Preliminary: Boo. 1942 had a set ending you could reach for, this one is just one endless stage. I suppose I can set the goal of beating all 3 bosses and becoming a Phoenix? I know how I am with vertical shoot em ups, which apparently have become a bit of a preferred genre for me whether I like it or not lol, so it's best I jump into this with a goal in mind

Look: 7/10 Overall, nice look. Nothing super special. I love the Phoenix graphic and the dinosaur monsters.

Sound: 8/10 Great jingle, tolerable arcade sounds, one of the better of the 80s shoot em ups Sounds.

Play: 7/10 Nice touch with the power ups building up to the invincible Phoenix mode, but overall it just felt boring. Which is ironic cuz I've pushed through games with this same basic format, without a cool Phoenix mode, and without as good of music... Mauybe it's just cuz it had already been done...

Even tho I was already kinda tiring of it during the first boss, as usual with me and mid-80s shoot em ups, I kept pushign through knowing there are only 3 bosses (and I had right after gotten to Phoenix mode, so I had satisfied that goal). It is cool there are like dinosaur monster things as enemies, and I did like the Transform mode when all your pieces surround you and shoot like crazy I almost preferred that over being one coherent ship.

Pro-tip (and I'm proud to say I came up with this one on my own, not something I read from someone else's advice!): Transform against the 2nd boss, he takes a lot of firepower but his shots and his enemies are relatively easy to dodge. So just keep your main ship alive duckin and dodgin and spam attack!

Another pro-tip: illogically (the whole concept of depth does not exist in this game after all), the X things on the ground block your shots. as do bones of the monsters. so yeah, that causes some headaches near the end of the game.

Feel: 7/10 As much as I'm bemoaning this, I can't deny I've been consistently playing through the vertical scrolling shoot em ups along the way. What is it about them that hooks me? I'm usually not a hi score chaser... And unlike a lot of the vertical scrollers from this era, it doesn't devolve into me just spamming and dodging in a bullet hell. I mean, it came close to that but I was able to maintain some strategy. I wish there were a Speed powerup, because the movement felt quite sluggish. Really the Feel probly deserves a 6, but with the nice Jingle, cute touches like Phoenix and dinosaur monsters, and the fact it is still a very early shmup even if Xevious etc predated it, I think it's okay to boost this a little.

Attachment: 6/10 So then I was forced to fight the 2nd boss, uh, a 2nd time? And after googling around, I guess that's normal? It seems many people's criticism of the game is its repetitiveness and yeah, I would have to agree. Stopped here.

Completion: 3 bosses tho not, uh, the 3rd and final boss? Score 97,900 Playtime: ~40 mins