I gotta be honest, this game isn't terrible. Certainly not as terrible as many make it out to be. In fact, I had fun at many moments throughout my playthrough. Although I did want to tear my hair out at several points as well. Generally this game works best when it's focused on fast-paced action that's all about racking up combos, and it occasionally veers outside of that niche it works well in. Presentation is a pretty mixed bag. The lighting looks fairly flat, although a few areas have some pretty nice effects. Particles really need some work, especially on explosions and fire which just look terrible. I really like most of the character designs and the art direction is pretty nice. Unfortunately, the lighting and stiff animations in cutscenes limits how effective the nice designs can actually be. My biggest issue with the game is it's frequent use of instant kill obstacles which combines with limited lives to create a handful of frustrating scenarios. A few stages and especially the final boss are really hurt by it. Here's some quick thoughts on each stage.
City: A fine tutorial level, a bit boring, but introduces mechanics well enough.
Oil Level: Solid, with some fun and fast paced sections and tricky platforming. One bit is annoying with falling instakill obstacles that look pretty bad. It's alright.
Ice Place: Annoying ice physics, some good platforming challenges, with a pretty good falling section.
Military Base: Solid. Good platforming with minimal frustration.
Mine: It's got some fun challenges and a tense atmosphere, but they go a bit overboard on instakills.
Highway: Cool setting, but a bit too basic and has an annoying autoscroll segment.
Power Plant: Good, with a great atmosphere. There's one annoying bit near the end.
Capitol Building: This level SUCKS. It's a cool idea, but it's just one long corridor without any checkpoints and INSTAKILLS.
Radio Tower: I like this one. I feel that the wind is additive instead of annoying, and it's got a lot of fun platforming. The boss is tedious.
Prison: Not a fan. You play as a different character who's much slower and doesn't mesh with the gameplay style. This is getting repetitive to say over and over, but INSTAKILLS.
Robot Factory: This level also blows. It's way too long, has tedious boss battles, excessive instakills, everything that makes one of these levels not work.
Colosseum: It's fun up until the boss, which is way too long, tedious, difficult, bad.
Notice a trend? Most levels really just needed one or two obstacles changed or instakills removed, and you'd have a much more positive game. Add in infinite lives, too. But as is, it's okay. Nothing special, which is pretty embarrassing considering how much money this game raised. But if you can find it for cheap, you could do worse. Just play Mighty Gunvolt Burst instead. It's an 8-bit demake of this game but way cooler and made by the same team, minus inafune. It's great, much better than this.
City: A fine tutorial level, a bit boring, but introduces mechanics well enough.
Oil Level: Solid, with some fun and fast paced sections and tricky platforming. One bit is annoying with falling instakill obstacles that look pretty bad. It's alright.
Ice Place: Annoying ice physics, some good platforming challenges, with a pretty good falling section.
Military Base: Solid. Good platforming with minimal frustration.
Mine: It's got some fun challenges and a tense atmosphere, but they go a bit overboard on instakills.
Highway: Cool setting, but a bit too basic and has an annoying autoscroll segment.
Power Plant: Good, with a great atmosphere. There's one annoying bit near the end.
Capitol Building: This level SUCKS. It's a cool idea, but it's just one long corridor without any checkpoints and INSTAKILLS.
Radio Tower: I like this one. I feel that the wind is additive instead of annoying, and it's got a lot of fun platforming. The boss is tedious.
Prison: Not a fan. You play as a different character who's much slower and doesn't mesh with the gameplay style. This is getting repetitive to say over and over, but INSTAKILLS.
Robot Factory: This level also blows. It's way too long, has tedious boss battles, excessive instakills, everything that makes one of these levels not work.
Colosseum: It's fun up until the boss, which is way too long, tedious, difficult, bad.
Notice a trend? Most levels really just needed one or two obstacles changed or instakills removed, and you'd have a much more positive game. Add in infinite lives, too. But as is, it's okay. Nothing special, which is pretty embarrassing considering how much money this game raised. But if you can find it for cheap, you could do worse. Just play Mighty Gunvolt Burst instead. It's an 8-bit demake of this game but way cooler and made by the same team, minus inafune. It's great, much better than this.