Choujikuu Yousai Fortress Macross: Scrambled Valkyrie for SFC

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Choujikuu Yousai Fortress Macross: Scrambled Valkyrie

Axelay, but only the horizontal stages

Genre: shooter - horizontal

Publisher: Zamuse

Year: 1993

System: SFC

Gameplay Score: 4

Gameplay Notes:

Wow this is great! It doesn't get much better than this: - continuous shooting (just hold B) - three ships and three different weapons - simple power-up system (just collect three "p" pickups to fully upgrade each weapon) - a generous health bar - taking a hit powers down your weapon - power and health pickups are plentiful - cool boss fights - forgiving hit detection - easy, normal, and hard settings My only complaint is the environmental hazards that don't look like they will hurt you. In the first level there are asteroids and shrapnel that you can fly right through but which hurt you. In the second level it's hills that look like they're part of the background. Your only indication is that your ship gets i-frames. There's no sound effect and no collision to prevent you from parking inside whatever is killing you. This leads to taking a ton of cheap hits.

Level Design Score: 5

Level Design Notes:

Levels are dynamic, interesting, and feature a lot of unique elements. In the first level some enemies throw black hole bombs which affect the gravity of you and even of enemy projectiles. In level two you have to avoid the terrain as much as enemies and their projectiles. Some levels include mid-bosses. Enemy waves aren't overused. Admittedly, some levels feel a bit empty, but maybe that's because I spent most of the time playing on easy. Either way, I thoroughly enjoyed the levels.

Theme Score: 4

Theme Notes:

It's Macross, so it's full of early 80's mechs and anime characters.

Art Style Score: 5

Art Style Notes:

Incredible artwork. The backgrounds are particularly good, with an insane amount of parallax scrolling layers and background tiles. It has a deep perspective, rather than looking flat like so many other horizontal shooters. Even the foregrounds are impressive, including the water in the third level which has a distortion effect. This rivals Axelay for the best graphics in a SNES/SFC shooter. Minimal slowdown, but that's probably because there are rarely a large number of sprites on screen at once. Unfortunately, many of enemy and boss designs are lackluster. Your sprite looks great, but the other sprites are mostly meh. There are some exceptions, like the boss of level 2.

Audio Score: 4

Audio Notes:

Good music, although not as good as Axelay, the game I keep comparing it to. The sound effects are a little too loud and tend to drown out the music. Some of the sound effects are lifting directly from Axelay, most notably the robotic voice which plays awhen you pick up a power-up. Now I wonder if Konami stole that sound from the Macross anime.

Overall Score: 87

Review ID: 1570