I played this mostly because one of my favorite animes as a teenager was Megazone 23, a cyberpunk with a red bike and the front cover to Burning Force absolutely gives those kind of vibes. In fact the cover is easily the best thing about this game. It's amazing. The rest of the game though, not so much.
You play the role of Hiromi Tengenji, a 21-year-old cadet at Earth University, she must pass a six-day final examination of fighting enemies to become a Space Fighter Pilot. She pilots a futuristic hover bike called the Sign Duck, which can transform into a small fighter craft.
It plays a bit like Space Harrier with a usage of line scrolling making the game feel more 3D than it is. On each day there are four areas to clear. the first two you are riding your hoverbike and can only move left and right firing at enemies that come towards you. The third area is a boss stage where the gameplay suddenly shifts as you get a fighter plane attachment and can now move around the whole screen. The fourth area is simply a bonus round for collecting points. The game has the same issues as Space Harrier and I imagine any Shoot em' up from this perspective, especially in stage 3 where you simply can't see if the enemies are firing at you. Add in that some enemies get so close to you that by the time you see them fire you've been hit, then add dodgy collision detection on top and it's just a bit of a mess.
Visually it's kind of ugly though it is a fairly early Mega Drive game. The ground below you scrolls in colour blocks representing water, desert, Alice in wonderland purple black Chess Board ( I never saw further than day 3) and while some of the backgrounds are nice I found the enemies and Hiromi herself fairly basic and blocky.
Overall not really for me this one. Still, it has made me want to go watch Megazone 23 again so I guess I should thank it for that?
+ Awesome cover.
+ Music's not bad.
- Levels aren't that interesting.
- Perspective makes seeing some attacks at times hard to dodge.
- Some collision detection issues.
You play the role of Hiromi Tengenji, a 21-year-old cadet at Earth University, she must pass a six-day final examination of fighting enemies to become a Space Fighter Pilot. She pilots a futuristic hover bike called the Sign Duck, which can transform into a small fighter craft.
It plays a bit like Space Harrier with a usage of line scrolling making the game feel more 3D than it is. On each day there are four areas to clear. the first two you are riding your hoverbike and can only move left and right firing at enemies that come towards you. The third area is a boss stage where the gameplay suddenly shifts as you get a fighter plane attachment and can now move around the whole screen. The fourth area is simply a bonus round for collecting points. The game has the same issues as Space Harrier and I imagine any Shoot em' up from this perspective, especially in stage 3 where you simply can't see if the enemies are firing at you. Add in that some enemies get so close to you that by the time you see them fire you've been hit, then add dodgy collision detection on top and it's just a bit of a mess.
Visually it's kind of ugly though it is a fairly early Mega Drive game. The ground below you scrolls in colour blocks representing water, desert, Alice in wonderland purple black Chess Board ( I never saw further than day 3) and while some of the backgrounds are nice I found the enemies and Hiromi herself fairly basic and blocky.
Overall not really for me this one. Still, it has made me want to go watch Megazone 23 again so I guess I should thank it for that?
+ Awesome cover.
+ Music's not bad.
- Levels aren't that interesting.
- Perspective makes seeing some attacks at times hard to dodge.
- Some collision detection issues.
2 Comments
@AtomicOldMan - Ha ha! I've never like Space Harrier much so I'm not sure what I expected going into this but I do like space Harrier a lot more than this, it's faster and has far more interesting levels and enemy designs.
Weatherby
1 year ago