This is it. This is the peak of video games. It has all been downhill from here. It is essentially the sidescrolling action game perfected to a fine, glistening sheen. You have so many movement options, so many defensive and offensive options, and a whole HORDE of fun and interesting bosses to use those said options against all with their own unique and different fighting strategies. All while pushing the mega drives hardware to its absolute limit both visually and audibly. This game is Treasure's magnum opus, which is saying something since that company literally doesn't miss.

I played this upon insistence in 2021, for the first time. With no prior knowledge of what it was, no expectations, no bias going in I played what I considered to be a pretty alright game. In the subsequent years, I have seen this achieve fervent praise and almost cult-like reverence much to my own confusion.

Bored and needing a game to pass a couple of hours while I waited in for someone else's Amazon package, I decided to revisit it and see if anything new could be gleamed from a replay.

It's fine. Fun, even, but I guess I'll just never "get" it.

Eu conheci esse jogo recentemente, não tem nem um ano mais ou menos, mas quando eu joguei ele pela primeira vez, eu senti que ele era um jogo diferente e muito único, principalmente pra época que ele foi lançado. É um jogo de Mega Drive, mas mesmo tendo que aproveitar de um controle de pouquíssimos botões, ele ainda consegue ter mecânicas maravilhosas e muito complexas, é um jogo que passa facilmente por um de quinta geração. Muito bonito, o visual dele é sensacional, a trilha sonora é bacana, e o mais importante é a gameplay, extremamente difícil (talvez além do ponto kkkk), várias mecânicas interessantes, super dinâmico e rápido, pra quem gosta de desafios e coisas desse gênero esse jogo é certeiro. Me surpreendeu muito vindo de um console como Mega Drive, como eu já falei ali atrás, a quantidade de controles que você tem é absurda, nunca ia conseguir imaginar poder fazer tanta coisa com um controle de só 3 botões. Jogo muito completo, pra quem tem console velho sobrando em casa fica aí a recomendação.

Treasure are the kinda devs to make a weird obscure scrimblo run and gun where you play as a reformed, reincarnated terrorist alien anthropomorphic eagle with headcrushing thighs, rush development due to a rocky dev cycle and still come out with one of the best games in the genre. I'm genuinely at a loss for words, like it's evident the game was rushed and it busts your balls a bit in places and definitely requires some trial and error but once you get past that it just works so well in every single area. Plays just as good as it looks and sounds. Those bitcrushed mega drive voice samples give me immense joy.

(Deleted my previous review because I was able to actually beat it to avoid confusion)