Decided to work my way through a load of retro shoot'em ups, some new to me, some I haven't played in a while and coming back to Arrow Flash is kind of a disappointment.
The core thing I remembered about this game being cool is still cool is the good news. You control a ship that can also change into a mecha robot at the press of a button like one of the planes from Macross/Robotech. Each form has a variation that makes it worth using at different times. The robot form allows you to lock the satellite gun power ups that are around you to lock in place where as the ship form allows faster movement and for those guns to follow you in a trail instead. Each form also fires your main weapon differently which will also vary depending on one of three power ups (subtlety named I, II & III) as to the type of shot spread. So there is a decent variation to experiment with.
The issue with the game is simply that it's kinda boring. The six levels feel uninspired except for the first which at least looks pretty good with a cloud parallax scrolling effect and a cool giant battleship in the background. It just goes downhill from there with too much down time between enemy waves makes the game feel immensely slow and the levels get massively uninteresting with one part just being a black screen with a few neon wavey lines like they had to rush it out the door. The bosses are also pretty uninteresting. The 'Arrow Flash' special attack just wipes most bosses in a few hits from the robot variation and even without that I kid you not I just stayed on the middle left hand screen of the final boss and fired without getting hit. until it blew up.
All in all Arrow Flash has a couple of interesting ideas but overall is a bit of a forgettable experience. If you want a more interesting space themed shoot'em up on the Megadrive/Genesis choose Gleylancer.
+ Robot / Ship modes like Macross is really cool.
- Level design is uninspiring.
- The game is slow and kind of boring.
The core thing I remembered about this game being cool is still cool is the good news. You control a ship that can also change into a mecha robot at the press of a button like one of the planes from Macross/Robotech. Each form has a variation that makes it worth using at different times. The robot form allows you to lock the satellite gun power ups that are around you to lock in place where as the ship form allows faster movement and for those guns to follow you in a trail instead. Each form also fires your main weapon differently which will also vary depending on one of three power ups (subtlety named I, II & III) as to the type of shot spread. So there is a decent variation to experiment with.
The issue with the game is simply that it's kinda boring. The six levels feel uninspired except for the first which at least looks pretty good with a cloud parallax scrolling effect and a cool giant battleship in the background. It just goes downhill from there with too much down time between enemy waves makes the game feel immensely slow and the levels get massively uninteresting with one part just being a black screen with a few neon wavey lines like they had to rush it out the door. The bosses are also pretty uninteresting. The 'Arrow Flash' special attack just wipes most bosses in a few hits from the robot variation and even without that I kid you not I just stayed on the middle left hand screen of the final boss and fired without getting hit. until it blew up.
All in all Arrow Flash has a couple of interesting ideas but overall is a bit of a forgettable experience. If you want a more interesting space themed shoot'em up on the Megadrive/Genesis choose Gleylancer.
+ Robot / Ship modes like Macross is really cool.
- Level design is uninspiring.
- The game is slow and kind of boring.