You see, there were certain shmup story cliches back in 1989 that I almost forgot existed. I really couldn’t believe what I was seeing. The game’s opening cinema is so packed with “Genesis does what Ninten-don’t” flair that I actually had to watch it twice before I jumped into the game. The game doesn’t just look like a TG-16/Genesis shmup from the late 1980s it feels like one as well. For some, that will be a very good thing. From a style perspective, it is completely indistinguishable from the better TG-16/Genesis shooters on the Virtual Console. If you are one of the people who bought a Wii in part to play all the old TurboGrafx-16/Genesis shmups, then you need to skip this review and just buy Gradius Rebirth right now. Sure, I wanted the game to have good level design and enemy patterns, but more than anything, I was hoping that it would deliver the kind of graphics, music, and gameplay that could effectively take me back to 1989, a time when I didn’t think games could ever get any better than R-Type and Blazing Lasers.ĭoes the game succeed at taking me back twenty years in the past? On top of that, is the game actually any fun? Hit the jump to find out. It’s with that throbbing, retro-hungry pixel lust that I dove into Gradius Rebirth. No, my love of shmups is definitely more tied to rose-tinted memories of “the good old days,” hence my complete adoration of Bionic Commando Rearmed, Mega Man 9, and Contra 4. Honestly, I’ve never played a shmup that I didn’t like, but my favorites are definitely the games that predate the “bullet hell” paradigm that has pretty much dominated the genre for the past ten years. For those in the first category, games like Ikaruga and Radiant Silvergun are often referred to as the pinnacle of gameplay excellence, while those in the later camp will often cite R-Type Final or Gradius V as their favorite shmups of all time. Just like with 2D fighting games, there are basically two types of shmup fans: those who love them primarily for the fun of developing the skills required to play them with any modicum of success, and those that are still attached to the genre for reasons of nostalgia.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |