Aldynes for PCE SG
Review #9901
Aldynes
Whatever you do, don't die!
Gameplay
Initially, over the first couple of stages, I was digging this game. The movement was fine and I started collecting option ships that were quickly making me overpowered. Things were good. But then in stages 3 and beyond I started to loathe my time playing. The main problem was the truly awful weapons and the behavior of those option ships. There are only three weapons and getting a new one is rare, especially in the later levels. In a baffling twist, once powered up, two of the weapons are almost useless. The "spread" shot turns into a laser which bounces and "walks" along walls. If there is no wall then tough luck, those lasers shoot straight into the top and bottom of the screen, never to return. At that point you don't first anything forward which, yaknow, makes it hard to hit anything. Horrible design choice, that. And the options, oh the options. You can collect four of them, but only two do anything. And they don't even act as shields. So what is the point of having four? Well, you can toggle between two states - locked in formation or free-roaming. When locked in place, two of them fire whatever weapon you have, tripleing your firepower, but in free roaming mode they fly around and occasionally shoot an electrical beam at a chosed enemy. I said "occassionally" but that's being too generous. They might, perhaps, eventually, when they feel like it, fire at an enemy. And when they do, it might, perhaps, occassionally actually hit that enemy. Utter garbage.
So yeah, first impressions are great, but sooner than later this game's warts become impossible to ignore.
Also, die once and you may as well reset. The difficulty spikes quickly and becomes patently unfair.
Level Design
There are some great level designs and enemy patterns but these are foiled by the obnoxious gameplay issues. It's a real shame, but I can't rate this higher because the levels accentuate the problems rather than working around them. Oh and the bosses are all forgettable.
Theme
It's a generic space shooter but features a nice opening cutscene and some good level intros.
Art Style
No complaints about the visuals. The backgrounds are particularly nice, with fantastic parallax, especially in stage 2 (or was it 3?). Everything's got layers of shading and animation to rival other good looking games in the genre like Thunder Force IV and Axelay. This is perhaps a low 5 but still deserving of a high ranking.
Audio
A mostly fantastic, energetic soundtrack with pleasant but impactful sound effects.
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