I did not finish this game, I completely lost interest in it. Because my experience was more limited I think it wouldn't be fair to rate the game.
What I can say is I spent 9 hours playing and really did not like this.

Random IP's are just thrown in so fans will buy it, but there's not much substance to back it up. There's several hundred extremely well animated battle animations accurate to the source material, while it's very impressive to look at it feels like they rely on them to distract players from the uninteresting story and overly expositional writing that doesn't amount to anything worthwhile and fails to try to set up an (interesting [to me at least]) original story around all these characters.

Even on Hardest settings at 5+ hours in I could just send my units directly into harms way with little thought, pick any attack and repeat every turn and still win with no allies lost. Enemy NPCs mostly behave the same way without any real strategy or unique AI.

The game-play is an illusion. There's tons of buffs equip-ables and menus within menus but there is no reason to bother with any of it, because the characters are already overpowered.

Importing this was a complete waste of time, I've played better SRW games that required thought and skill to play, had interesting characters that were better introduced with believable interactions.

Most games are an interactive experience, if a game doesn't rely on gameplay it needs a good plot, writing, or setting to keep it engaging. This does neither, it's a glorified mecha cutscene simulator.

Even if that's your thing, you can just look up all the animations and get the same experience without having to play it at all, and would be a better experience, better yet just watch the animated series connected to whatever IP.

This is probably just not for me, it seems like you have to be a fan of these IPs to enjoy it, I assume it doesn't get better or difficult 10+ hours in but I could be wrong, either way it shouldn't take that long.

Besides the weak crossover, and some really good remix tracks and original music this game has no point.

My first experience with any game in this series, it went far above my expectations, there was a learning curve getting used to the controls of a more realistic flight game, but once I had it figured out it felt amazing to play.

The presentation and story were great, they went above expectations with this too, I was not expecting so much world building and background for the fictional setting and the acting was mostly good.

What stood out to me was the variety of play-styles and morality system that leads to having many different strategies to play the game.

I quickly realized I like using Air-to-ground and flying as low as possible while taking out targets with just the standard gun, it was thrilling breaking away at the last moment or flying through cluttered environments while dodging missiles. Looks amazing for a PS2 game.

The air combat was good to, the ai had variety between enemies, the bosses were all interesting and had to be taken on in different ways.

I have one complaint, it takes awhile to get into missions, you have to usually fly into the map for a minute and wait for all the pilot banter, and if you lose you have to wait through it all again, I got tired of certain lines that get repeated very time I had to start over.

I enjoyed this the whole way through, and I will definitely play through again to try harder difficulties and different routes and ships, this is a new favorite and I plan on trying a few others in this series. Highly recommended for a flight-combat type game.

It makes sense the story mode is supposed to be a side mode and the multiplayer is the main focus of the game

The campaign alone was boring, the first game was trying something new and was basic as expected, 2 expanded story mode and added fun gimmicks and more interesting level design, but it seems like after 2 they ran out of good ideas and had to still add things in since it's a sequel.

So nearly all the new gameplay ideas in three's campaign are either boring or tedious, and overall it's a bit padded reusing ideas, the bosses are extremely simple. I had to force myself to clear it, this review isn't coming out until a year later because I kept dropping the story mode and just going back to ranked.

The story didn't impress, it was neat lore but I didn't get invested in it, 2's expansion spoiled me on this, the final levels were really minimal and not challenging at all.

I don't have the DLC so it might be a lot better now for single-player, I haven't looked into it.

The other modes however are much better, despite connection issues the balancing, map design, new weapons and gear, and modes are better than they ever have been.

For once getting into S+ didn't make me want to snap the game cart into tiny pieces, the game is punishing but nowhere near 1 or 2 while still requiring mastery to get into S+

Salmon run is chaotic unfair but fun nonetheless, just way too grindy to get anything good out of it but I can't stop playing it.

I'm really not into online multiplayer focused games, I don't get any satisfaction form competitive matches or PvP, co-op monser hunting, ect. I become disinterested quickly and drop these kinds of games quickly.
The core gameplay is so engaging and intuitive that I can enjoy it despite really not liking multiplayer focused games.

They pulled off something noteworthy with this game, and considering I still want to go back to it this is one of the best online games this company has made.

I'd skip the story mode, everything else though was great.

(added a year later)
They keep making the balancing worse, the new maps aren't fun to play and don't have good strategy or depth in multiplayer, salmon run keeps getting new maps but they still feel the same, Splatfests are fun on paper, but when I actually go to play I get disconnected and horrible lag that ruins the experience.

creating or joining lobbies and linking up with friends in needlessly complicated and un-intuitive and by the time we get it figured out I don't want to play anymore.
It's still addicting, but maybe not in a good way personally speaking. I spend so much time on this game but in the back of my mind I know it amounts to nothing. the only person that will care about your rank or win ratio is yourself, there's nothing to gain competitively long-term.

This was an interesting PS1 game, It is probably one of the most obscure games I've played.

It's a "dungeon crawling" game with a randomly generated 50 floor dungeon. This one is specifically 2 player cooperative, and you can pick form 4 classes of characters, this adds a lot of replayability and uniqueness.
Just like any "rouge-like" game if you aren't prepared it's very hard to progress, this game prevents you from speeding through to the end by implementing a hunger meter that only very specific items fill, if it runs out you lose large amounts of health constantly. So I would reach a certain depth and have to warp out to restock and heal, then go back and get a bit further each time.

I like that this game is generally more forgiving and less punishing than most other dungeon focused RPGs, there is no instant death or equipment durability, this game was difficult but not in unfair ways.
There's an expansive list of weapons, items, armor, ect in the game so there was a lot to experiment with, I was always finding new tools to use and try out in the game.

Combat fells stiff and outdated but it was still fun trying to maneuver around enemies and attack during their openings. The game has magic, long range, and melee combat but the enemy tracking isn't very accurate and hard to control.

There are good enough environments ingame, they are somewhat generic but have some nice visual touches, you will see the same rooms recycled as the game randomly builds the map out of them, it does get repetitive after long sessions of playing.

While this game is simple, it also has some elements that are truly strange, the main dungeon is really just for looting good equipment and leveling up, most players will get to the final floor expecting the end of the game only to find a regular floor with no exit or ending.
At the 25th floor is the real goal of the game, from there the focus changes to gathering four special keys.

What made this very odd is they are randomly dropped in treasure chests the last 20 floors and there's no real indication that they are important (besides text I cant read), you can stockpile them for no reason, sell them, or discard them (which I did unknowingly) one of them simply refused to spawn for me even after 10 hours of grinding the dungeon, the RNG (randomness) can be really frustrating at times, I had really bad luck with this.

Another very strange thing is there's no bosses in the game until the very end, then you get like 8 with small premade dungeons in between, very unusual pacing. They were fun and challenging to fight and added some needed variety, the bosses were definitely a highlight of this game.

The game is light on content but it gets a lot out of what's there, it's about 5 hours to beat. Overall it was a fun experience, and didn't get old. I feel like if it was any longer it would have significantly detracted from the game, the way it is it's easier to get into and try another run.

These kinds of games can be very hit-or-miss but I will definitely come back to this one, for fans of the genre I would recommend trying this game, be aware of the language barrier, I was still able to beat this one and understand basically everything with some persistence.

Headhunter is a recklessly ambitious game.
That's the best way I can sum it up.

The effort put into it can be immediately seen in the visuals, it doesn't look like a Dreamcast game.
Textures are clean and sharp, models look good, decent animation and smooth environments, and nice lighting effects. It's possibly the best looking Dreamcast game I've seen so far, I would often just wander around in rooms and look at all the small details and backdrops.
The game excels in atmosphere overall, the visuals, tone, and soundtrack perfectly fit together.

It's also noticeable in the story and writing and in this case that was one of the better aspects, it was entertaining throughout it's not the deepest story or anything but it has a strange satire/semi serous tone that makes it stand out, numerous cutscenes both pre rendered and live action.

The last overall positive aspect is the music by Richard Jaques, it adds a lot to the game. It's one thing that stands out in a good way.

The dev team simply tried to do too much, you have driving segments, stealth gameplay, third person shooting, VR missions, and various Resident Evil style puzzles crammed into a small game, as a result none of them are all that polished or deep.

The combat is not great, stealth take-downs wouldn't work most of the time, the enemies aim is terrible so the entire game I would just walk toward them while shooting and usually take no damage, instead of coming up with any strategy.
The boss fights were better but often were more of a DPS race. Targetting would often get stuck on objects or far enemies I didn't want to aim at. It was clunky but still fun in a mindless way, when the stealth worked and I could sneak up on enemies it was fun and trying to use mines and grenades strategically was satisfying, it was never hard enough to be frustrating and losing doesn't send the player back that far (most of the time).

I could definitely tell this was supposed to be an open mission based game, but something must have happened in development because the game has a pointless empty overworld to drive around in despite progress being linear.

They clearly had to cut back on this one a lot, yet confusingly they kept the open world hub anyway they seemed to really want to keep it in the game no matter the cost, and to make sure players are forced to explore it there is a driving exp system the prevents you from continuing until a certain number is reached, it's one of the strangest design decisions in a game I can think of in recent memory.

even the slightest graze with any obstacle makes you lose points, it's far too punishing this lead me to have to grind driving back and forth through an empty lot for about 30 minutes before I could finish the game.

This holds the game back a lot, it does add a bit of identity to it but maybe not in a good way.
I did enjoy wandering around in the hubworld just exploring sometimes.

To add to all of this the game is glitchy, new game plus softlocks itself, it's easy to clip in to some areas, a wall in the overworld has no collision, and I died while exiting areas or beating bosses several times leading to strange and funny results.

Near the end of a game I left a room I wasn't supposed to and found it couldn't be re-entered. I had to circle back around the route to get back in, an the event that stopped a bunch of instant kill lasers blocking the way forward wouldn't re activate, so I had softlocked my game at the very end.

In order to beat this game I had to resort to using an out of bounds glitch to walk around the blocked doors, it was incredibly easy to cause this softlock.

That's generally how this game is, poorly executed but almost never dull, it has what you might call Dreamcast era charm that keeps it from becoming boring sometimes ironically. Despite the problems I had it was worth sticking with this one, it wasn't too long either.

This game was awkward, a bit glitchy, but still a fun playthrough. I'd recommend this to people that want something a bit experimental that has an aged feel to it, like a time capsule representing the late dreamcast era.
People with less patience for unintuitive control and lack of polish should definitely avoid this game.

I'm not much of a fan of this series in the first place, but I've played a few of them. This one isn't the worst but it's still overall disappointing.

This game does well for being a 1991 snes game. some of the backgrounds had really good parallax effects, other than that it's a barren often static looking game.
I really like the music too, though the guitar samples sound very aged.

Everything nice I have to say about it is more than negated by one the worst final levels I have seen in any game, I was actually having a great time with it until that point.

There's no real design to it, they just throw 3 mid-bosses at the player at once and have them respawn like 15 times.

They clearly weren't designed to be together and lead to extremely unfair situations. It also goes on for way too long then ends with a boring and forgettable final boss.

I don't think the end of the game was finished or tested, it seems like the devs ran out of time and just re-uesed assets.

The endings are boring, I questioned why I bothered to play through this. It's a decent playthrough with savestates but I shouldn't have to rely on that to enjoy a game.
It's like a 7/10 until the last level then it suddenly drops to a 2/10 game. Average at best, but overall mediocre.

Still better than Darius Force.

This is a Picross knockoff, usually a clone of a game is worse but this is the best version of this type of puzzle game I've played. This PS1 game is a modified port of an arcade series, it's extremely obscure and I was lucky to find a copy.

This has the same foundation as Nintendo's Picross series (similar to mine sweeper on PC) but since it's an arcade series action and quick thinking are much more of a focus the game has characters and items from action puzzle games mixed in.

While most other puzzle games like this time how long the puzzle takes and are more laid-back, these games have a timer counting down prioritizing quick thinking and strategy it makes the game a lot more exciting.

There's more depth than typical puzzle games since you can refill the time by clearing the right blocks, I came up with a strategy of leaving some parts blank that I knew were part of the picture so if the time was running out I could quickly fill the area in.
Items are randomly found too, these can reveal parts of the puzzle and up to 5 can be stored at once, there's some basic risk/reward design.

The entire game is very colorful and well animated, with good character designs and catchy music.
mechanics like score and continues don't really do anything, so it's still very low stakes and not punishing. I would've like some more tension from losing progress but at least it's accessible and not frustrating.

To get the last level requires going back to levels and grinding collectibles, it wasn't too bad but the only real complaint I have other than the main mode being short.
This all applies to the main story mode which is short but has a wide variety of music and backgrounds, and is 1 or 2 players.

Besides the Main story mode there's a time trial mode with no items or collectibles, it's much more standard but has its own unique graphics and stage themes.

I was surprised to find over 700 different puzzles to complete and they can be done in any order, the game saves progress thankfully. It's far above average for the amount of content.

I try to avoid using terms like hidden or overlooked to describe games, but this one definitely is.
I didn't expect much from this game but it exceeded all of my expectations, this entire series is worth playing (Logic Pro 1 and 2).
People who enjoy these kinds of puzzle games will enjoy this.

This review is my impressions so far.

On the surface it appears to be a charming and inviting light gun game. A few positives I have so far: presentation is charming and nice to look at, character designs are appealing and the game runs smoothly despite frequent loading, I liked some of the music too. Theoretically the boss fights and gimmicky ideas would be fun. Actually playing it though I was completely unprepared.

I have some problems with this game. The arcade game it is based on really seems to be intended to get more credits out of players, and the PS1 port did not re-balance this.

The first thing I did was go into the main arcade mode and choose the easiest option, I didn't have a light gun yet but the control for a regular controller was surprisingly good, it's smooth and has a nice momentum to it that makes it work really well. There wasn't much resistance in terms of difficulty, first impressions were great.

As soon as I tried the normal mode things fell apart (I had a light gun by this point). Just the NORMAL mode has a massive jump in difficulty, every single mini game suddenly expected near perfection. The difficulty balance is a mess.

Another problem is the kind of minigames the game contains.
Too many of these expect you to shoot one rapidly moving object with no mistakes you get one bullet and that's it, this is a light gun game with no cursor.
This wouldn't be so bad if the hitboxes were better.

There were several times when I could see the hit spark from my shot clearly over an enemy and it wouldn't count, the moving 3D models you have to shoot make these hitboxes nebulous and hard to discern, it should be easy and satisfying but it's not. and as usual the goal score is unreasonable. This is possibly because I am not good at these kinds of games.

Several are just button/trigger mashing fests that expect too much from the player.
I got the impression the game is balanced for 2 players, yet it doesn't adjust the requirements in one player.

The last thing I want to do after a long day of work is to come home and mash until my arms ache while getting a migraine as the game says I didn't hit the button nearly enough or refuses to count my hits, so far this game was pure frustration.

I'm hoping a second player improves this drastically, and that the other modes are a bit more forgiving. Those other modes use the same pool of mini-games so my hopes aren't very high on this one. I might need to just get practice I guess.

A significant part of this games identity is the light gun, and yet it doesn't feel balanced around that kind of playstyle at all. It's just way better with a controller, it's so backwards

I've always seen light gun games as a coin-stealing throwaway novelty, and this game only has worsened my perception. I'll give it another chance and try the other modes soon but my hopes aren't high.

The kind of game I play once and never return to.
I appreciate what they've done here and the snes sound and style is a nice novelty but F-zero was always a skill based game.

FZ99 takes that skill and leaves it up to random players, I've fully completed GX, X, Climax, and the original, so I know I'm good at these games, yet after 4 hours of playing I could not win.

It doesn't matter that much if you race really well, all it takes is a casual player (or bot) warping in front of you and ramming you into a hard turn at the worst time and your run is ruined, the yellow meter can mess with the balance.

It's as if they took F-zero and put the Mario Kart Bullet Bill item into it, a casual party racing item that has no place here, winning feels up to luck.

I can't really complain because it's free and has ok content, GP is by far the best mode relying more on skilled racing and strategy, yet it's only available for minutes at a time, a baffling decision that really holds the game back.

This was neat to try out for a bit, but I'll stick to X or Climax for my FZ fix.

This game is the reason I have a Dreamcast

Border Down is a port of an arcade game that was made on the Dreamcast arcade counterpart Naomi, years after the system was discontinued.
The foundation of Border Down is built from successful ideas and mechanics form older arcade shooting games with unique ideas and mechanics built off of them.

A lot of old arcade shooting games have some kind of adaptive difficulty also known as "rank"
Expert players come up with ways to keep the difficulty down so high scores and 1 credit clears are manageable known as rank management.

I've always been on the fence about this aspect of games like Battle Garegga (the game probably most well known for "rank" also Ibara and Pink Sweets) it's built into the game in a way that players are expected to intentionally lose ships and avoid powering up, it feels counterintuitive and even when I fully understood these systems I didn't enjoy playing that way.

These systems feel more like a checklist of seemingly random actions the player has to take to play optimally, they're often secretive and intentionally obscure, and hidden within the code of the game, with the intention that with enough trial and error players will decode the games complicated systems and create a "route" through it.

Realistically you'd never want to intentionally crash a ship or lose a life in a regular game, and you would always want to be fully powered, it doesn't make sense for the characters in game to do this, and it's not explained narratively in any way, it's sort of superficially layered onto the game.

Border Down does something incredible, it takes this rank concept of losing lives, fully communicates the mechanic effectively, and gives it context while mixing it with a branching level path system seen in games like the Darius or Star Fox series.

It's completely up front with the mechanics of the lives system to the point that it's the core identity to the game, it's narrative, even the name "border down' is referring to this mechanic. The game makes the idea of losing a ship on purpose make sense and made actually want to engage with it.

Dominant strategy ruins a lot of games for me, in this game though there are many possible ways through the game it has a rank system with real freedom, I had fun coming up with my own route.
Losing doesn't just make the game go easier on you or lead to a different end level boss, you get a new view or perspective of the current level to play through, the game is only 6 levels long but the separate paths can look and feel entirely new depending on the level.

Each life (or ship) is on a separate path (the game calls them borders) and there's three of them, instead of just choosing the path, normally losing a life (intentionally or not) moves the player down one path from green, to yellow, then red.
When on green you can sometimes see the yellow ship flying through it's route in the background for example, the in game protagonist is exchanging remote control between three different ships.

Another thing this game really gets right is not only do the mechanics all have narrative and gameplay context, they all feed into another in some way.
You can get "extra lives" in Border Down just like you would any arcade game from reaching a certain score however this " extra life" is just earning back the previous higher path and ship, the other gameplay mechanics all tie-into getting scores to regain these paths.

Besides rank and paths this game uses the laser mechanic from Metal Black and G-Darius where you exchange weapon power for a very powerful laser that clears the screen and makes the player invulnerable.
This has a new layer of depth to it as any bullets erased and hits on enemies adds to a score multiplier, so using it effectively and at the right spots is important to earn back lost ships and defeat bosses.
Each boss has it's own version of the laser and just like in those two previously mentioned games you can counter it with your own, creating a cool looking spectacle but also severely damaging the boss and adding a much larger score multiplier.

The game is extremely difficult, so memorizing when bosses use their attacks and how to deal with them is important, the game feels ahead of it's time in that it has a practice mode where any part of levels can be replayed and restarted instantly for easy memorization. it's not necessary to beat the game but it helps a lot.
I can see it being too frustrating for a lot of people but with the practice mode and unlockable free play (unlimited continues) it is still accessible for anyone that decides to put enough time into it.
It's all about finding your preferred path and strategy through the game, it will test even the most skilled players looking to beat the game on a single credit but it is a mostly fair challenge.

There are open levels like in space or in the sky, but the game has many cluttered sometimes claustrophobic levels with environments the player needs to precisely fly through and these can be very tense.
A collision with a stationary wall or ceiling wont result in a loss unless you keep pushing into it, you can scrape by obstacles and still get through the game is often demanding while being lenient.

In general this game has very smooth and polished gameplay, it is meticulously designed and in some ways ingeniously built.

That's not all this game has going for it, it looks great too.
The game is fully polygonal, a lot of shooting games don't use 3D space that well, often playing it safe, with little to no camera movement, or dynamic movement through environments or background details, they're usually still kind of flat.

While this game still plays just like any 2D side scrolling arcade game the camera often will pan around and go in or out of the background usually in between the main areas of a level (automated like cutscenes). Sometimes the level wil start scrolling in a different direction, sometimes up, down or diagonally, it keeps things feeling fresh.
Bosses will fly around in the background or appear in the distance earlier in the level before you end up fighting them, and during fights they can move in strange and surprising patterns all over the playable space. The game expects the player to move all around the screen to dodge attacks and aggressively take care of enemies, space is used extremely well.
Sometimes you can see bosses from a different path in the distance or the obstacles on an alternate path, it makes it feel and look like a real place or environment that I'm fighting through.
There's often random ships, debris, ect flying around in the background there's always something going on and a lot of detail to it. It's very dynamic and the game has a lot of spectacle that keeps it engaging just to watch even after many playthroughs. It's full of neat and impressive small details like these.

Overall the graphics are also polished though it's a lot of grey and black most likely to keep bullets and enemies visible. There were times where enemy bullets would get lost in explosions or fire effects, these don't come up often, but it's unfortunate that it does and there were times where I suddenly lost a life without seeing what hit me, it's one of the few flaws I have with this game.

The music is strange, I like it out of context, but it's often upbeat and whimsical. The feel and challenge of the game is very intense and it really doesn't fit until the later half of the game, I don't know what to think about the way the game sounds or what they were going for, it is catchy though. The Dreamcast has a remix mode with new music so at least there's that.

This game was made by a lesser known (at least at the time) company: G-Rev, they later assisted development on Ikaruga and much of the visuals camera work and polish are there too, it's interesting to compare both games as design wise they feel like complete opposites while having many of the same level mechanics, they seem to specialize in games that can be casually appreciated but take years to master.
It definitely is frustrating at times and takes a lot of patience.

Border Down is a game that feels like the culmination of years of iteration and experimentation and this is the natural conclusion and peak of those ideas, it's truly unique and memorable, and I am still addicted to it, I don't have much to complain about.

I definitely recommend this one, even if you have to play on easy and use infinite continues, it's worth it for the uniqueness and visual polish, It was very enjoyable to play through even when struggling or getting a game over.

When I found out about this game I was drawn in by the visuals and spectacle, and I decided I needed to get a copy with a Dreamcast and I don't regret it. It was everything I hoped it would be and it's still my favorite Dreamcast game.

This was promising at first, there are 4 courses to select with 4 tracks each, and I like the character roster a lot. I thought there would be 16 unique tracks, but they re-use the settings and themes so there's more like 8 tracks with 8 variants.

The lack of different themes and environments was very disappointing. once all four courses are unlocked that's it, getting first on Hard doesn't do anything, there's no cool secret course to unlock, just having 1 new level theme to unlock that wasn't used yet would have made playing through this worth it.

The closest comparison to this game is Mario Kart Super Circuit, and that game has more content, more varied course layouts, and more movement options like drifting.

Despite having less KKR does feel good to control, just racing and doing time trials can be fun at times.

There's also a trial mode that has unique objectives like beating a certain time or doing a course backwards, this added some needed variety and game time to single player.

It was cumbersome and awkward to drift in (2D) Mario Kart but at least it was in the game, in KKR you have to nearly come to a complete stop on some turns, meanwhile the computer players cheat and don't have to slow down at all, while always catching up instantly.

The worst thing about this game is the collision detection, it's terrible.
I'd try to make jumps over pits or cut corners over water and the hitbox appears to be larger that the tile it's on, so it looks like I'd be on land but I'd still fall in, sometimes multiple times in a row since the turning is so bad, the ice level was miserable to play as the edge tiles would count as water and are all over and they are easy to slide into.

hitting walls is not lenient at all just barely touching a wall or obstacle will make the kart come to a near stop, it's ridiculous.

Boosting on a jump and doing a really hard turn to skip part of the level will instantly put the player in last place.
I understand not letting players skip half the track, but even just a little skp saving maybe 1/2 a second is still punished, sometimes I'd even do one by accident and have to start over.
Any kind of creative or fun shortcuts are just not possible here, I don't see any good reason why they did this, it just makes the game even less enjoyable and punishing.

Good character roster, nice remixed music themes from other games, and shadow moses from Metal Gear Solid as a track setting is the best thing this game has, there's also some unlockable characters, and at least they all feel different to play.

I have mixed feelings on this game
It's worth trying for the crossover but it's not as replayable as some other racing games on Advance.

A game that defines the phrase: don't judge a book by it's cover. Sometimes watching gameplay or just reading about a game isn't enough to fully understand it, looks can be deceiving and first impressions only go so far.

While this mostly looks and plays like a standard top-down shooting game, this game has an interesting history

This is a Toaplan game, in fact it is the last one the studio developed, It play just like several of their other games and has their distinct design elements and mechanics. It was cancelled and finished up by another company but it was already in beta state before then, it fees like it too since the game feels like a combination old and modern (for its time) game design.

The game play in this is mostly safe, it has the usual three colored powerups, bombs you can collect up to five of, and high difficulty.
It looks kind of ordinary too, it doesn't look at all like a game made for 32 bit systems. It's not that it looks bad, in fact it looks well made with nice scaling and layering effects, the detail is pretty good overall.

Many people note this came out after Batsugun and comapare it directly to that, and to be honest it doesn't compare favorably to it or just about any Saturn Shooting game, it's not nearly as flashy, inviting, or innovative.
It doesn't have the same level of spectacle or ambition, the scaling effects look more like bootleg Mode7 meanwhile you have games like Layer section and Terra Diver that absolutely destroy this games' presentation and effects in comparison. It also plays like a game decades older so it's understandable that people would find this game disappointing.

It's very hard to get into and takes some time to understand, this is another thing that holds it back and adds to the negative reputation this game has.

At first the player will probably notice how sluggish their aircraft is, notice that enemies take really long to defeat, and then get sniped by a fast bullet. Tame presentation and the difficulty together makes this one have one of the worst first impressions in the entire genre. The music is weird Rockabilly and metal with shrill sampled guitar and random vocals (it eventually grew on me). The game is also somewhat short with only 6 levels by default.

There's three weapons, but only one of them (the strongest one) is ever worth using, it's extremely unbalanced in that two out of three of the weapons are technically useless.

The truth is there's a deceptively great game underneath all of this, and taken out of the context of the release date and console specs it's a good game in it's own right.

Feel invincible, get hit once and go back to the peashooter and fight to power back up. It's one of those games, the game isn't afraid to hand out some severe punishment and really it just is frustrating sometimes, a few parts are objectively unfair (enemies spawning from behind for example) but it keeps the game challenging, it requires constant focus and planning and a bit of memorization.

I admit it took me awhile before i really started to appreciate it, this game is designed like late 80s arcade games (big hitboxes, very slow movement, heavy memorization, and fast bullets), but unlike those it has modern sensibilities added onto it, it can be a credit stealer for sure but this time the developers had some restraint and did some things to balance the game so it isn't pure frustration and punishment (it's not Truxton 2 or Grind Stormer).

The game feels impossible at first, especially until figuring out that only one of the weapons is good, but as soon as full power is reached with the right weapon the player becomes overpowered and player bullets cover the screen.

Bosses can barely last more than 10 seconds when at full power, add to this the insanely powerful bombs you can stockpile, these are a shooting game staple. In a lot of top down shooters these do minimal damage and are meant for clearing the screen.
I've never liked this, a bomb with a huge explosion and loud sfx should be powerful, it should feel powerful and satisfying, it takes all the fun out of it when it isn't.

KTII+ is awesome because it actually makes the player feel powerful and bombs can clear the screen and easily turn a losing battle into a winning one, and if that's not enough collecting a sixth one stacks it into an extra powerful longer lasting and unbelievably broken bomb, decimating everything in the players way while giving instant invulnerability.

Even when an unfair death happens, the game gives enough opportunities for recovery with frequent powerups and bomb pickups, sure it's not good design it's a bit cheap and unpolished I can't ignore it, but I still enjoy the game in spite of it.

That's the thing, just looking at the game players deep into this genre have seen it all before, level settings, boss types, ect. The game doesn't do anything new or really noteworthy on the surface, objectively it's very flawed and a complete regression of innovation and game design, and yet...

It's the simple things that make this game worth playing, even over comparable games that look better at a glance, sometimes it's nice to play something familiar, a game that doesn't do anything amazing but does well established older ideas good enough, to keep the player invested sometimes it's enjoyable to play a game that feels like it's from a "bygone era" with all of the quirks and unrefined aspects that comes with it.

It's hard to explain or convey, it's unpolished and has some significant flaws but that ends up making it more interesting and more satisfying to overcome, I really do get into a flow state while playing this one, and losing just made me want to get right back into and to do better the next time.

Looking past all of that I do like the visuals and "cheesy" music, it has a nostalgic feel. very much like an overlooked and dated Neo Geo game.

Call it a guilty pleasure if you want, I know for sure that this is one of my favorite arcade ports on Saturn.

So that's it... for the arcade mode. There's an arrange mode they added when finishing the game up for Saturn, entirely new music (it's not as catchy) re-balanced and less aggressive difficulty, the option to always be at full power, and most of all a new 7th level with a real final boss and ending.

Take everything I said, essentially stack another (better) game on top of it, it makes up for a lot.
I recommend this one, but to only true experts already used to some antiquated game balance, some real patience is needed to get into this, but once someone gets over that hurdle it can be a very fun experience.
It's just a shame it's saturn and region exclusive, with the only authentic way to play costing exactly what you'd expect from that combination, if you have even a bit of interest in this game find a way to try it for yourself.

Incredible, if there was a peak or final form of the single screen arcade style game this is (probably) it.

I find myself asking where has this game been all this time? How could I have never heard of this? I'm surprised a game this good has gone unnoticed.

This is one kind of game that when looking up footage, within minutes I realized I had to play it. There was so much creativity and talent put into this game, it's brimming with originality and ambitious ideas. The levels are often dynamic, changing, and completely unique to this game, playing this was a breath of fresh air.

The easiest way I can describe how this game plays is like if you took Saturn Bomberman (with it's focus on bomb mechanics and ride-able creatures) fused it with Snow Bros, added in throwing mechanics from Mischeif Makers, and gave it the visuals of the best of Parodius and Harmful Park

The spectacle of this game is almost unmatched, there were many games of this type for systems like PS1 and Saturn, but none of them used 3D for backgrounds or visual depth.
Each world has different effects and visual gimmicks that often effect the level itself. there's nice parallax and layering, or panoramic visual effects.

World one flips the screen once in awhile while swapping the background much like a stage play.
World 2 had one of the most inventive use of background effects I've seen in any PS1 game, the level tilts and swivels with the background and effects player movement
https://youtu.be/u2TKbrNGItE
another world had water going up and down the play area with nice transparency, the sound would echo and distort when entering water too.
https://youtu.be/-UrtY6I8FCo
See here the amount of layers moving around
https://youtu.be/Osb6uHqkH0g

There's so much going on visually at times it almost gets overwhelming, there were times where i almost lost sight of my character, it's very chaotic but in a good way. It's very distinct and appealing visually, there's so many small details and always something going on in the background to look at.

Gussun Paradise (Yoyo Puzzle Park) takes place in a theme park, so each world is an attraction such as a boat ride, water park, ect and it all ties together nicely.

The game has you throwing enemies and bombs across the screen, it feels like Mischief Makers, or Gunstar heroes in that throwing is a key part of the game, the key to clearing levels is trying to clump all the enemies together and catch them in an explosion.

Your character alone can use a projectile that can push or stun enemies but not defeat them. It's the bombs that spawn in that need to be used to blow up enemies. This is a more unique approach to clearing out enemies, it requires more thought and planning than usual and adds a lot of needed depth.

In addition to this there are characters and objects that can be found randomly that can take an extra hit and add an ability like multiple jumps, one that draws in all collectibles, a flying one, or the one I liked to use that lets the player fire a full-screen laser at any time to stun enemies.

There's a lot of charm in the characters and their many fluid and detailed animations, the enemy variety stands out too.
There's a great 2 player battle mode in the game or it can be played cooperatively.

Every aspect about this game is well thought out and polished, it gets difficult near the end and a bit frustrating (in a good way) but never too much, and continues are plentiful.
I thoroughly enjoyed this the entire way through. It's just fun to play this in general.

My only complaint is the last few levels rely on either bringing in powerups or nearly memorizing specific patterns or strategy otherwise there was barely a chance to beat them, the enemies can easily get the upper hand and to add to everything going on the last world flips upside-down once in awhile which is very disorientating but still kind of neat, the story is also not interesting at all and feels tacked-on, could have been better but not as integral to this kind of game.

This is one of the most unique and inventive arcade style games I've played, it's packed with fresh ideas and engaging mechanics. was thoroughly enjoyable all the way through, absolutely a must play and an outstanding PS1 game.

This is a game about breaking away from a controlled world without free will. It's a game about taking a risk to find something meaningful and almost every aspect of it embodies that philosophy.

Some might see the character art and assume this is no different from so called "mascot platformers" of the time.
Instead of the usual colorful vibrant worlds and carefree settings the game features barren wastelands, abandoned spaces, and landscapes almost void of life.

Venturing into an unknown abandoned world. More than anything it really captures the feeling and atmosphere of discovering left behind landscapes and hostile ruins untouched for hundreds if not thousands of years. It is a game filled with the sense of mystery and discovery, within a game that itself is nearly forgotten and undiscovered.

The plot has more thought put into it than I expected, it's not exactly deep but it explores ideas that I don't often see in games and it's not a clear cut premise about saving the world, revenge, defeating an evil antagonist, ect.

There aren't many characters in the game but they get plenty of screen-time and are distinct from one another, the game is fully voiced in English and this helps the personality of each character come through, it's not bad acting or script either it's competent overall but not amazing.

Whether it's the of often obscure secrets the game holds or the odd and surprising unique visuals in certain areas it feels mysterious to play, it starts off with dull brown rocky textures of an underground network of caves, into an expanse of broken down abandoned metropolis to some egyptian inspired ruins and tombs.

These areas are populated with undead monsters the game calls ghosts, which are the previous residents of these levels. The game leaves this a mystery, it makes one wonder what happened to these places and why is everyone living in this one structured city underground, it brings to mind games like Panzer Dragoon and various dungeon crawlers with it's setting, it somehow feels like a perfect fit for a Saturn game.

What makes this game so unlike "mascot platformers" of it's time is it's subdued
approach to level design, if I had to describe the feel of the game in one word "subdued" would be it.
The starts of really slow almost quiet and slowly eases into more dense visually striking areas, It seems like it's not out of laziness or lack of creativity but restraint.

The game plays in a unique way too, there are fully 3D environments with a top down fixed angle and what makes this game special is full camera rotation, it's the one thing mechanically that the game uses the most. It makes jumps much more manageable and deals with depth perception better than purely isometric games.
Often puzzles and navigation are centered around looking at things from a different angle, at times the environment and camera are used in very interesting ways.

Like many Saturn games all characters, enemies, and objects are flat 3D rendered images with multiple variants for each camera angle, and it works well here.

The enemies are very simplistic looking but there is some charm to their design even if they could be a lot more detailed and are at times goofy-looking, enemies are the one thing ingame visually that doesn't mesh well with everything else.

Truth be told I like Sonic 3D Blast, I always have, it's flawed but still charming and fun overall especially the Saturn remake, despite its limitations it's a game I enjoy and appreciate...
But what if it was better?

Essentially this is if that game had been given the time and budget to be fully realized, improved, and given some actual plot and character.
In other words while Sonic 3D is good, W.W. is everything it could have been.
For a game about the theme of "freedom" it feels like the developers had exactly that, and were able to make basically anything they wanted, as a result it ends up being experimental, creative, and inspired.


The level design is difficult to sum up because every of the games 6 worlds have a different gameplay focus and pacing, it's full of variety, some worlds are more straightforward, one was focused on running down a winding path to beat a timer much like a racing game, and a later world focused on puzzles more than platforming, and these were inoffensive and fun to solve.

At times it seems as if the developers were influenced by early first person shooter games with small secrets and collectibles hidden everywhere and hordes of enemies that fill rooms all that leave behind a corpse when defeated so you can tell where you've been.
It has its own obscure secrets and a rotatable wireframe map that looks almost ripped out of early Doom, the levels feel as if they had been designed in a raycasting type of 3D engine despite that not being the case.

Willy doesn't jump on enemies to defeat them, instead he uses a short range and fast melee attack or slower long range boomerangs, while there isn't much depth to it on the surface the game uses the environment to make it more interesting whether it's putting enemies in hard to reach or disadvantageous places, or having traps that open up a room full of enemies unleashing them into the play area, often objects and items need to be hit or collected with the boomerangs and often these are their own small puzzles that add variety to the game, enough to never be completely dull and ideas are used as much as they need to be without getting repetitive or redundant.

The player can jump, rotate left/right, and dash in addition to attacking, it's a simple game to play and is easy to get into.

By far the most memorable and striking thing about this game to me is the environment and music, it's not just stereotypical ruins and forests, there's some surprising artistry here, to the point a few times I just had to stop and look around for a bit looking at every intricately designed detail.

The way color and lighting are used is memorable, and genius. often there will be some ruins or slightly generic natural environment and suddenly bright neons and harsh pure white or black surfaces will come up, these often have a number of moving parts, like a switch somewhere will make the floor shift around to form an intricate colorful geometric designs. Things often are intentionally clashing yet somehow they don't feel out of place. There is absolutely nothing else like it that I've seen, it is simply amazing.

And all of this; from the visuals, atmosphere, and plot wouldn't be nearly as effective without the music, it fits every level perfectly often subdued and atmospheric, the more melodic parts come in as the game gets going.

I suggest listening to "Detriam City" or "Ruins of Khuf" to get a feel for what kind of music is used, these are the highlights for level themes and (the sadly unused?) track 11 is also very good.
The music is a good listening experience even just on its own

The game does also have a 90s era theme song and ending with vocals that would not sound at all out of place in any Saturn era Sega game such as Nights, Sonic R, Burning Rangers, ect. It is that exact sound and direction.

I wouldn't call this game hard, but it can get challenging, Willy Wombat doesn't have a lives system, you have one generous health bar, if it runs out the game ends and it goes back to the title screen, where the option to reload the last save is given, if you didn't save you have to redo everything up to that point, it's not too punishing and while saving costs some ingame currency it's one of those cases where the game gives more than enough to save frequently.

The last few worlds focus more on precision platforming, often this risks being frustrating or causing players to give up but thankfully this game is forgiving and almost never used bottomless pits or damaging ground around difficult jumps.

collectibles are part of the incentive to actually explore levels, instead of getting 100 coins for a life, getting all of the collectibles in a level earns a save, and levels can be replayed at any time, beyond that there are items that expand the max health bar and these are important to survive the later more hostile parts of the game, but not essentially enough to ruin the playthrough if a few are missed.

_________________________________________


While there a many positives, I do have some complaints as well starting with the minor stuff;

-enemies are mostly simplistic and don't fit the visual fidelity of the environment or main character

-a few levels are more tedious to get through than fun. Sometimes taking a wrong turn, falling off a ledge, or taking the wrong portal means starting the entire level over. Thankfully this only happens in a few areas and often getting back to the end doesn't take more than a few minutes.

-some environmental sound effects in a few specific places overlap and get very loud and annoying

-some areas get very cluttered leading to the framerate going way down (again only happens in a few specific areas)

-the early levels don't have as much going on and can be a bit boring during a replay

-getting 100% can be a chore since levels often have a sudden point of no return late in the level any missed collectibles means starting over, this happened to me several times


The most glaring problems;

-This game has a run maneuver, keep in mind this is a Saturn game, so there's plenty of buttons that can be used.

6 out of these are already used and while button mapping is an option a 7th input could have easily been mapped to this yet it can only done by tapping a direction twice in succession, it can't be changed

This alone doesn't feel good, however what makes this much worse is when platforming gets precise; often I'd try to get close to a ledget to line up a jump and accidentally press forward again too soon, starting an unintentional sprint right off the platform, it's really annoying.

-completion does nothing, I got 100% but it was more about the journey than the reward (though I could be missing something this game is very obscure with its secrets)

-The worst thing about the game is the bosses. While there are 3 fights, 2 are basically the same and are so easy it's comical, the stun frames on the boss don't work so you can just mash attack and end it in about 5 seconds and the attacks it has are really easy to dodge.

The last boss has 2 attacks and doesn't do much, you push it off the ledge in about 20 seconds once it's figured out and that's it, no extra phases, no special attacks, and it looks really bland and thrown together, it's a really unfortunate way to end the game, but it shows that despite everything else being so good some things had to be cut, this aspect of the game was underdeveloped for whatever reason.

Altogether even with those faults this is a very unique and experimental game, even if it stumbles a bit it's still unlike any game I can think of and one that left a strong impression. The ambition, creativity, and passion still comes through in the level design and visual elements and it has an atmosphere that is well worth experiencing, at times relaxing mysterious and awe inspiring, I was invested all the way to the end

Not "near-perfect" in execution but extremely enjoyable and fantastic to experience, and one that hasn't been replaced.
This absolutely should be enjoyed by a wider audience and I recommend it to anyone looking for something more off-beat, subdued, and accessible from this generation