An ok little shoot 'em up for an hour or so if you've got the time.

The main draw for me trying this was it being a horizontal shoot 'em up entirely in water rather than air which is slightly novel. It's overly simple though and I don't think it uses it's theme to it's advantage as much as it could. Your submarine, the Nautilus has two weapons, front firing torpedoes and some missiles that fire up in an arch. The missiles can be fired up at boats and helicopters above water and the torpedoes at approaching submarines or aquatic life.

The issue is that that description is cooler than it actually is. The weapons just have no real impact, they feel like pea shooters and there is no upgrades or different types to experiment with. Just some attack and movement speed boosts and that's it. By the time you get to the end of the game in its 6 short stages it becomes very rote. The levels do try and add some variety with volcanoes, caves, underwater ruins like Atlantis and the inevitable mechanical lab that every shooter ever has, (even submarine ones it seems). However the bosses at the end of these are also incredibly static with a few gun turrets to hit, the first boss I fought I didn't even realise was one it was so easy.

I know the Master System only has two buttons, I know it wasn't that powerful but older games simply did more with bosses and weapons to be engaging and more variety here would have gone a long way to make the gameplay more engaging. That said I didn't hate it, I just can't picture myself coming back to play this in the future.

Reviewed on Nov 26, 2022


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