R-Type Dimension III Review (Switch)

It’s been a mixed bag to be an R-Type fan other the last few years. Dimension EX was a strong remix of the original two games but then R-Type Final 2 was a considerable letdown. It leaves fans stuck between wanting remakes of their favourite games and still holding out hope that something new will appear. We should say that we are deliberately reviewing this late. With this review coming after the second major patch for the game and after the developers vowed to address some of the many issues raised by fans.

R-Type Dimensions III takes the Super Nintendo game R-Type III: The Third Lightning and rebuilds it from scratch with new graphics. This is of course where all the controversy started. In rebuilding the game and adding the 3D graphics the hit boxes and enemy behaviour has been changed so much that an already crushingly difficult game was made ever tougher.

We always find it an odd choice for developers to rebuild games like shoot’em ups from scratch like this. It runs the risk of alienating previous fans as things have been changed in terms of the flow and is unlikely to attract new fans as they will want to experience the original. It’s even more bizarre in a sense as you can change the graphics back to the 2D pixel style of the original, except of course it isn’t. The game does look great though, in that respect you can’t fault the visual upgrade.

Where it gets a bit confusing is with things like the lack of quality-of-life features or other things you tend to associate with these sorts of releases. This may have redesigned assets from the ground up but in some sense, it would probably have been better to but an HD filter over the original and add in the usual rewind and save features. At least that would have kept the gameplay the same and probably avoided a lot of fan unrest. It’s certainly an argument for having the original game available on any of these remakes and upgrades in the future. What is here is an ‘infinite’ mode where no matter how many times you die you just keep going but there should be some middle ground between complete death and invincibility.

The game itself was always a tough one, and never the finest R-Type cut. It is the first in the series to allow players a small amount of customisation in the form of being able to pick from three different force units, each with their own attack styles. The level design is also strong enough to be worth revisiting, be warned though, it really throws you straight in at the deep end and new players will probably struggle to get off the first level for a significant amount of time.

In terms of the version we now have there have certainly been improvements. The hit boxes do seem a bit better now and the game certainly runs at a crazy speed and incredibly smoothly. The 3D graphics are still be a bit too busy at times though and it can be difficult to tell what is in the foreground or background and what is something that needs to be avoided.

Overall, it’s clear that the intentions with R Type Dimensions 3 were good, and the continued support by the development team to try and fix the issues is to be commended. That said, we still would have preferred to have access to the original game as it was. To not have access to that in some way just seems like a huge oversight. As it is, the game looks great but there are still some frustrating issues that stops it reaching the greatness of other games in the series.

Overall 6/10

Psyvariar 3 Review (Switch 2)

The Psyvariar franchise has been around for some time. The first time we encountered it was via the PS2 version where it was a fun, if not top tier shoot’em up with good potential for high scores. There was a sequel and then Psvariar Delta in 2018 which acted as a sort of remix/compilation, but this is the first new game in the franchise proper for a very long time.

In terms of presentation this is what you come to expect from your standard post 2010’s vertical scrolling shooter. The ship sits at the bottom of the screen, flies over 3D environment scaling below, avoids bullets and shoots things. The twist with Psyvariar though has always been about really pushing your hit box as close as you can in order to powerup and maximise you score. You must get the enemy bullets to skim you which continually boosts the bonus the pot. You can also spin you ship which makes it a bit slower but helps with the hit box and also changes the intensity of your own bullets.

Speaking of those 3D environments, Psyvariar 3 looks beautiful beneath the chaos. A lot of care an attention has gone into making the stages look as stunning as possible. Unfortunately, this is also a bit of a problem. The environments are so busy and fully constructed that it can be very difficult to judge incoming fire, enemy ships and even what is and isn’t an actual obstacle. This would be a major problem if it wasn’t for the fact you can go into the settings and change the brightness. Doing so helped to resolve the problem and it at least allows for the individual player to find something they are comfortable with.

The game contains a good amount of content for players to get stuck into. There are seven characters to choose from (including Cotton from that series as a guest), Arcade mode, Arrange mode (which allows upgrading to make the game easier), Caravan, Endless and Mission Modes (49 short challenges). It plays out over seven pretty large stages as well with the expected spectacular boss battles at the end of each. It’s a nice package for fans who really take to the game as there is always something to go to when you want to change things up a bit. It’s certainly not just a quick arcade style port. It also runs buttery smooth, even in handheld mode, something essential for games in this genre.

If there is a downside it's that the overall design aesthetic does seem a bit bland. If you think about the iconic games from the genre there will be bosses, ships and levels that instantly spring to mind. Who could forget pretty much all of Ikaruga for instance? But here, though everything works well, nothing really stands out to that degree. As a result this isn’t as essential as games like Radiant Silver Gun or some of Caves output. Instead, it becomes as must play for those that are really into the genre.

Overall, Psyvariar 3 is a well put together shoot’em up with a gimmick that makes it unique and keeps it separate from others in the genre. However, it’s not up there with the real top tier shoot'em ups. If you are into these types of games you’ll get a lot out of this. But we suspect most players will have a list of a fair few games to buy before they reach this.

Overall 7/10

Sonic Wings Reunion Review (Switch)

It’s been a couple of months of remakes and sequels to old franchises that we didn’t see coming. We’ve had Simon the Sorcerer, Puzzle Quest and even Glover on the Switch and the Evercade. But again, we find ourselves saying – we didn’t have Sonic Wings (or Aero Wings if you prefer), on our list.

The Sonic Wings franchise of course goes way back to the arcade and Super Nintendo in 1992 and we have had a handful of releases since then. It is of course a vertical scrolling sh’mup and a fairly straight forward at that. You pick a jet from a selection of characters, dive right into some geographically themed locations and start blasting away. Stages are fairly short but well designed and while its challenging, it’s certainly not one of the hardest games of its type you are ever going to play. Although, avoiding the tall buildings as well as the bullets does take getting used to.

It is, however, enjoyable and great fun. Each stage has its own look and enemy design, and the bosses are large and imposing. The selection of characters gives you some difference in approach to each run and when you clear the game there are a few unlockables as well. Which is handy as there aren’t that many stages to blast through.

Gameplay is simple as well. Avoid getting shot and continue to pick up power ups and you’ll dish out more and more damage with ever more impressive attacks. You can do this in two player as well and destroy pretty much everything on screen at once. You can also assign a second pilot in single player mode which allows you to use a different pilot’s bomb attack if you wish. It adds a level of flexibility to you attacks which is certainly welcome.

Unfortunately, though, aside from the various difficult settings there isn’t actually much more here to justify a purchase. The game itself is fine, but it comes at a premium price and when you start to compare it like for like with other releases it comes away a bit lacking. There are a ton of collections that feature multiple games and a number of games that have different routes or more to add to the longevity. Here it’s just one route and one game to get through.

Overall, Sonic Wings Reunion works as a nostalgic look back on the franchise and provides a good blast of nostalgic adrenaline. But it is brief and the general lack of options and additional content makes it hard to justify as a purchase at full price. If you are a hardcore fan of course you won’t be disappointed.

Overall 7/10

Run ‘N’ Gun: A History of On-Foot Shooters Review

As much as we love the Bitmap Visual Compendium and Box Art books, it’s always nice when one of their more investigative releases appear. In the past we have had a host of great volumes such as The Games That Weren’t, From Antz to Zombies and A Secret History of Mac Gaming, which aimed to make us all instant experts on overlooked areas of video game history. Run ‘N’ Gun : A History of On-Foot Shooters falls more into this latter category as it aims to take us through the origins and thematic of everything running and gunning, while unearthing a fair few overlooked gems along the way.

As we’ve come to expect the cover art for the book looks absolutely gorgeous. Adorned with two sci-fi marines blasting robots, it perfectly captures the feel of classic games in the genre such as Contra. The pages inside are no different with a good mix of screen shots and text. The consistent and thoughtful colour palette used is also well judged to fit the mood while keeping text easily visible.

Contents wise, the book is exhaustive. There are of course too many Run ‘N Gun games for everything to be covered but you are getting over four hundred and ninety-five pages of curated coverage here. This covers pretty much every system from the Atari 2600 to modern day consoles (Or Atari to ZX Spectrum if you want to keep with the alphabet theme).

With such a wide area to cover the author has taken a logical approach to cataloguing all these games. Games are listed by decade with clear section dividing 1980-1989, 1990-1999 and then three more sections dividing up the 2000’s. the book goes right up to 2023 as well so the mix of old and new is excellent and gives a huge insight into the development of the genre.

The writing itself is of an exceptionally high standard. The Book opens with a well-judged preface by Dave Cook and then two contrasting forwards from Keiji Inafune and the team behind Cuphead. Again, mixing the old and new in a logical and interesting way. This then followed by a breakdown of what elements make up the genre and a look at how it developed. From then on, it’s onto the games.

The amount of games present is impressive. Many are spread across two pages, but these inclusions are bolstered by smaller looks at games split into four. This helps give a snapshot of certain decades and years while also focusing on the more iconic and historically important ones. Each decade also has a short summation talking about how the genre work throughout it. To add some variety there are also some looks at sprite work, characters and iconic moments from games as you go through.

Overall, Run ‘N’ Gun A History of On-Foot Shooters is an extensive and great looking highlight of the excellent Bitmap books catalogue. It’s an entertaining read that begs for you to go and start finding all the games to play. It’s definitely up there with the constantly sought after Point and Click and JRPG Books and is pretty much essential for anyone interested in video games.

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Ray’z Arcade Chronology Review (Switch)

These retro collections are getting out of hand. As much as we are absolutely delighted that the Switch has become an Ark in console form for the great games of yester year, I’m not sure we need quite so many versions of each release. The Ray’z series has three different versions available for gamers to buy which is two too many. You can get just the HD versions of Raystorm and RayCrisis, a limited physical version which has the prototype R-Gear on it or this version which contains the original version of Rayforce and the original and HD remasters of Raystorm and RayCrisis.

Still, it is very nice to see the series making its way to modern machines as the games are certainly great fun to blast through. What we have here is five versions of three games ported wonderfully by M2 and presented beautifully. Raystorm and Raycrisis in particular utilise the layout of the Switch screen to the fullest so there’s no feeling of needing to tip everything around into a TATE mode as although the games scroll vertically, they are meant to be played wide screen. Indeed, the remasters are of a quality that the original version become pretty much redundant as anything other than a curio.

The main shoot’em up gimmick of the games is that they operate on two levels. You can blast away at flying enemies but also have a lock on laser which can pick up multiple targets on lower levels. When you release the lock on button your lasers will home in and hot anything you have tagged. This creates some interesting boss set pieces as well as they are normally attackable across both the higher and lower plane.

Unlike the later two game which utilise polygons, Rayforce is from the pixel art camp. The environments and enemies look awesome and the fact the levels work in a constant segway from one to the next create a feeling of constant adrenaline that doesn’t really let the player have any room to breathe. It helps to keep things intense and is a clever design decision. The other games don’t segway in the same way but all are filled with impressive set pieces and huge bosses.

In terms of fire power, you are a bit limited compared to many shooters but these games are more about learning to use what you have. Rayforce only gives you the standard lower level laser lock on and your main gun. This can be upgraded a bit but there’s no smart bombs to save you so you will have to get used to dodging bullets quickly in order to progress. Raystorm and RayCrisis give you a bit more to play with as you can pick from different craft and a super attack is brought in but on the whole, you will be taking on the enemies with the same weapons your craft started with throughout.

The third game is the series, Raycrisis does break the mould a bit when it comes to shooters as it’s first three levels come at you in a randomised order. It’s also the biggest of the games with 42 maps in total and a number of a different endings. Repeated plays allows the player to start sequencing the levels. It’s also the most manic of the three games. As a result things become almost too busy at times and it can be tricky to take everything in. Chances are though you’ll be having too much fun to really care.

Overall, this is another excellently put together compilation of classic games than more than deserves to be experienced by the vast audience that the Switch has. If you are into retro gaming, shoot’em ups or just trying to build a library of classic titles this is a must buy. It’s three excellent games exactly as you remember them, and possibly a little bit better in the cases of the HD remasters.

Overall 8/10

G-Darius HD Review (Switch)

We reviewed the excellent Dariusburst: Another Chronicle EX+ recently which proved to be a stunning and very welcome addition to the wealth of side scrolling shooters out there. Now Switch gamers can take a look at something from a little further back in the long running franchise with this arcade version of G-Darius.

The most notable thing to begin with is that this game isn’t meant to be running on dual monitors like it’s more recent entry in the series so you don’t get the small screen size which proved a controversial choice for Dariusburst. The visuals are rough around the edges though, taking on the polygon heavy style of the era. There is an HD port here but in reality it barely looks any different. So, unless you are a fan of the look of the 32-bit age then this may be too much for you to bear – which is a shame as beneath the look of the thing there is one hell of a blaster here.

The core Darius mechanics are still in place with the colour orb power up system working much the same as always. The key gimmick is that players can trap enemies with a kind of electric lasso and draw them back to their ship. Depending on the enemy captured these then add things to your ship such as extra blasters or a shield. This technique can also be used to counter the boss’s energy discharges leading to big scores. It’s a simple system but one that adds options to the players arsenal while encouraging experimentation and flexibility.

General level design is of a consistently high quality and each area is varied and packed full of things to blast. At a point in each level you also get the chance to choose two different routes through the game as well meaning replay value is massively increased as it’ll take  a while to see all the different variations on offer. The bosses are of course insanely awesome as always but then this is a Darius game so what else would you expect?

Another thing of note is that the slowdown from the original game is still present here. This is somewhat controversial as on one hand you might have expected this to be removed (especially in the HD version of the game), but on the other hand this was tried in other recent versions of the game and it could certainly be argued that they suffered massively in terms of how they played because of it.

Overall, it’s always good to see classic games like this make their way to new systems and new audiences. On the other hand we can certainly see how people not familiar with the game the first time round might not get into it. It’s certainly one for fans of the series and the original as this is very much the game you remember but we wouldn’t recommend it as the place to start for those looking to get into side scrolling shooters. Especially not when Dariusburst is sitting right next to it on the eshop with its crazy array of options modes and general flash.

 

Overall 7/10

DariusBurst: Another Chronicle EX+ Review (Switch)

The side scrolling shoot’em up has had a mini revival on the Switch recently with R-Type Final 2 and Cotton Reboot making their way onto the system in recent months. While both those games were welcome additions neither of them were the stand out titles we were hoping for. DariusBurst however is something different entirely.

It’s difficult to keep up with the endless revisions of the games but the Switch version contains the original game, the EX version of it (which is more difficult), Chronicle Mode which adds missions and objectives as you blast around different planets and Event Mode which contains missions from the arcade game as well as some new stuff. However, the mode it hasn’t got is Chronicle Saviours which is where the problems start.

Saviours was designed to work with handheld systems and unfortunately this isn’t. The original multi-screen display is simply crammed onto the screen with huge borders at the top and bottom. It makes the action very very small and there are no configuration options to change it. Unless you are playing on a large TV screen it makes the chaotic action pretty much impossible to deal with. It also means any text or instructions relating to ship load outs or how things work are also almost impossible to see meaning this can be a harsh game for newcomers as without some kind of guide you’ll have no idea about some of the options available.

For instance, being able to remove the burst laser and place it around the screen. We had no idea about this until we started looking into the game in more detail and it’s one of the key dynamics of the game. You can even use it to kind of dual with the bosses when they release their energy blasts. With the text this small the game really needed some kind of basic training option to show players how this all works.

On a big enough screen though this is incredible stuff. The visuals, the music and action all come together to provide one of the best and most intense blasting experiences we’ve played in recent times. The fish based enemies swirl around the screen in hypnotic manner and the vast array of bosses are both creative and challenging.

All the different modes also add a serious amount of content to get through and it’s likely to keep you playing for a significant amount of time. The stages are also strong enough to mean replaying them never becomes a problem and the quest for ever higher scores will keep you continually pushing forward. The wide array of ships available also helps to keep things fresh as most of them handle significantly differently and provide firepower to soothe the soul of even the most hard core of blasting fans.  

Overall, DariusBurst: Another Chronicle EX+ is a difficult game to nail down. It is a truly stunning shooter but it’s not been optimised and presented in a way that makes it the perfect match for the Switch. We did enjoy playing it in handheld mode but chances of chasing scores or making it through the tougher stages are minuscule when you can’t really see what is going on. We also can’t overlook the fact that the mode of the game optimised for handheld screens hasn’t been included despite the fact it’s in other versions of the game. That said, there are few games out there that provide such a blasting experience. With that in mind it’s hard not to recommend it to fans of the genre as the visuals, music and action are up there with the best in the genre.

Overall 8/10