Grind Stormer for Genesis

Image: MobyGames

Grind Stormer

Overhead Gradius

Genre: shooter - vertical

Publisher: Tengen

Year: 1994

System: Genesis

Gameplay Score: 4

Gameplay Notes:

3 or 4 different weapons. All are powerful. No peashooters here. Always have Gradius-style options. In fact, you can play the game with a Gradius-style powerup system or the simpler way where certain enemies drop a powerup. Powerups are clearly labeled with a full word "missile", "search" Ridiculous difficulty. The first boss is impossible without the "search" weapon. No need to tap the fire button, thank you.

Level Design Score: 3

Level Design Notes:

Some nice enemy wave designs but man do they move fast and take a lot of hits. Enemies linger near the middle-to-bottom of the screen making it tought to get underneath to hit them. No horizontal scrolling Pretty standard stuff tbh

Theme Score: 3

Theme Notes:

Generic. No idea what the setting is. It's a shooter

Art Style Score: 4

Art Style Notes:

LOVE the sprites, especially the chunky fighter plane-style sprite of your character. Colorful sprites and backgrounds with a bit of parallax. The backgrounds again look nice but aren't distracting like the Thunder Force games.

Audio Score: 1

Audio Notes:

Music is ok but is so quiet you can't hear it over the sound effects. And those sounds! Wow are they obnoxious. Your normal shot is so grating that I tried using it sparingly. And the continuous high-pitch screetch of the best weapon in the game is unbearable. I finally just muted the game.

Overall Score: 68

Review ID: 958