Xexyz (1990)

Beat in slow motion mode. This was a fun and interesting game but a little too formulaic. It was always a 2D platformer stage with rooms to go in for hints, shops, money or free items. You always had to find a secret room by shooting somewhere to reveal it, then fight the exact same mini boss each time. This opened up the next stage which was a little more complicated due to pipes transitioning to different screens. The goal was always to find the hangar room to access a vehicle for the following horizontal shoot em up stage. The vehicle looked different each time but performed almost exactly the same. All got an extra shot after 3 power pickups; sometimes it was up diagonal, others straight up, some ahead again and a couple went directly behind. There were also movement speed power ups. The goal here was to choose the correct exit between 2 for each area until finding another hangar for another on foot interior stage. This was about finding the boss room and defeating it with your chosen weapon. The default gun was absolute trash, firing a single projectile at short range. Each world introduced a new weapon or magic, which could be purchased at later item shops. The 2nd gun was a bouncy shot that fired down diagonal. It was very difficult to use on foot but did well against bosses because you could fly above them to avoid getting hit. Next was a wave shot that fired straight ahead while moving up and down slightly, and passing through obstacles. I liked it 2nd best but it had a hard time hitting at close range. Next was an orbiting ball that was good at killing nearby enemies and could fire straight ahead. It was difficult to control where the shots went though because of the constant circling of the ball. Crouching and shooting made it more like a light saber for some reason. All of these weapons were fairly crappy and difficult to use while the final laser was actually good. It was a simple straightforward shot with a very rapid rate of fire and no projectile limit so it wrecked whatever I shot at and the final few bosses died from it much faster than earlier bosses. The magic items were a glide to help with platforming, a mirror image on top of yourself for extra firepower, and a temporary invincibility. They all disappeared after taking a few hits so I often didnt even bother to buy them. Mirror came in very handy on the boss where the ball was introduced because I just flew underneath him and shoved the image up his ass.

After beating each boss and rescuing the girls came another shoot em up stage. These were more difficult with faster auto scrolling, and ended with another boss fight, which was the only time the different vehicle shot patterns really mattered. Then start the next world to repeat the same formula. The final world was a bit different because the castle was larger with a few mini bosses, and the final boss was much tougher. After that was a unique almost vertical shoot em up fight against the evil base, which was just avoiding shots while lining up the crosshair on the weak point. It was cool that the crosshair flipped depending on whether I was above or below the target. There were not really any big problems with the game. Crappy weapons and enemies respawning out of thin air too close to avoid were annoying, but healing during the on foot stages was fairly easy.

7.3/10