Few games embody the 'easy to play, hard to master' mentality quite like 'Alien Soldier' does. There are only two difficulties: Supereasy and Superhard. This doesn't affect difficulty, rather it's a limit to how many continues you can use. It's easy enough to slam yourself into the wall until the problem solves itself but I promise you, speedruns make the game look infinitely easier than it is. The game is deceptively complex and every time you're about to start playing, the game brings you to a small training area where you can practice all the different moves you have at your disposal, something I thing more games should implement.

The problem is that only 10% of the story remains intact, resulting in an extended text wall intro explaining a backstory that goes nowhere. A planet blows up halfway through and it literally affects nothing because there's no context. I understand that this game was rushed towards the end of development but realistically, Treasure should have cut the story out entirely at that point and implemented more of the gameplay aspects they wanted to add instead. This weird attempt to salvage the story is the only thing holding the game back from being the best run 'n' gun on the Genesis.

I would rate this a full five, but I am certain I will never finish this on its default difficulty, which is hard, natch. Because Treasure back in the 90s and early 2000s loved doing things the hard way, the weird way, the VISUALSHOCK! SPEEDSHOCK! SOUNDSHOCK! way. I respect this game the same way I respect Ikaruga. They are both obviously highly polished games made by an immensely talented and imaginative dev team, but they can also both fuck off, respectfully. They're for that mythical gigachad (or gigastacy, or gigathad) who has seen and faced the challenges of all other action games of the era and found them wanting. They might be reading this, and if they are, hi! I regret to inform you that 30 minutes before you beat Deacons of the Deep, you left the oven on and the potatoes are about to catch fire in the frying pan. Watch out!

The first level is a pretty bad first impression. Get past that and you're in for a good time.
i think that is a very interesting and fun time. the trick for bosses is knowing when to i-frame dash and parry. Parrying projectiles drops health, but health drops expire fast! Have to balance going forward and taking your time.

its too bad the parry input is a double tap
it's not like i was accidentally doing it or anything but there were times where i was on beat to parry on the first press, but not the second
if that makes sense

unlimited continues and a short password system makes this pretty forgiving too