Cleared on April 29th, 2023 (SEGA Genesis Challenge: 9/160)
Ok, I'll say the base game itself would get a 3 stars. It's really hard in an arcade fashion that requires near perfection in order to pull through. It makes sense since arcades are a business that aims to frustrate the player as much as possible for coins, but the port is just... oh god.
It's impressive that they even got it working on the Sega Genesis at all, but when you're put on a platform that's nowhere near as powerful as what an arcade machine is capable of, you have a lot of problems.
The projectiles and enemies are not as clear which makes you prone to surprise attacks and in this game, every damage you take will lead to your downfall. See, the game has an Energy meter which depletes as you move along. You are rewarded with energy by shooting foes which then refills by crossing a threshold or finishing a level. While you might think you have a chance as long as you keep racking up energy, it's only a matter of time before the damage you took and the enemies you missed start catching up to you.
Heck, this game is so disgustingly hard that I used not only save states, but the rewind feature on the Sega Genesis Classics Collection, and I still felt like I wasn't going make it to the enemy core on time to blow it up.
If you can get your hands on the Arcade version and be able to play it with a gamepad, just play that instead.
Ok, I'll say the base game itself would get a 3 stars. It's really hard in an arcade fashion that requires near perfection in order to pull through. It makes sense since arcades are a business that aims to frustrate the player as much as possible for coins, but the port is just... oh god.
It's impressive that they even got it working on the Sega Genesis at all, but when you're put on a platform that's nowhere near as powerful as what an arcade machine is capable of, you have a lot of problems.
The projectiles and enemies are not as clear which makes you prone to surprise attacks and in this game, every damage you take will lead to your downfall. See, the game has an Energy meter which depletes as you move along. You are rewarded with energy by shooting foes which then refills by crossing a threshold or finishing a level. While you might think you have a chance as long as you keep racking up energy, it's only a matter of time before the damage you took and the enemies you missed start catching up to you.
Heck, this game is so disgustingly hard that I used not only save states, but the rewind feature on the Sega Genesis Classics Collection, and I still felt like I wasn't going make it to the enemy core on time to blow it up.
If you can get your hands on the Arcade version and be able to play it with a gamepad, just play that instead.