The original Athena game was, without a doubt, the absolute worst game that I had ever played from SNK so far. I could admire some things that it tried doing, such as having plenty of neat items and upgrades to find that encouraged exploration, as well as the fact that the game didn’t take itself too seriously given the story, but all of that couldn’t distract me from how horribly the game controlled, how relentless it was right from the start, how awkward it felt to do anything aside from walking to the right, and giving you little chance to do anything to defend yourself from the start before you are ambushed by all the enemies that are thrown at you. I don’t understand how anyone could release a game like that and say it was good and ready to go back in the day, or even how they thought that following the game up with a sequel would be a good idea, but nonetheless, we got one just one year later in the form of Psycho Soldier.

Naturally, I wasn’t looking forward to checking out this game whatsoever. The original game had already left such a bad taste in my mouth after the short time I had experienced with it, and given SNK’s pattern with sequels, I assumed this was gonna change practically nothing about the formula, and it would end up being yet another complete mess of a game. However, in the biggest plot twist of the 20th century, Psycho Soldier actually turned out to be a MASSIVE improvement over the original game in just about every way. I wouldn’t say that it is anything more than just simply being good, and it also has its fair share of issues that did get in the way of how much fun I was having, but needless to say, I would choose to play this game over the original Athena title any day of the week.

The story is a bit more generic than that of the previous game, where suddenly out of nowhere, evil creatures from the land of Shiguma appear on Earth, Japan specifically, and start terrorizing its many citizens and destroying everything in sight, so it is up to Athena Asamiya, a descendent of the Athena from the previous game, to team up with her friend Sie Kensou to take out the villainous scourge using their psychic powers, which is a basic enough set up, and it works well enough for what this game is. The graphics are very similar to that of the original game, but it does look a lot more appealing, both in terms of the environments you travel through and the designs of the characters, enemies, and bosses, the music is good, having plenty of enjoyable tracks, and even one that has someone singing what I can only assume is the theme song of the game… with the singing being incredibly compressed and amateur as shit, but hey, A for effort I guess, the control is much better here, with you having plenty of control over what you are doing and all of your actions feeling just right, and the gameplay is also a major improvement, mixing things up to where it isn’t as ambitious as its predecessor, but this style is executed much better here, which I prefer as a whole.

The game is a 2D action platformer, where you take control of either Athena or Sie, go through a set of six very similar stages through several different environments, jump in-between each lane and take out the many enemies that you will find along your journey to prevent them from getting an upper hand on you, get plenty of different power ups, weapons, and special items to help you out along your journey, and take on several different bosses or enemy gauntlets that range from being relatively manageable to the exact kind of difficulty that you would expect from an arcade game. In most aspects, it is your typical arcade platformer, but that is a step up from the last game, which was an abnormal arcade platformer, so I will take it at this point.

If I were to make any comparison of this game to something I have already reviewed in the past, I would say that it is a more flashy version of SonSon from Capcom. The game will constantly be scrolling from left to right, and you will need to hop up and down between four different rows to not only take out enemies, but also to get the various different power ups in the game. This definitely isn’t the kind of platformer I like to play, but for the most part, this kind of approach works, and you can cover a lot of ground in these levels before the screen forcibly pushes you to your next destination. In addition, the weapons and power ups that you get while playing this game are pretty fun to mess around with. From the start, you are equipped with a lightning laser shot that can be upgraded to get bigger and do more damage, as well as these spinning orbs that will surround you whenever you are on the ground. Not only do these act as a shield from incoming projectiles, which really helps in plenty of cases, but you can also throw them at enemies to do more damage and to break blocks quicker, making some sections a breeze when you are caught in a jiff.

In terms of actual new weapons that you can get, the sword makes a return from the previous game, and it is a lot more useful this time, because not only can you use it to slash your way through enemies, but it also helps break a lot of the bricks in the level much faster, allowing you to find more items and to get a move on in the stage. But none of that compares to the best power up that you can get in the whole game, where if your energy bar is full and you find a big green egg in the level, you can turn into a whole ass phoenix, able to fly all around the stage and set your enemies ablaze with your fire breath. Unfortunately, this form is temporary, as it does go away upon beating the stage you are currently in, or if you get hit too many times, but it is still fun to just decimate everything in your way with this transformation.

Naturally though, since this is an Athena game we are talking about here, it has several issues that I was not that big of a fan of. Arcade syndrome is present in this title, and while things start out pretty smoothly, and you can build up plenty of support to protect yourself, by the last couple of levels, there will be enemies and projectiles flying around everywhere at you, to where it feels impossible to beat the game without at least a couple of credits on stand by, which does kinda suck. That’s not the only aspect of difficulty in this game though, as while the scrolling of the stage is slow enough to where you won’t feel like you constantly have to hold down the right stick to not die, there can be plenty of instances where you will get ambushed by an enemy or so in a corner, and due to the fact the screen is constantly moving, you have no choice but to die just to get a move on, and that shit always blows, no matter what kind of game it comes from.

And finally, while there are plenty of power ups that do help you out and make you stronger, there are also several power downs, taking away whatever you got for yourself and leaving you extremely vulnerable. There will be these red beams with skulls on them that will drain all of the energy from your meter, not only making you less stronger, but also giving you very little chance to transform into your phoenix form or get better equipment, which especially sucks when you don’t see it coming until it is too late. That doesn’t even compare to the worst power down, the golden skull, which upon contact takes away EVERYTHING from your arsenal. Your sword, your orbs, your upgrades, all of it: gone. It is absolutely painful to run into one of these, especially in some instances where, again, you don’t see it coming until it is too late, and you end up feeling like a chump as a result.

Overall, despite the difficulty in certain areas, the power downs, and the scrolling getting in the way of your enjoyment at times, Psycho Soldier was still a good game that I am glad that I checked out, excelling in every area that Athena fumbled in through several means, and providing you with a fun and engaging time that I would say is worth checking out for a good while or so before moving onto something else. I would recommend it not only for those who liked the original Athena, but also for those who HATED that game as well, because while this isn’t a masterpiece by any means, it does still manage to be more competent and enjoyable then that piece of shit ever managed to be. It’s too bad though that, after this game, we would never see any hint of a third game in the Athena series ever again………….. until 12 years later, that is. Because I guess the demand for another one of these games was just too high at that point, clearly.

Game #545