Soldier Blade for TurboGrafx-16

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Review #7070

Soldier Blade

The best 16 bit shooter?

TG-16 1992 NEC Shooter Shooter › Vertical
Soldier Blade screenshot for TG-16
Screenshot used for review/reference purposes.
5 / 5

Gameplay

Amazing controls, weapons, health progression, and bomb mechanic. This is shoot em up perfection.
Select toggles between fast and slow movement. No messing around with a medium speed.
II shoots and I fires a bomb by spending one of your three power-ups which are shown on screen.
Health diminishes when hit and powers you down one level.
All enemies have fair patterns.
Only three weapons with the power levels each.

4 / 5

Level Design

Levels are short but jam packed with action.
Enemy waves vary between a line of small enemies, a couple of big heavy enemies, those that shoot, etc. Great variety. Also lots of interesting and unique set pieces like a screen filling ship that come past quickly too drop a set of enemies.
I wish the game was longer but the Challenge mode is a fun inclusion to add replayability.
Also two difficulty levels.

3 / 5

Theme

Generic sci-fi setting. No story

5 / 5

Art Style

Wow. Colorful and energetic but enemies and projectiles are easy to spot. Amazing scrolling effects. Incredible sprites and other artwork.

4 / 5

Audio

Rocking tunes and pleasant, quiet sound effects.

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