Juno First (1983)

Look: 7/10 This gets me so excited for the upcoming few years, as Japanese games are on the rise in the wake of the collapsing videogame console market. Konami creeping on in (tho it's not like they were new, they had been making great games such as Pooyan for years, but Atari clearly dominated monetarily). Very basic graphics but I kinda like that. And it's dim and comfortable for my eyes, which have been always an issue for me with videogames. I like how you see the oncoming enemies, rather than with the radar/minimap of most contemporary side scrollers, but instead with a manipulation of the vertical scrolling. Functional UI, which is becoming increasingly relevant. And I like how the jet fire switches what side it comes from on your sprite depending on your direction (tho, in this vertical scroller, you can't actually go backwards/shoot backwards).

Sound: 7/10 I love the crunchiness of this game, like it sounds like an Atari game tho I know it's an arcade game :-p I'm here for it

Play: 8/10 Excellent controls, very tight and responsive almost too fast-paced if anything ha. I'm not a huge fan of vertical scroller games like I always say. Not very much variety of enemies (tho there is, it doesn't really feel like it, because you can keep darting forward and shooting away). As always, tho, I prefer when you can shoot enemy bullets, adding a way to help in tight situations without it being cheap/too easy. Because of how fast-paced this game is, and how it basically allows you to just fly forward like a maniac and not necessarily strive for a hi score, I found this game really fun and accessible, in the sense I could set this up at an upcoming get-together and people could just pick it up and actively play it.

Feel: 7/10 It definitely gave me that fun aspect of the fundamental vertical scroller Xevious, where the tight controls allow for very fun dodging. That's the best aspect of vertical scrollers, an oddly more-fun dodging aspect than side scrollers (so far) imo. The timed aspect of the game keeps you always moving (which I always did with all types of shooters, but this game adds a gameplay aspect to that). And it's just genuinely fun to play. By Warp/Wave 3, it really just feels like a dodging game because of how fast-paced it is. I bet much better gamers can try to shoot a lot of enemies that early in the game, and I bet they also could still make it in time to the end :-p But I had fun playing it my way. By Wave 4, I felt like I was some football or basketball player dodging oncoming defensive players, faking back, then going forward/another direction (thank goodness for those very responsive controls, particularly the slow-down/back-up response). (Oh, and it seems some of the later, tracking bullets might be able to be destroyed, but it's hard to tell if they just timed out around the time I attempted to shoot them and the game is too fast-paced for me to sit around experimenting to be sure heh.) At some point during Wave 4, I realized just how valuable the upcoming radar aspect is, but by then, the onslaught grew to be so nonstop it really wasn't all that meaningful for long heh. But still, by the end of Wave 5, I had tired of the playthrough (even after waiting overnight and retrying it the next day).

Attachment: 8/10 While this is much more basic than Xevious, Xevious was imo a bit too much. It felt like it was trying to be the biggest, the most influential, and the most important. This just felt like fun gaming with tight controls and lots of content. Fun, sweet, to-the-point. This might actually become one of my go-tos to have set-up at get-togethers for people who wanna just pick up the controller and shoot some space ships with a tightly controlled, fun game.

Completion: End of Wave 5 Playtime: ~ 40 mins