My copy of Thunderforce VI on the PS2 from play-asia turned up today.
It's a horizontal scrolling shooter, but every now and then, play rotates a little bit, not that you have any control over the direction you shoot.
Note that I've not played any of the previous games, but from looking at them, I was expecting scenery to navigate, but there is very little of that, and when it does, it's just some dull fast moving cavern scenery and some blocks to shoot. Pretty uninspired on that front.
Opening movie sets a terrifying scene with some abysmal rock guitar solo
Luckily the music gets a bit better, but I doubt it's going to get most people fired up - jazzy breakbeat anyone?
There's only one ship to choose from, but it shouldn't take you long to unlock the other ships because on the normal mode it's all so easy. Although I enjoy shooters a lot and love analysing the gameplay hooks and scoring depths, I'm not very good at them. But I easily completed the first level on Manic mode without dying.
Going back to normal mode after that seems like nothing is going on.... Additionally, there are 1ups scattered around all over the place, so I can highly recommend this to people who like shooters but find them really hard.
Graphics are pretty, but low res. Bullets should be easy to spot because they are bright colours, but for some reason, I'm getting caught out every now and then. Some of them kinda pulse which makes them hard to distinguish from your own weapons.
When the screen rotates a bit, tbh, it's a pain in the arse on manic mode because suddenly you can disappear off the playing area and are restricted from moving down so much - fine once you get used to it, but the first few times, I was trying to dodge down and found myself up against an invisible wall. What were they thinking? Or perhaps they didn't notice.
There are lots of different weapons and for each, there is an overweapon which is obscenely powerful, but needs to be replenished by picking up aura (or whatever) from downed enemies. Some weapons shoot behind and others home etc. and you can switch between them at any time. I remapped the buttons from default to make more sense (left and right instead of up and down on the front buttons - playing with pad, not stick). Same for ship speed, which is variable over 5 (?) different settings.
Boss entrances are cool. Bosses themselves are a bit meh (to look at - play-wise, they are pretty much like any other giant full screen boss that shoots stuff ). You seem to get a bonus for killing them quickly (no problem there then), but I'm not sure about that yet. Other than that, shoot more stuff to get higher scores - good for people that can't stand "hooks".
There's some massive slowdown in the middle of some of the action. Apparantly this is deliberate (according to an interview), but I'm thinking if so, why? Weird.
So far, it's an entertaining, but pretty average shooter.
It's a horizontal scrolling shooter, but every now and then, play rotates a little bit, not that you have any control over the direction you shoot.
Note that I've not played any of the previous games, but from looking at them, I was expecting scenery to navigate, but there is very little of that, and when it does, it's just some dull fast moving cavern scenery and some blocks to shoot. Pretty uninspired on that front.
Opening movie sets a terrifying scene with some abysmal rock guitar solo
Luckily the music gets a bit better, but I doubt it's going to get most people fired up - jazzy breakbeat anyone?
There's only one ship to choose from, but it shouldn't take you long to unlock the other ships because on the normal mode it's all so easy. Although I enjoy shooters a lot and love analysing the gameplay hooks and scoring depths, I'm not very good at them. But I easily completed the first level on Manic mode without dying.
Going back to normal mode after that seems like nothing is going on.... Additionally, there are 1ups scattered around all over the place, so I can highly recommend this to people who like shooters but find them really hard.Graphics are pretty, but low res. Bullets should be easy to spot because they are bright colours, but for some reason, I'm getting caught out every now and then. Some of them kinda pulse which makes them hard to distinguish from your own weapons.
When the screen rotates a bit, tbh, it's a pain in the arse on manic mode because suddenly you can disappear off the playing area and are restricted from moving down so much - fine once you get used to it, but the first few times, I was trying to dodge down and found myself up against an invisible wall. What were they thinking? Or perhaps they didn't notice.
There are lots of different weapons and for each, there is an overweapon which is obscenely powerful, but needs to be replenished by picking up aura (or whatever) from downed enemies. Some weapons shoot behind and others home etc. and you can switch between them at any time. I remapped the buttons from default to make more sense (left and right instead of up and down on the front buttons - playing with pad, not stick). Same for ship speed, which is variable over 5 (?) different settings.
Boss entrances are cool. Bosses themselves are a bit meh (to look at - play-wise, they are pretty much like any other giant full screen boss that shoots stuff
). You seem to get a bonus for killing them quickly (no problem there then), but I'm not sure about that yet. Other than that, shoot more stuff to get higher scores - good for people that can't stand "hooks".There's some massive slowdown in the middle of some of the action. Apparantly this is deliberate (according to an interview), but I'm thinking if so, why? Weird.
So far, it's an entertaining, but pretty average shooter.
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