Look: 8/10 Wow, probly the main standout of the game. I realize it's just your usual settings, but something about the colors and the quality of the textures seems improved from earlier in '82. And some parts, like where the rivers enter the land from the sea, gave me console-era world map feels. Several of the sprites were standouts, tho not striking necessarily. I particularly liked the look of, later in the game, the spinning "monoliths" (reminded me of 2001 A Space Odyssey ha). I could only capture it while paused because the gameplay is very fast-paced, so mind you this screenshot is shaded/darker than it really is

Sound: 6/10 At first, I didn't like the Insert Coin sound, but I kinda liked how the [rudely very controlled] shooting rate mixed with the rhythm of the background music. And it didn't get annoying, which says something for any game of this era. Ok yeah, actually eventually the sound effects and the background music got annoying :-X Around 15,000 points for me heh. Honestly, the music at the gameover/scoreboard screen is better heh.

Play: 7/10 I kinda liked how you drop bombs below too, but preferred the side scrollers' way of doing that (e.g. in Scramble). This isn't really one for mindless spamming of fire/bombs like I usually do with side scrollers. I know that's technically a good thing, but I can't deny I prefer just spamming and dodging. I kinda had fun getting to know how to aim dropping the bombs (I wasn't sure if you could manipulate the target area more). Perhaps part of my apprehension with the game was that I kept focusing on getting hi score, instead of what I usually do which is try to get to the end and do the best I can with score. Maybe if they had a radar/minimap or layout in the UI of "stages" in the game, I would have been more driven. But as it is, I just tried to beat the default hiscore that came with MAME (40,000). A bit later in the game, it was fun how some of the ground targets starting moving, so you had to think more about timing your ground shot... interesting twist in the gameplay. Tho I usually prefer easy games, I did like the big base type enemy that could spam shoot bullets at you, since they were reasonable enough to dodge and feel good about yourself landing a hit :-p Time to keep pushing to that 40k next attempt heh. Oh, and forgot to mention, but tight controls, reasonable mechanics, etc. etc.

Feel: 8/10 Clearly very influential, basically set the standard for all later vertical scrollers, and I did have more fun than I expected. But I don't think it'll ever be a favorite genre. Oh wow, on my mission to 40k I realized there must be progression to the game, not just endless or recycling screens, because there's some sort of boss! I had to die to get a proper screenshot of it, but heh you could definitely tell it wasn't a regular enemy by sheer size alone--but also by its mechanics (you could neither just straight shoot it or simply drop a bomb on its center), so I had to figure it out (anticipating upcoming console-era games like Castlevania bosses heh, but also that Crash 3 space-based N Gin, I think, boss battle ha where you had to hit precisely despite the boss's movement)

Attachment: 7/10 That boss was actually really tough, but proud to say I kept trying until I beat it. And as I always say, the fact I kept trying (tho I exploited infinite coins on MAME with 2 player haha) and went beyond my initial goal of just getting a high score, but rather actually beating the boss, says this game stands out. I came in expecting just another shoot em up, and tho it really is in the end, it kept surprising and impressing me in different ways. Still, not a favorite genre of mine, but this is the standout game of the genre so far--despite being such an early example. Welp, scratch all that lol, only after beating the "boss" did I realize I barely scratched the surface. So, I did wind up just playing until I ran out of lives (and turns out using 2-player made no difference with my number of lives lol). Just glad I beat my original goal of 40,000 points and also beat that boss that turns out I didn't have to beat. Sad to say I wasn't loving the game enough to keep pushing in the end. Undeniably a good game that I will likely have others playtest, that I don't regret playtesting, and that I could see myself returning to to get further. I definitely wont be forgetting it and its influence! This will boost up if I do wind up getting the urge to try it again soon to get to the "end."

Completion: ~45,000 Score Playtime: ~40 mins