GG Aleste 3's mere existence is bafflingly awesome: a shoot-em-up for Sega's long-dead Game Gear handheld--a sequel, no less!-- released in the year 2020, and with former Compile staff on board to boot.

The game feels right at home with its wonderful predecessors, sporting excellent, simple controls, some awe-inspiring 8-bit spritework and music, and a nice little scoring system focused on racking up "perfects" (which you get by destroying all enemies and destructible blocks in a given area).

I feel it drags terribly in some places, especially when the same enemy pattern is coming at you again and again for what feels like whole minutes at a time... but that's the only drawback.

And, if you like this genre, it's a pretty miniscule one, because it just means you'll spend that much more time with this strange little neo-relic of a game, which, despite its diminutive size and humble platform, burns bright with passion for the medium and its history in a way that most games do not.

Reviewed on Apr 27, 2022


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