Review scoopings 3/5 · May 13, 2023
Quality, Unique Shooter That Could Have Benefitted From Better Sound And More Varied Gameplay
Hm, another solid arcade game... 1985 is coming through at the end.. maybe it's just cuz these games actually had known dates, as opposed to the vaguely 1985 games (whose dates probly aren't known cuz not as well-loved)
Look: 7/10 Good enough, nice quality being arcade, but nothing special either. A little boost because reminds me of the upcoming love …
Hm, another solid arcade game... 1985 is coming through at the end.. maybe it's just cuz these games actually had known dates, as opposed to the vaguely 1985 games (whose dates probly aren't known cuz not as well-loved)
Look: 7/10 Good enough, nice quality being arcade, but nothing special either. A little boost because reminds me of the upcoming love of aliens/spaceships in videogames (plus the reference to Alien in the flyer image
Sound: 6/10 Basically nonexistent. And mostly annoying when existent...
Play: 7/10 I love the welcoming difficulty progression. You get to know the game, and the first level is very simple/fast, as it should be. I'm a bit worried about the length of the game--Indiana Jones and Temple of Doom felt like the right length for the game. This one has 8 levels, sure, but each has 5 floors and a boss! As I got into the 2nd level, I started to feel the controls were a bit lacking. Maybe it's cuz I just came from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom with its 8 directions (which isn't really fair cuz now that these have their exact dates, Indiana Jones came out several months later), but whatever it was, disappointing to only be able to shoot at one height either left or right. Especially when your enemies have bullets that can't be deflected sometimes, and generally being onslaughted ha.
Feel: 7/10
Cute kick-back to shooting (well, I didn't like it so much when it'd result in your well-aimed bullets no longer doing damage just cuz the enemy isn't on-screen :-p). Wild little minigame in between levels, too, which reminded me of the Super Mario 3 minigames (I just finished that game so that plays a role I'm sure :-p). Cool feature where some of the enemies' powerups that spawn are the little floaty guys. Pro-tip: do collect those, those are powerups not enemies. They become more slots for extra Shield bonus in the between-levels minigame. And those Shield bonuses are critical for making the game approachable and fun. I love how the Floors of each Level looked like the tower concept from Mortal Kombats, as you move toward the boss of each Level. 
(The worm thing at the bottom is the boss). I know people mean it favorably when they compare this game to Metroid, because of the woman lead character revealed at the end, the alien aspects, and the maze factors. But I never clicked with Metroids when young (I'm so excited that next year, 1986, I get to give it an earnest try!), mostly cuz of the overly maze vibe and the backtracking that wasn't clear to my young mind (and a mind not well-versed with Nintendo type adventure game puzzles heh). My mind's never been good at mapping, I had to draw maps for my mind, even in my favorite games like FFX or RE2 I rarely recognized rooms I had been to smh. Oh my mind heh. I'm the same way with lyrics--hear a song a million times and only know a few words, but I know so much of the rhythm and melody :-p Meanwhile my husband can hear a song once and know most the lyrics >.< Or related to videogame navigation, drive somewhere once irl or go somewhere in a game once and remember the path immediately.
Anyway, also a cool idea to have a powerup-ridden Floor right before the boss Floor, hopefully get lucky and get another Shield upgrade out of it!
Attachment: 7/10 So many good things to say about this game... but about Floor 9 I tired of the gameplay. Maybe it's just cuz it's time for bed but like... the onslaught shoot em up style, with the limited controls.. it was not encouraging to know there were still many many more floors to go. It's fun through the first boss, tho imo! I'll give it one brief try tomorrow to see if I was just pre-bedtime crabby, but I'm thinking it's a bit too much for me when it comes to going for completion, without a nice jingle or specially great look/concept/gameplay/whatever to get me to push through
Indeed, on replay, even tho I got a bit further, it just didn't have any thing that makes it worth pushing past the insane onslaught of enemies... and to think there are so many more Floors to go. Like I said last night, maybe if there were a great jingle, or more power-ups or weapons or ways to shoot/drop bombs/something... and less frequent use of bullets and enemies you can't shoot away (always a fan of shoot em ups where you can shoot away projectiles and enemies, it encourages great responsiveness as well as dodging rather than just dodging and, well, stress imo lol). Moving on!
Completion: Floor 10 Playtime: ~45 mins