A remake of Tyrian
Tyrian 2000 is an updated rerelease of the original Tyrian. Tyrian is an action killing, smashing, shoot'em'all arcade game. Your goal is to kill as many enemies as possible and finish the level, buy more weapons and then kill many more enemies. Your battle ship can be improved over time and you can buy new weapons currently available. Your ship supports front guns, rear guns and side slots for the most deadly weapons.
Also in series
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All episodes completed on story mode and Super Arcade.
Some neat ideas here but it's just kinda subpar. Play with mouse if you want to trivialize the game, since for some reason the ship's movement speed with the mouse is faster than with the keyboard keys.
Interesting concept, a vertical shooter with obvious European influences. It's not bad, of course, but it's not as good as the Japanese alternatives I've played. In any case, the concepts of shield, armor, being able to modify and improve your weapons, secrets, humor, etc. elevate it.
absolutely haunted by this game and have a grudge against it because of so many shmup forum threads where the first post is "wow you forgot tyrian" its like having a forum thread for discussing your favourite colours and the first post is "wow you forgot brown". can't stand it.
the game's okay i guess it's not my kind of thing
the game's okay i guess it's not my kind of thing
This is one of the big shareware games from my day that I actually managed to miss, and going into it I was aware that it is very well remembered as one of the only worthwhile western-made shmups. The closest point of comparison is Apogee's RAPTOR: CALL OF THE SHADOWS which came out around the same time, shares many similar mechanics, and is a bigtime favorite of mine. That game doesn't seem to enjoy the enduring reputation that this one does, and now, after finally playing this ... I find that even more irksome!
There is ... certainly a lot going on here. Oodles and piles of upgrade paths, weapon types, secret ships, branching storylines, hundreds of enemy types, co-op play where you can connect your ships together, codes, alternate modes, three secret difficulty levels, warps, collectibles -- it is honestly pretty overwhelming on first play. But is any of that stuff all that great? Eh. And it's kind of just barfed out at you all at once and you're meant to pick through it. It's fun to discover all these weird little secrets and digressions and mechanics, but it feels scattershot and unfocused. Some kind of ramp-up or gradual introduction to these things through the gameplay (you know, like, some actual game design) would have been very welcome.
The story is the same way. It's told entirely through data files and text briefings, and from the first one you read three seconds into starting the game, you're deluged with a hundred goofy sci-fi proper names to try to latch on to, and none of it has any bearing on the gameplay whatsoever, so it feels pretty pointless. It's fun to find optional files within levels, but so much of it is just dorky little joke digressions that contribute to the overall odd, non-serious tone that clashes with the sheer depth of all the lore they dump on you. I guess I'm just not on its wavelength.
I will say, the core gameplay elements range from passable to quite good. The central ship upgrading system (in story mode) is flexible and forgiving (you get your money back if you want to change things out) and it creates an interesting dynamic between your ship's energy, weapon loadout, and shields, where you end up needing to carefully tune things to succeed, but you are encouraged to allowed to experiment at will. This is good stuff. The actual shooting in the levels feels fine, but a little cramped, with things getting way too busy for the slightly amateurish art to support. Also the music is good. Not instant-classic stuff like I've seen it hailed as, but above average for a PC game, certainly.
So, to compare it to RAPTOR ... it's not as good! I'm probably pretty close to alone in thinking this, but I gotta stand up for my boy here. RAPTOR is certainly less ambitious, but it is much, MUCH more polished and focused. Even though it came out before, the art in that game is leaps and bounds ahead of this, making gameplay much more legible even when it's bullet-hell time. The upgrading is similar but pared down, but in turn each option is more impactful and balanced. The story is more spare, but more consistent. And I much prefer the moody, driving music from RAPTOR to this pretty-good Japanese-style ZANAC-wannabe stuff.
In a funny way, these two games kind of encapsulate the relationship between the two early '90 shareware titans, Epic MegaGames and Apogee. A little bit dorky, janky, and amateur hour, but full of wild ideas that are cool on paper but don't hang together all that well... vs. modestly scoped but solid, accomplished, and confident.
This one needed a project manager.
There is ... certainly a lot going on here. Oodles and piles of upgrade paths, weapon types, secret ships, branching storylines, hundreds of enemy types, co-op play where you can connect your ships together, codes, alternate modes, three secret difficulty levels, warps, collectibles -- it is honestly pretty overwhelming on first play. But is any of that stuff all that great? Eh. And it's kind of just barfed out at you all at once and you're meant to pick through it. It's fun to discover all these weird little secrets and digressions and mechanics, but it feels scattershot and unfocused. Some kind of ramp-up or gradual introduction to these things through the gameplay (you know, like, some actual game design) would have been very welcome.
The story is the same way. It's told entirely through data files and text briefings, and from the first one you read three seconds into starting the game, you're deluged with a hundred goofy sci-fi proper names to try to latch on to, and none of it has any bearing on the gameplay whatsoever, so it feels pretty pointless. It's fun to find optional files within levels, but so much of it is just dorky little joke digressions that contribute to the overall odd, non-serious tone that clashes with the sheer depth of all the lore they dump on you. I guess I'm just not on its wavelength.
I will say, the core gameplay elements range from passable to quite good. The central ship upgrading system (in story mode) is flexible and forgiving (you get your money back if you want to change things out) and it creates an interesting dynamic between your ship's energy, weapon loadout, and shields, where you end up needing to carefully tune things to succeed, but you are encouraged to allowed to experiment at will. This is good stuff. The actual shooting in the levels feels fine, but a little cramped, with things getting way too busy for the slightly amateurish art to support. Also the music is good. Not instant-classic stuff like I've seen it hailed as, but above average for a PC game, certainly.
So, to compare it to RAPTOR ... it's not as good! I'm probably pretty close to alone in thinking this, but I gotta stand up for my boy here. RAPTOR is certainly less ambitious, but it is much, MUCH more polished and focused. Even though it came out before, the art in that game is leaps and bounds ahead of this, making gameplay much more legible even when it's bullet-hell time. The upgrading is similar but pared down, but in turn each option is more impactful and balanced. The story is more spare, but more consistent. And I much prefer the moody, driving music from RAPTOR to this pretty-good Japanese-style ZANAC-wannabe stuff.
In a funny way, these two games kind of encapsulate the relationship between the two early '90 shareware titans, Epic MegaGames and Apogee. A little bit dorky, janky, and amateur hour, but full of wild ideas that are cool on paper but don't hang together all that well... vs. modestly scoped but solid, accomplished, and confident.
This one needed a project manager.