Review GigaDeathNullGolem 4/5 · Sep 2, 2023
Fresh and pretty Accessible
Having played some of their other games, I was curious as to what Grasshopper Manufacture might do with a SHMUP.
Overall Sine More Ex a nice enough game. It's got updated realistic looking graphics, panning camera transitions, lots of nice stuff you'd want to see in a more modern STG title. It also has a lot of streamlined mechanics …
Having played some of their other games, I was curious as to what Grasshopper Manufacture might do with a SHMUP.
Overall Sine More Ex a nice enough game. It's got updated realistic looking graphics, panning camera transitions, lots of nice stuff you'd want to see in a more modern STG title. It also has a lot of streamlined mechanics that make the game more accessible to a modern audience: Rather than die on hits or lose life, you lose time on the clock, and you can increase the time by shooting down enemies (hey not bad Grasshopper Manufacturer, this works pretty good actually and makes for a nice balance of ebb and flow as you play, when combined with collecting time pick ups, or conveying a sense of risk and reward as you dart in and out of enemy fire to collect weapon upgrades and other bonus items)
Bzzt Bzzt. Snake This is the story, Over
I think what stands out the most in this game (and is of course due to the developer) is the weird and rather long-winded detailed story being expressed at the beginning of every mission by a long voice-acted MGS-type codec monologue. This is essentially the 'memoirs' of some soldier or pilot in this military campaign. Each mission consists of usually one or two different participants in the war (the ships themselves also have different weapon fire patterns and sub-weapon types, you cant change and are locked in). The mission itself being the actual memory play out (It's a little hokey to be honest, the setting is a weird one consisting of anthropomorphized animals, it's reminiscent of Star Fox!)
Sine Mora Ex features detailed rendered scenes and occasional perspective changes and rolling shots similiar to other 3D era shooting games and rail shooters.
Overall, you have a somewhat generic feeling shooting game, with some really nicely designed and functional frills on top of it, with an eclectic story. In my opinion, it's enough to bump it up to 4 stars just for being different. The game also features a lot of modes, a co-op mode, and an arcade mode (different scoring system that is more complex) all of which have two difficulties each, and each difficulty has a different story and ending. While I don't love this game and am unsure when i would replay it (it isnt so great with keyboard and my generic gamepad wasn't recognized) I do like what Grasshopper did with this and the genre in general, as these aren't bad mechanics at all (They probably weren't the first to make time work this way).
Ddin't love the game but this is definitely a great intro to these kinds of games. It's pretty simple to play and has so many features that make it more accesible to a new audience. You can at least easily complete the single player campaign in a few hours by using the stage select feature once you run out of continues (provided you are able to clear a stage over 10 continues)
