Star Hunter DX (Playstation 4)

Horizontal
Checkpoints OFF
3 Difficulty levels
6 Stages
Ship speed fixed
- - - - - - -
Developed by 1CC Games
Published by Strictly Limited Games in 2022

First title developed by 1CC Games, Star Hunter DX originally came out in 2021 for all mainstream platforms, and was soon granted a physical edition in tandem with the second shmup from the same developer. Aptly titled Star Hunter DX & Space Moth Lunar Edition, the bundle came out for the Nintendo Switch and the Playstation 4, with the latter obviously being my console of choice in the case of this particular game.

Horizontal bullet hells aren't really frequent in the world of shmups, and Star Hunter DX helps to fill this void with honest, undeniable gusto. It makes excellent use of the widescreen format while completely focusing on gameplay rather than graphic excellence. Graphics are, in fact, the short end of the design here, and do not live up to the capability of a system like the Playstation 4. They get the job done, but the ship sprites are almost as hideous as the box art, for example. You won't see any fancy effects at all across increasingly difficult stages filled with lots of color and all sorts of bullet types and bullet patterns.

The heroine of the game is a lady called Luna Starr, a former space pirate turned bounty hunter. She's one of the three pilots the player can use, but in order to access the other ones you'll first need to reach stage 3 (unlock CAT-99) and stage 5 (unlock Edgar). They're featured prominently in the art design and their ships have quite unique characteristics. Inputs include rapid shot, laser shot, bomb and bullet time activation, fully customizable in the options as you so wish. In a nutshell, this is pretty much the same input configuration found in many Cave titles such as Espgaluda, which serves as the most obvious inspiration for the more straightforward gameplay of Star Hunter DX.

Behold some beautiful circular patterns of doom

 

Even though the screen seems too cluttered with information, it's actually not that hard to grasp how the game works. The act of hitting any enemy fills up the score multiplier meter located at the lower left of the screen up to a maximum of ×8, a number that drops slowly if you're not hitting anything. By grazing bullets you fill up the meter below the life stock display, and when the meter is full you recover one bomb, in a maximum of three bombs that can be carried at any given time (the three white dots below the ship also serve the purpose of displaying your current bomb stock). Finally, by killing enemies or nullifying bullets with the bomb you collect small blue crystals that fill up the "bullet time" round meter around the ship. When this meter is half full or more you can enter bullet time mode by pressing the dedicated button, slowing down all enemies and bullets. All bullets fired by destroyed enemies are then turned into gold crystals whose size and value are directly proportional to your current multiplier.

Bullet time is a resource that serves all kinds of players/pilots since it's useful both for survival (slower bullets) and for scoring (gold cubes get!). However, every time you come out from bullet time mode either by the expiration of the bullet time meter, by pressing the bullet time button again or by dying, the score multiplier is reset to 1. Therefore, the main challenge for score chasers is finding the best moments to activate bullet time and cash in your multiplier with the maximum amount of bullets on screen. Allowing enemies to live long enough while avoiding their bullet curtains is key, and the thrill of doing it is the basis of the game's underlying appeal.

In-game items include the power-up (P), maximum power-up (MAX), floating astronauts (which give you some points and fill up a good chunk up the bullet time meter) and extra lives (1UP). The extend checkpoint for the appearance of an extra life depends on the chosen difficulty level, and for Normal (Bounty Hunter) it stands at 6 million points. The gauge below the score display indicates how far you are from getting your next extend.

Star Hunter DX has arrived
(courtesy of digital publisher and YouTube user Chorus Worldwide Games)

With six levels of good length and variety, Star Hunter DX is a no-brainer for those who enjoy weaving through dense bullet clouds. Bullet density increases steadily as the game progresses, but there's a remarkable difficulty spike when you enter the quartz city in stage 4. This is the only level with obstacles, and to safely get through it a good strategy for crowd control is needed if you don't want to be overwhelmed. Astronauts in this level are also trapped inside walls, but can be rescued by touching them with the ship's canopy or downright bombing to safely get through solid matter. By the way, bomb behavior is a little different here: its effect is restricted to a close radius and not the whole screen, which means you need to get relatively close to the target if you want to inflict actual damage.

At its core, the game also has some intricacies that will only become clear with repeated plays. Using rapid shot is the best way to fill and maintain the multiplier maximized, so tapping rapid shot is sometimes really useful if you want to keep enemies alive, especially in bullet time mode. Another feature of bullet time is that it also makes health bars appear for every single enemy on screen. It's possible to prolong boss fights by triggering their espape pods, which is achieved by destroying all their initial armor (white color parts) while in bullet time mode. Not only does it provide more opportunities for scoring during the battle itself, but it also gives you better end-of-stage bonuses. Besides boss fight performance, these bonuses include extra points for average multiplier, gold collected, astronauts rescued, grazing effectiveness and life stock.

And then there's the matter of choosing the ideal character. Luna is naturally the most balanced of the three, with faster speed when using shot and lower speed when using laser. CAT-99 is the opposite, yet he comes with the most powerful rapid shot endowed with homing ability, an ideal choice for beginners. Too bad he flies too fast when using his weak laser. As for veteran pilot Edgar, he's got the strongest laser with very slow speed while being weak and too fast when using rapid shot. Playing with both CAT-99 and Edgar might be fun, but they certainly require much more knowledge to be properly used in the long term. Fortunately there's a practice mode that allows all sorts of predefined settings for proper training. There are no online features whatsoever.

Thanks to the solid scoring system, well-balanced gameplay and a relatively decent soundtrack, Star Hunter DX is definitely bound to please all sorts of audiences. Despite the somewhat cheap graphic design, it's an engaging game that makes you want to come back for more. I only came across one functional issue: if you get very far into the credit or use the practice mode for a long while, in your very next playthrough the performance of the game degrades considerably and everything moves a lot slower than usual. The only remedy I found for that is closing the game and booting it again from the main menu.

There were still lots of improvement gaps in my strategies for Star Hunter DX, but I'll take the 1CC score achieved below with Luna in the Normal difficulty (Bounty Hunter). I still don't know how the game compares to Space Moth Lunar Edition, the other title in the package, but I expect to find out soon.

Metal Stoker (PC Engine)

Arena
Checkpoints OFF
3 Difficulty levels
7 Stages
Ship speed fixed
- - - - - - -
Developed by Face
Published by Face in 1991

When done right, unscrolling arena shooters do have the potential to be engaging experiences. We've come a long way since T.A.N.K. and Commando, some of the most recognizable forefathers of this particular branch in the shooting genre. The glut of cheap imitations that followed and are still being made to this day unfortunately diluted and eventually killed the appeal of these types of video games. They're either too generic or too cluttered with influences from other genres, especially the ones of the pedestrian type. At least from my limited perspective, military tank-based games fare a little better though.

For home consoles Metal Stoker is a clear example of an honest and decent take in this subgenre. It's not outstanding in any way and it doesn't come off as crisp or energetic as Mega Drive's Granada, which came out a year earlier, but gets the job done and delivers a good level of variety in the stage design. It's also possible to glimpse both in the graphics and in the soundtrack some of the creative spark seen in Hani in the Sky, the only other shmup made/published by developer Face for the PC Engine. In my opinion the background music for stages 3 and 4 are definitely standouts. And just like the game of the flying haniwa, Metal Stoker is yet another example of a shmup that has no scoring system.

Without scoring and the consequent push for a killing spree and without any sort of timer to put pressure on players, this game is perfect for those who prefer to move about carefully and at their own pace, be it in tight maze-like environments or in open space areas.

Meet the boss of stage 6

Players take the role of a female pilot immersed in simulation combat across several areas connected together in individual stages. In each of these areas you must guide a tank and destroy a particular set of enemies to proceed, from simple static generators to specific enemy flocks or a series of mid-sized captains and bosses. It's nothing complicated, except for a few sections where you must navigate through corridors with fast moving drones or find your way out of an energy barrier maze. Shooting is accomplished with button II, whereas with button I you lock/unlock the shooting direction of the tank. By pausing it's possible to choose one of the five weapons available (once they're firstly acquired), and by pressing SELECT you trigger a special attack that consumes one power level of the weapon that's being currently used.

Each life comes with four energy/shield units shown at the top right corner of the screen. With every hit the energy goes from green to yellow, red, blinking red and then a life is lost (fortunately with no downgrade to the firepower). Item containers are scattered around the stages and reveal either energy/shield refills or power-ups for any of the five weapons in the game. Besides the default vulcan shot there's also laser, mines, sonic barrier and homing missile. All of them except for the vulcan need to be activated with the first power-up before being available for selection with the START button. Then all further power-ups upgrade the weapons individually up to five power levels.

It goes without saying, but handling the resources in Metal Stoker is easily done by avoiding to take damage. However, this is even more important for the extend mechanics because if you take an energy refill item with a full energy gauge (green) you'll get an extra life instead. Extra lives are also granted after completing stages 3 and 6, whereas the energy meter is fully refilled whenever a new stage begins. Apart from that, memorization is important in order to not get lost in the action during those levels with a large number of targets found through warp gateways. The number of mirrored sections is a bit excessive but in the end I guess it helps to understand the flow of the game faster. Most of the time indicating arrows show where you need to go, often accompanied by scratchy voice fragments that remind you of the early voices from Mega Drive games.

Your assignment begins now
(courtesy of YouTube user The VideoGames Museum)

While I did get through Metal Stoker without recurring to special attacks, the ones related to the mine dropper and the sonic barrier are actually quite useful, unlike the weapons themselves which are pretty much useless. The special attack for the mines make you hover in place so that you can avoid enemy fire and pummel away whatever lies below. As for the sonic barrier, it makes the tank invincible for a good while, hence allowing you to ram into enemies and make them have a taste of their own medicine. More than the 4-hit shield special of the vulcan, they're certainly a great way to deal with bosses that tend to corner you.

All in all, the joy of playing Metal Stoker might be a feeble one, but the game is a valid diversion within the shmup library of the PC Engine. It's just a pity that players don't have any sort of metrics to measure their mighty performances. However, should you fancy a tougher challenge there's always the possibility of getting access to a hidden menu with a special code that allows you to change the default difficulty: during the start screen with the buzzing effect press I, I, II, II, ←, →, ↑, ↓ and SELECT four times, then press I + II at the same time.

For posterity, below is a photo of the moment of revelation in the game's story. During the end credits you get to know that you were not in a simulation environment after all. It was all real, as is our neverending thirst for more shmupping adventures, which I must now quench by moving on to my next assignment. Cheers!