Multiply comes bundled with Image Fight in the Image Fight & X-Multiply compilation, released for the Sega Saturn and the Playstation only in Japan around ten years after both games were out in the arcade scene. Even though Image Fight is the superior one here, X-Multiply at least doesn't fail to provide decent atmosphere, fair challenge and reasonable recovery possibilities upon death. This last aspect of the game is what makes it relatively approachable especially when compared with Irem's own classic R-Type, where dying in certain parts of the credit pretty much meant a sorry GAME OVER.

X-Multiply on the Sega Saturn - Intro, attract mode and 1st stage
(courtesy of YouTube user Kylemeister13)

Throughout all seven stages of X-Multiply the player will be subject to a wide array of organic enemies, from a legion of spores glued on walls to deadly amoebas, pustulent orifices, tissue rashes releasing violent antibodies, moving bowels, acid droplets, invincible worms and alien parasites a.k.a. bosses. Gameplay couldn’t be more simple because only one button is used to shoot, with rapid fire naturally assigned to button B. Above all, the feature that defines this game is the moving pair of tentacles acquired by the spaceship as soon as the first power-up is collected. These tentacles bounce about gracefully as the player moves, resting in an elegant vertical alignment if you stop moving. And what a treat, the mechanical transmission of the tentacles is so advanced that not a single ounce of inertia exists! Thanks, Irem.

Not only do the tentacles increase your firepower and range, but they also provide protection against most enemy projectiles. Nonetheless special attention should be taken when moving them, since there’s always the risk of a stray bullet getting through. The first power-up collected will only activate the tentacles, but after the second one you’ll start to take advantage of their abilities according to a simple color code: red (lasers), blue (homing missiles) and yellow (directional shots – shoot backwards if you move forward and vice-versa). Since there’s no need to stick to the same item to upgrade your firepower just take whatever comes your way and be happy.

Other items available consist of speed-up (S), speed-down (Ƨ), ground bomb/missile (B) and extra life (1UP). Those Darius-like ground missiles can be fairly destructive when used at point blank distance (precious advice here), particularly after you take the second B, and while I do appreciate the ability to reduce speed if you happen to take successive speed-ups, in my opinion just one speed-up is enough to play through the whole game. No matter how many you decide to use, even the most simple memorization effort eventually leads to victory since this is a classic methodical shooter.

And even though it's definitely there, rank in X-Multiply seems to be simply related to the number of lives you have in stock (that's easily noticed when you die against one of the later bosses). Note that the only extra lives appear halfway into stages 3 and 6.

Come into my swift, swift arms

X-Multiply’s highlights are the bosses, a gallery of huge parasites that live up to the legacy started by Dobkeratops. Without a doubt they’re the best visual assets of the game, which might go unnoticed due to the amount of dodging you might need to execute at times. The fourth boss, for example, is nicely animated in its horrific representation, detaching the chest so that it chases you around amidst spreads of huge pink bullets, only then exposing the pulsating heart that needs to be destroyed for the battle to end.

Unfortunately, when talking about the porting job of this particular release I can’t help but show disappointment because X-Multiply suffers from the same resolution issue of Image Fight. Simply put, the game is just “too big” to fit a regular TV screen, to the point where the lower HUD won’t even show your score properly! To get around that the publisher added extra functions to the shoulder buttons: L moves the HUD into the visible area, R moves it back to its starting position. Don't get your hopes up though, seeing the HUD is totally detrimental to survival because it blocks a large chunk of the screen... And sadly there’s nothing to be done about the upper border, so I needed to educate myself on how far I could go in certain levels to not die by touching it. At the expense of sharpness, the Playstation port deals with that more gently.

Maybe retributing the move made by Irem, later on Konami took the concept of this game and further developed it into Xexex, a game that kinda turns X-Multiply into R-Type by having the tentacles detach from the ship just like the original force pod from the latter.

My best effort with the Saturn version of X-Multiply is below. I reached stage 2-6 playing on Normal difficulty.

Tasac (NES)

Vertical
Checkpoints OFF
1 Difficulty level
14 Stages (loopable)
Ship speed fixed
- - - - - - -
Developed by Thin Chen Enterprise (Sachen)
Published by Sachen in 1992

If you want to know which were the worst shmups ever released for the NES, leave it to developer Thin Chen Enterprise, also known as Sachen, to educate you on the mediocre side of the shooting force. Some might argue that this not-so-honorable distinction should actually be attributed to Mega Soft, but in my opinion Sachen wins. We can’t even say it’s a matter of quantity over quality because quality is a characteristic that’s sorely lacking in any of these companies’ outputs.

That said, let it be known that this extremely rare game called Tasac represents Sachen’s magnum opus of ineptitude. With the exception of Huge Insect (which manages to be even rarer), it was the last shmup produced and released by Sachen. Looking from the outside I had hopes it would somehow improve a little over their previous stuff, but oh boy I was wrong… The box art is interesting, as well as the deceivingly decent opening screen, but everything falls apart after you press start. Monotonous action, dull enemies, stupid power-ups, botched interface, drab colors, empty backgrounds, atrocious music, screwed-up resolution, it’s all there in pathetically executed 8-bit programming.

In outer space no one can hear you yawn

In the world of Tasac the player is fighting against alien bionic mutants. The problem is that the spaceship you pilot is a generic piece of junk capable of firing three types of shot with button A, according to items released at random by destroyed enemies. You have L (straight shot), F (five-way shot spread) and T (three-way laser spread), the latter being the default weapon. All of them are upgraded slowly by taking the same successive item or faster by collecting the P (power-up). And that’s it, there’s nothing else to say about the gameplay other than getting familiar with the eight variations for enemies and their recurring naive patterns.

In every single stage the shadow of the boss appears on screen and stays there for a little while before solidifying into the boss itself – an irregular arrangement of turrets that try to protect the core. These increase in size with every successive level, to the point where you’ll have more than 15 turrets to destroy in the final stages. Luckily you don’t need to eliminate them all, so if the core becomes visible a quicker kill can be achieved.

Although the basics of the gameplay aren’t broken, Tasac suffers from many problems that lead to quick boredom. For example, there is only one regular enemy that shoots bullets, and even those might not be considered proper bullets (the enemy ship halts at mid-level and explodes in seven big pieces of junk). All others arrive and move around in a never-changing fixed pattern for you to gallery-shoot them. There is no wave overlapping at all, so as long as there’s at least one enemy on screen or an item released by the current wave the next one won’t come into play. On top of that, all bullets fired by the boss’s turrets are destructible, and later on sprite manipulation becomes so heavy that both bullets and enemies start disappearing without being hit by anything.

In a nutshell, it gets boring fast.

Will I make it to the boss?
(courtesy of YouTube user NesShortGameplays)

Another reason why Tasac is even more tedious than your usual Sachen shooting game is the lethargic nature of your weapons. They’re slow. Very slow. The three-way lasers aren’t that bad once you upgrade them a little (lasers get thicker), but the severely capped firing rate of the 5-way gun makes it pretty much useless, especially against later bosses. The straight shot fares better, but eventually you’ll miss some piercing/side coverage. Just to have an idea of the mediocrity that’s present here all you have to do is check Papillon Gals/Galactic Crusader, which was also delivered by Sachen. It’s kinda close in spirits to Tasac, but seems like a masterpiece in comparison.

Don’t bother checking your score during gameplay. You’ll only ever see it in-between stages and when the credit is over. The same happens with the number of lives and the extend routine that’s hidden by the inability to see the score. Speaking of hidden, watch out for the extended area at the bottom of the screen, which can safely hide your whole ship! And this is yet another case where your shot reappears from the bottom if you hug the upper border of the playing field.

Isn’t there anything good about Tasac then? Well, for all it’s worth it allows co-operative simultaneous play. And the ending shows a neat still of the spaceships flying into glory before, well... As if all of the above wasn’t enough to make you sleep in front of the TV, this travesty loops with practically no difficulty change whatsoever (I tried moving the switch in the cartridge case from Old to New and noticed no alterations at all in the gameplay). In the final score shown below I succumbed out of sheer apathy in stage 2-10.

Star Prince (Nintendo DS)

Vertical
Checkpoints ON
1 Difficulty level
8 Stages
Ship speed fixed
- - - - - - -
Developed by indies 0
Published by Namco Bandai in 2007

I feel a little sad when certain video game releases are "too" Japanese, since this often tends to detract from their appeal in other markets. Game Center CX - Arino no Chōsenjō (Arino no Chōsenjō means Arino's Challenge) is a prime example of this: a compilation title originated from a TV show where a comediant would talk about old video games and try to beat them. Luckily for a few Westerners, the cultural barrier imposed by the language was gone when a translated port appeared in the US as Retro Game Challenge. Unfortunately it failed to garner attention and was eventually considered a failure by its publisher, botching any plans the company might have had of also porting the sequels.

Game Center CX has lots of options and menus, many of them leading to libraries, galleries and boring dialogue (for me at least). Of course one can go directly to Retro Game Challenge for an easier interface since the Nintendo DS has no region lock, however I made the choice to get the Japanese package so I had to deal with all that foreign text… which is a challenge in itself, but fortunately finding what really matters – the games – isn’t hard at all. These span several genres and come presented as Famicom/NES titles, complete with fake developers and release dates. The shmup highlight is Star Prince, “released” by Tomato on 6-JUN-1986.

Star Prince owes a lot to the likes of Star Force, Star Soldier and early outings of developer Compile. Much of its design was, in fact, influenced by Shinya Arino’s Star Force challenge in one of the first episodes of the show. The result is a fun and fairly charming homage to these old classics, one that fits the DS format well and doesn’t make you struggle with the secondary screen, unless you decide to have fun inside the virtual game room and you’re bothered by the two boys who’re supposedly watching you play.

Princes, princes who adore you...

In all stages players must fly over terrains full of turrets and destructible blocks, dealing with the mandatory stops against bosses and mid-bosses and all sorts of incoming aerial waves that approach from everywhere. Button Y provides autofire while buttons A or B fire a single shot and activate a shield when held, a protection device that initially covers the front of the ship but is automatically upgraded to a full circling barrier once you take the first power-up. Power-ups are always released by a particular ground enemy and consist of P (power/straight shot), S (spread shot), B (back shot) and M (missile shot). There are no upgrades beyond acquiring the characteristics of each weapon, but the lack of further levels of firepower couldn’t be more deceiving. After all, Star Prince’s gameplay is much richer than what the basic inputs make it out to be.

Everything you shoot and destroy is worth some points. There are certain targets, however, that can lead to a lot more points when you manage to destroy them in a certain way. Every weapon item released, for example, can be destroyed with a few shots. When it blows up, all enemies and bullets on screen are also destroyed and over their amount a multiplier of ×1.000 or more is applied (huge points can be scored from that!). You can also choose to collect the same weapon you're already carrying, which is then worth 8.000 points. Every once in a while enemies will stop coming and a ship will materialize at the center of the screen before an attachment comes from below: destroy it before the attachment latches and win a big bonus. This might seem familiar to some, since it pretty much copies a similar enemy from Star Force.

Another easy source of points, provided you know their locations, is uncovering the six tiles in every level for the characters that form the word PRINCE. By uncovering them all you win 40.000 points, and for each one you miss this amount is divided by two. An extra life is also hidden in a specific place in every stage, and to get it all you have to do is hit its hidden spot. Finally, since I'm talking about the scoring system, at the end of the game each life in reserve is worth 50.000 points. By end I mean the second loop because the game is bold enough to go DDP on you after you beat its four levels, saying that all enemies were not real and you must play the game again to face the real ones. And with all the extra score-based extends (50K, 100K, 200K, 500K, 1M, …), not dying ends up being the biggest addition to a credit aimed at high scoring.

Cruising the stars for a crown!
(courtesy of YouTube user IGN)

The second half/loop of Star Prince is obviously harder than the first, with the added quirk of changing around all locations for hidden items (characters and 1UPs). Since the bullet count is increased, this is when you'll be using the shield input the most. A neat feature of the shield is that after absorbing three bullets the ship will expel an outward blast that's able to hit everything around it. While definitely a life saver in tight situations, the shield doesn't protect against enemy collision, and these may happen a lot due to waves coming from behind and closing in from the sides.

Putting everything together, it's feasible to say this little game is a blast to play. It uses the same wave scheme of Star Force, meaning the fastest you dispatch a wave the more enemies you'll kill before the stage is over. Sometimes the checkpoints will mess with enemy/wave order, making them less or more difficult up front. Several turret arrangements in the mid-boss sections and the brief invincibility upon item collection will immediately remind people of Zanac, which is just a hint at how much Compile is infused in the gameplay, morphing with Tecmo and Hudson into a nice piece of handheld shmup rush. The music and the sound effects are equally competent, and the occasional voice samples just serve to add that odd flavor you'd expect from a Japanese title.

Click for the (lousy) option menus translation for Star Prince on Game Center CX
Any help would be greatly appreciated :)

During gameplay R+X works as a reset button and L+X calls up the main menu, from where you can select other options such as switch to another game, check the instruction manual, etc. Since I’m not versed at all in Japanese, I can’t comment on anything else about Game Center CX.

My humble final 1CC score for Star Prince is below. The game halts at this final panel before you're sent back to the start screen. And just like in good old 8-bit fashion, there are no continues!

Super Fantasy Zone (Mega Drive)

Horizontal
Checkpoints ON
3 Difficulty levels
8 Stages (loopable)
Ship speed by icons
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Developed by Sega / Sunsoft
Published by Sega in 1992

With the exception of the makeover made on Fantasy Zone II, which was released in one of those Sega Ages discs on the Playstation 2, Super Fantasy Zone was the last real entry in one of the most original and endearing series created by Sega. However, probably due to its waning popularity in the West and the involvement of Sunsoft as a developer, the cartridge saw the light of day only in Japan and Europe. That’s a real shame considering the game brings more of that frantic action to the Mega Drive in a new adventure that feels quite fresh yet plays very much in the same way of the first chapter rather than the second (never mind those boring maze/medal variants).

In order to keep the same colorful nature of its arcade counterparts, Super Fantasy Zone extracts the most from the alleged limited color palette of the Mega Drive. As a result that familiar fluffy atmosphere remains intact, as well as the deceiving idea that this fluffiness naturally relates to a child’s game. Of course Super Fantasy Zone isn’t as hard as, let’s say, the original Fantasy Zone, but the difficulty slope implemented in subsequent loops brings the original challenge back and turns stages into dangerous mine fields that require very careful navigation. So sit back, relax and prepare to listen to that awesome boss theme once again while enjoying a new set of exclusive upgrades to Opa-Opa’s arsenal.

There is a story going on here, complete with an animated intro and an equally crafted ending. Of it I know nothing, nor do I care. But it's nice to see another huge variation of Opa-Opa as the final boss, even if it's soon replaced by a cranky little bouncing ball that's rather disappointing.

Dangers of the Le-Picker level

All three basic buttons of the Mega Drive controller are used in Super Fantasy Zone. By default you have A for special weapon, B for shot and C for bombs. Completely new to the classic gameplay here is this "special weapon", which corresponds to items bought in the shop for single use and are lost upon death. By the way, what's classic about the gameplay? Opa-Opa, that rounded ship with tiny wings, must destroy 10 evil enemy generators in each stage so that he can fight the boss (check their locations on the radar). There's freedom of movement both to the left and to the right, and it's also possible to speed up scrolling (by moving closer to the sides) or halting it completely (by "landing", to which Opa-Opa creates legs and walks on the ground). The 8th and last stage is a boss rush comprised of all previous bosses prior to the very final boss.

Enemies release gold coins for immediate collection so you can purchase items in the SHOP balloon that approaches from the top of the screen every time a stage starts or after you die (except on bosses). Some of the items are effective permanently provided you don't die, such as the speed-ups and the regular bomb enhancements. Others will only last the amount of time defined by the gauge that appears beside the item icon. Mandatory purchases are at least one choice of speed-up and the quartet missiles, which definitely surpass the old twin bombs because they home on enemies (not generators). If you buy more than one item with the same function you can choose which one you'll be using before leaving the shop, and if the multiple items purchased are special weapons or of the temporary kind an extra balloon labeled SEL will then appear and allow you to choose a different type after the current one has been depleted.

In the world of Super Fantasy Zone there's always the danger of running into a spawning enemy if you get too hasteful. On the other hand, the faster you destroy generators and the quicker you collect the gold released by bosses the more money you'll eventually have. The risk-reward ratio tends to reach a critical point because of inflation: every time an item is purchased its price increases. Therefore, that precious temporary laser beam upgrade and those useful lightning and smart bomb special weapons will eventually become too expensive. Extra lives start with a $ 5.000 price tag and max out at $ 100.000. Nabbing all the extra lives you can and not dying is the secret to higher scores, simply because each life in stock is worth one million points when beating the game. Remaining gold is then converted into points, but not to the same extent.

Intro and attract mode of Super Fantasy Zone
(courtesy of YouTube user Gee Tee)

Toying with all the items available in the shop is half the fun when you're learning how to properly approach all levels and bosses in Super Fantasy Zone. My advice is that players should try them all. Don't let any item pass by or you might be missing very helpful aids for the most difficult levels. Some of them, like the shield, are downright too expensive and of course should be avoided in a credit aimed at high scoring. Note that two special items must be purchased in order to make navigation easier: the first one is the "super lights" that increase your viewing abilities inside the dark caves of stage 4, the second is the "rubber boots" so you can land safely on the electrified floor of stage 6. These are permanent, so as long as you don't die you don't need to buy them again upon reaching the same levels in further loops.

Throwbacks to the first game appear in several places, from the way certain enemies attack to the original bosses frozen in the background of the last stage. A connection between this franchise and Space Harrier can also be seen in the checkerboard borders of the last level. Starting a loop with no lives in stock is definitely a cruel mechanic, but if you want to play the loop you gotta live with that. At least the rise in difficulty is steady, marked by increasingly more enemies and faster bullets – which have their sprites continuously changed the further you advance. Strangely enough, bosses don’t follow this pattern and remain pretty much the same except for the 4th boss and his faster bullets.

Either cartridge, European or Japanese, will play in Western consoles normally, and the Japanese text will even be automatically translated into English. Even though the music in Super Fantasy Zone is quite catchy, it’s possible to switch the entire soundtrack to that of the original arcade game by pressing A+B+C and START at the start screen. My overall strategy relied on playing the whole game with the first speed-up (big wings), quartet missiles and the occasional laser upgrade in stages with lots of gold (5th) or annoying enemies/design (6th). Thunder volts were the only special weapons I used, as well as an additional speed-up for the whole last level in order to better deal with the second form of the final boss. In the high score below I reached stage 3-6 on Normal.