I wanted to love this game so much. I wanted to sing it praises.
Super Spy Hunter is a vehicular shmup with some really great weapons and upgrades as well as set pieces. Yes, indeed, this NES game has set pieces. It pushes the tech to the limit and is one of the games that makes you feel straight-up badass.
It's first stages are a joy, letting you adjust the speed to your liking so it almost feels like a modern character action game: you can move fast and look cool, or play slow, but look pretty bad.
It all falls apart in last 2 stages. While the penultimate stage offers a new cool gimmick, it overstays its welcome with both grueling boss and a long stage with the most boring background of them all. I can't overstate how gorgeous this game can be. I have no idea what trickery they use, but at times it feels like it uses SNES tricks as opposed to NES' hardware.
Before the final stage I wanted to commend this game for being a shmup that's accessible to new players: you have a healthbar, and the upgrade system is fairly generous. However, the final level features some jank, gotcha traps, and a boss gauntlet featuring final boss firing a one-hit KO beam with no warning.
God, I wanted to love this game, but its end is some grade A NES bullshit that feels like Gradius, and doesn't even feature anything as cool as the first few stages did.
Super Spy Hunter is a vehicular shmup with some really great weapons and upgrades as well as set pieces. Yes, indeed, this NES game has set pieces. It pushes the tech to the limit and is one of the games that makes you feel straight-up badass.
It's first stages are a joy, letting you adjust the speed to your liking so it almost feels like a modern character action game: you can move fast and look cool, or play slow, but look pretty bad.
It all falls apart in last 2 stages. While the penultimate stage offers a new cool gimmick, it overstays its welcome with both grueling boss and a long stage with the most boring background of them all. I can't overstate how gorgeous this game can be. I have no idea what trickery they use, but at times it feels like it uses SNES tricks as opposed to NES' hardware.
Before the final stage I wanted to commend this game for being a shmup that's accessible to new players: you have a healthbar, and the upgrade system is fairly generous. However, the final level features some jank, gotcha traps, and a boss gauntlet featuring final boss firing a one-hit KO beam with no warning.
God, I wanted to love this game, but its end is some grade A NES bullshit that feels like Gradius, and doesn't even feature anything as cool as the first few stages did.