Review scoopings 2/5 · Mar 9, 2024
Skippable Game With Boring Shmup Segments And Overly Hard Later Platformer Parts
Note that I'm playing the original Japanese version, so I heard it's quite a bit harder. But had to stick to the chronology project rules ha
Preliminary: From what I'm gathering so far, the shmup segments are where you collect supplies for the action-adventure platformer segments? The first shmup segment was underwhelming, tho the background was nice. Hopefully the platformer …
Note that I'm playing the original Japanese version, so I heard it's quite a bit harder. But had to stick to the chronology project rules ha
Preliminary: From what I'm gathering so far, the shmup segments are where you collect supplies for the action-adventure platformer segments? The first shmup segment was underwhelming, tho the background was nice. Hopefully the platformer part adds some spice. After finishing the first stage, it is mostly underwhelming: the Look underwhelming, the Sound enjoyable but underwhelming, the controls tight but overall gameplay underwhelming. The Core "bosses" were very straightforward. And I found out all that Energy and Bombs I built up and saved etc (which was overabundant in the first stage) resets between stages... I would've preferred to grind early and save a lot for later, because I read the later stages get super hard. So I guess I should bite my tongue about the underwhelming difficulty of the first stage ha.
Play: 7/10 I love that you can pause at any time and it's just a straight-up BAM paused. And the kickback from the weapons in the platformer segments is cute :-p As the stages went on, the shmup segment continued to be quite lame, even as it got more difficult. Just predictable and blah, maybe I'm growing out of side scroller shmups. And tho I enjoyed the platformer parts, there were too many elevator/tube/chutes and basically just shifting around. Give me more fun!
Overall, it was the gameplay of the platformer segments that saved the game and pushed me on and on. Despite not being amazing per se, it was fun feeling almost like a shoot em up with me dodging all the incoming projectiles, but having more control and platformer vibe in the controls. As I went into mid-game, I was finding the platformer segments more and more fun, because the difficulty was reasonable (while the difficulty of the shmup parts were just getting frustrating/ridiculous without savestates).
On my 2nd play session, all the same thoughts came to mind. Only additional things is how complex the later air fortresses get, so I relied more and more on the StrategyWiki maps. By no means were they linear for 4 and on. But with a map it was no problem. As everyone had warned me, Stage 6 and on are super complex and difficult. Things got a lot more irritating after that. (Wow yea in fact they just outright got awful after that. The difficulty jump was so bad. The shoot em up segments still were boring and the platformer part got sadistic. I somehow managed to almost get to the chute that would take me by the escape thingy, with only 64 Energy left and abusing savestates, but to top it off, then the air fortress exploded because the escape is timed. Definitely moving on without finishing.
Look: 7/10 The backgrounds and level sprites were nice, but dang, the main sprites were so underwhelming. As was the UI (very Metroid-esque main screen UI tho). The title screen animation of going toward a, like, space city (apparently the air fortress) is cool tho.
Sound: 7/10 Good enough tune. Got repetitive after a while but wasn't too irritating at least. And the sound effects weren't too intrusive.
Feel: 7/10 Argh! I wasted all my bombs at the start of Stage 2, mixing up the shoot buttons >.< Let's hope the Core fights go okay without them ha (it all ended up fine, indeed). Why would they have no power ups in the shmup sections? Well, no power-ups at all in the game. That really could have added a lot. Shmups aren't much without power-ups heh.
Attachment: 6/10 Tho I kept playing the game, stage after stage (oh, Instazome), I recognized again how underwhelming it all was. And my goodness how much time is used with transitions. If you're gonna do this many transitions, at least have amazing Look and Sound. Instead you had long between stage segments, with a mediocre fly away cutscene each time and mediocre world map type screen that you have no control over. Then you get to go through another tedious shoot em up segment to get to the quite a bit more fun jetpack/platformer segment. Rinse repeat. Still, I was pushing through despite the increasing difficulty. If I push through all 8 stages, it certainly says something--but how much more transitional waiting segments between tubes and stages and mediocre shoot em up parts can I handle? Haha. With all that being said, during this first play session, I found myself rushing back to do a little bit more before our movie time. Says a lot. If only it were only the platformer segments.
Interesting the 2nd quest has entirely different maps for some of the air fortresses. If only I enjoyed it enough to warrant the 2nd quest, but well-done to encourage replayability nonetheless. Oh, well, on the 2nd play session, I discovered there is definitely no reason to be so nice about the game. Stage 6 and on make the platformer part completely not fun as well, so it really wasn't worth pushing through as long as I did. With the boring shmup parts and the mediocre Look/Sound, really isn't much reason to play this.
Completion: Near end of Air Fortress 6 Playtime: 1h 30m