Status Chovus Jun 17, 2025
Beat in slow motion mode. Game played like a mix of Contra and Mega Man with a very Terminator aesthetic. No shooting up or diagonal but there was a crouch that allowed low shooting. The basic pistol had infinite ammo and fired 3 shots at a fairly fast rate. Most enemies were simple without ranged attacks, while there were others …
Beat in slow motion mode. Game played like a mix of Contra and Mega Man with a very Terminator aesthetic. No shooting up or diagonal but there was a crouch that allowed low shooting. The basic pistol had infinite ammo and fired 3 shots at a fairly fast rate. Most enemies were simple without ranged attacks, while there were others with different movement and shot patterns. I very quickly figured out how to access the inventory to switch to the shotgun, which fired a 3 shot spread straight, up diagonal and down diagonal with a slow rate of fire. It was not good for standard combat and was only really useful to hit enemies that could not be hit by the pistol. The mini boss at the end had semi homing shots that took a bit to figure out, and dropped the machine gun which fired faster than the pistol. The actual boss right after was a helicopter. It stayed high and dropped off some annoying jumpy things that were tough to beat without taking significant damage. Then the helicopter came low and was laughably easy. While going through stage 2 I noticed the better guns shared ammo, which was lame. I never once got a health pickup while getting plenty of ammo drops when I was full or near, while never getting ammo when I was actually low. I mostly used the pistol, only switching to shotgun for enemies that were too high up, and machine gun for the mech mini boss. Had no ammo for the boss to try out the laser. This boss took a lot of save state scumming as it lobbed mortar shots at my position while periodically closing in for melee. Stage 3 was not too bad but some of the jumps were obnoxious. The guy was incapable of falling straight down making it feel like he had magnets to attract him towards the enemies for contact damage. And enemies placed just past a pit to cause a cheap death. It was a good thing his hp bar could take several hits but many places in the game felt impossible to get past without taking damage. The mini boss here was one of the toughest parts of the game for me, to the point where I looked up a walkthrough. Unload homing missiles to kill it quickly. Oh, well I used all my ammo getting there. It relentlessly closed into melee range while firing several projectiles that were too close together to jump over. At decent range most of those shots went into the ground if I was standing still when it began the salvo, so I could jump and do some damage. But the shots were impossible to avoid at close range and there was no opportunity to get over the boss without taking contact damage. I had no choice but to just eat the hits and barely scrape by with low hp. The boss afterwards was easy though and more like a puzzle because it was a stationary wall with very specific shot pattern.
Stage 4 was more difficult platforming and less enemies requiring the shotgun or homing missile, so I actually had ammo for the mini boss this time. It was similarly relentless but with a slightly easier shot pattern. I blew most of my ammo on homing missiles to get him down while still suffering significant damage. The boss was another stationary pattern puzzle, easy. The final stage had no enemies and was entirely autoscrolling platforming. It was not fun. The mini boss was a ship bigger than the screen that spent the entire time in melee range trying to crush me to the floor. I hated this fight. Only the very front and back of the ship took damage, while most of the fight was spent in a very tight space trying not to get crushed, shot or burned. I quickly destroyed the back with grenade launcher then had to endure the trip back to finish off the front. The final boss was laughably easy once I figured out the correct timing to jump over him.
This game was largely hit or miss with me. The music rocked and the vibe, backgrounds and enemy art were very good. I liked having the entire stash of weapons to swap between but ammo was too limited. The difficulty was a bit too high in the cheap unfair way, and most of the mini bosses were more difficult than the actual bosses. The story definitely felt tacked on and not representative of the actual stages and enemies. It was fun but could have been a lot better.
7.0/10
