Yeah, I got no history with this series, and no background info to go off of, so we’ll just jump right on in this time, ALESTE! Or Power Strike if you live outside of Japan, which sounds extremely generic in comparison, so I’m gonna keep calling it Aleste. This is a game from a series that I haven’t really heard of until recently, and I am a fan of shoot-’em-ups (as you could probably guess), so I decided to check it out, and I gotta admit, this one is pretty fucking sweet. I had a pretty good time with this game, but of course, it isn’t perfect. Nevertheless, in terms of other shoot-’em-ups that I have played from around this time period so far, it has a lot going for it compared to others.
The story is about revenge mostly, which is incredibly cliche, but then again, no one cares about the story in a shoot-’em-up, the graphics are pretty good of course, having a lot of action going on at once, the music is fine, although a lot of the tracks sound very similar to each other, the control is solid of course, and the gameplay is very fun, with how much power you can obtain and dish out, but still pretty tough at the same time.
The game is your average 80s shoot-’em-up, where you control a spaceship, fire two different kinds of weapons alternatively or at once, defeat many enemies thrown and shooting at you at once, gather a wide assortment of powerups to take on threats, and defeat bosses along the way. It is all pretty much what you would expect, but I think what makes this game for me specifically are the weapons and powerups. For your main shot, you can get a bunch of P icons to not only increase the firing rate of your weapon, but also giving you a double and triple shot with the more icons you end up collecting. Let me tell you, getting all of these powerups and mowing down through hordes of enemies is incredibly satisfying, and it was really fun keeping up with all of the action.
Not to mention, there are plenty of sub-weapons that you can get to fire as well, symbolized by numbers. Depending on what number you shot and collected, you would get a new weapon such as a laser shot, a moving laser shot, a projectile that acts as a shield, and a wide shot, which may be my personal favorite of the bunch. Not only does this selection of weapons provide a lot of different weapons to try out, but offers a lot of strategy and fast reactions similar to Gradius, where you gotta think fast about what weapon you should grab and use quickly before it is too late. Although, I will admit, not all of the weapons are really all that great, and frankly, after trying them all out, you’ll probably only use one or two of them whenever you get the chance.
With all that being said, this all comes at the cost of the game’s difficulty. Much like other shooters at the time, this game is FUCKING HARD, as there are plenty of enemies thrown at you all over the place, with there being very little room for error. Again, having the powerups to use does help make things more manageable, but things still tend to be pretty tough. Not to mention, if you die, you lose all of your upgrades, which is to be expected from a game like this, but considering how long and circumstantial it can be to get these powerups back, it can feel absolutely devastating when you die in terms of difficulty and versatility, meaning that dying is almost not an option if you wanna reach the end.
Aside from the difficulty, some other problems with the game would be that be a lot of the bosses feel very similar, usually being just a formation with the same amount of weak points, or a tiny ship that flashes the same colors before they die, and it does get repetitive after a bit. And speaking of which the game itself is also pretty repetitive, given how many stages you go through that contain basically the same setup with the same enemies flying at you constantly. In addition, it feels like the stages go on a lot longer then they need to. Sure, it enough to where you won’t beat the game that quickly, which is good, but again, given the amount of repetition in the game, it can feel like stages are dragging on after a while.
Overall, despite the brutal difficulty, unforgiving punishment, and the lack of variety with regular gameplay, I still had a really good time with Aleste, and I am glad that I did check it out, making wanna check out what the other games in the series are like. I just hope that they don’t kick my ass as much as this one does.
Game #222
The story is about revenge mostly, which is incredibly cliche, but then again, no one cares about the story in a shoot-’em-up, the graphics are pretty good of course, having a lot of action going on at once, the music is fine, although a lot of the tracks sound very similar to each other, the control is solid of course, and the gameplay is very fun, with how much power you can obtain and dish out, but still pretty tough at the same time.
The game is your average 80s shoot-’em-up, where you control a spaceship, fire two different kinds of weapons alternatively or at once, defeat many enemies thrown and shooting at you at once, gather a wide assortment of powerups to take on threats, and defeat bosses along the way. It is all pretty much what you would expect, but I think what makes this game for me specifically are the weapons and powerups. For your main shot, you can get a bunch of P icons to not only increase the firing rate of your weapon, but also giving you a double and triple shot with the more icons you end up collecting. Let me tell you, getting all of these powerups and mowing down through hordes of enemies is incredibly satisfying, and it was really fun keeping up with all of the action.
Not to mention, there are plenty of sub-weapons that you can get to fire as well, symbolized by numbers. Depending on what number you shot and collected, you would get a new weapon such as a laser shot, a moving laser shot, a projectile that acts as a shield, and a wide shot, which may be my personal favorite of the bunch. Not only does this selection of weapons provide a lot of different weapons to try out, but offers a lot of strategy and fast reactions similar to Gradius, where you gotta think fast about what weapon you should grab and use quickly before it is too late. Although, I will admit, not all of the weapons are really all that great, and frankly, after trying them all out, you’ll probably only use one or two of them whenever you get the chance.
With all that being said, this all comes at the cost of the game’s difficulty. Much like other shooters at the time, this game is FUCKING HARD, as there are plenty of enemies thrown at you all over the place, with there being very little room for error. Again, having the powerups to use does help make things more manageable, but things still tend to be pretty tough. Not to mention, if you die, you lose all of your upgrades, which is to be expected from a game like this, but considering how long and circumstantial it can be to get these powerups back, it can feel absolutely devastating when you die in terms of difficulty and versatility, meaning that dying is almost not an option if you wanna reach the end.
Aside from the difficulty, some other problems with the game would be that be a lot of the bosses feel very similar, usually being just a formation with the same amount of weak points, or a tiny ship that flashes the same colors before they die, and it does get repetitive after a bit. And speaking of which the game itself is also pretty repetitive, given how many stages you go through that contain basically the same setup with the same enemies flying at you constantly. In addition, it feels like the stages go on a lot longer then they need to. Sure, it enough to where you won’t beat the game that quickly, which is good, but again, given the amount of repetition in the game, it can feel like stages are dragging on after a while.
Overall, despite the brutal difficulty, unforgiving punishment, and the lack of variety with regular gameplay, I still had a really good time with Aleste, and I am glad that I did check it out, making wanna check out what the other games in the series are like. I just hope that they don’t kick my ass as much as this one does.
Game #222