Alien Soldier is a shoot-em-up game that is pretty much a boss rush for 25 stages for Mega Drive. 1 player-only this time around. It was developed by Treasure and released in 1995. Published by Sega, aha. It wasn't released in North America. Well, it apparently was Sega Channel exclusive there, which was a monthly subscription service that allowed you to download a bunch of games onto special cartridge. And according to the devs the game was only half-finished due to Mega Drive market collapsing, for example they had to cut a lot of world building things and is also the reason why Seven Force has only five forms. 4 number passwords, 16 Megabits of awesome.
- Seven Force? Is this an amazing Gunstar Heroes reference?!
- Yes!
- Does bird being a main character count as a freaking Flicky reference?
- Nope :(
The game that you have here is nothing more than emulation of Sega Genesis version. It includes European release as the main one, that has gameplay run around 16% slower as it was designed to run on PAL system which had TV running at 50hz instead of 60hz. The music plays at correct speed. And it has Japanese original too.
Now, technical part about Sega's emulation here:
The Sega Classic games that you purchase on Steam count as DLCs for "Sega Mega Drive & Genesis Classics" game that should appear in your library.
It has Bedroom HUB which is the one with many features yet lags for many and Simply Launcher which lacks Workshop and Online but at least it works just fine for everybody.
However, Simple Launcher has it's fair share of glitches as well. It can crash. And it does the second time you go to main menu, so always quit after saving there so it doesn't crash when you want to save next time!
Emulation itself, mostly sound, isn't that good but it does it's job. Also, yes, emulator supports quick saves.
As alternative, you can use external emulator to run games that you purchased. Sega kindly placed in all games that you purchased in "uncompressed ROMs" folder that program itself doesn't use, just change file extension to ".bin" or so. The file for this one being "AlienSoldier_Europe.SGD". Yep, no JP version.
I also demand you to read digital manual of this game first. You can find it here on store page or go to "manuals" folder of game root and open "05 AS_PC_MG_EFIGS_US_v6.pdf".
There is also a glitch with background on 4th form of Seven Force messing up. No idea if because EU version or emulation. It's nothing significant.
The plot consist of huge info dump text in intro. You will lose the sense of objective half-way through the game anyway. Blame it on so much world building stuff being left out from the game.
Before you get into action you actually get to choose to bring 4 weapons out of 6 types. Each type has it's own purpose. And it's own ammo count. During gameplay the weapons that aren't currently selected will slowly regenerate ammo after a while. Each weapon is good in it's own way. Flamethrower in particular is great for killing organic bosses. And so-called Sword Force does damage depending on a distance. Though I must say that 4-way shooting weapon feels too weak for bosses.
You can also change whether you want each HUD element to be shown graphically, as a number or hidden.
Well, you can also find weapon box during gameplay that lets you to change the weapon type. And if you pick the same weapon you will increase your max ammo capacity on it. Though I don't think you keep it after you die. There are also golden sphere powerups to find that increase your max health.
Protip: You should change flamethrower to something else at some point of the game.
Ah, then comes the main gameplay. Yep, this game is pretty much a boss rush, somewhat like Contra Hard Corps on the system but even more. There are very short normal section before each boss but it's mostly to help you restore health, with occasional miniboss. What it means is that the game is pattern memorization heavy but this is what some people love. All bosses are creative, especially the hunter chasing you on the horse in the later stage, that one was awesomesauce. You have a great control over the main character. You can even run on ceiling with this eagle, though I don't think that reversing control vertically was a good call.
Don't forget of time limit, you have to get aggressive or effective.
Fancily enough, Treasure once again included horizontal shmup-like sections albeit this time it's just your main character can hover anywhere on screen.
Now, allow me to explain some game mechanics that will let you get past the first boss and rock the game:
1) Pressing attack twice will create a small damaging deflector sphere in front of you. It actually turns any projectiles into small health pickups so it's extremely important. Well, and it reflects some projectiles back.
2) Pressing down+jump will make you zip forward invincible, a sorta teleport. Use it a lot. But if you do it at original max health you will do a super-damaging Phoenix variant of it. It does come at a price of a tiny amount of health but it's so you can't spam it and have to convert projectiles into health.
3) If you press down+A you will change between two firing modes. You stand still and aim with D-Pad when shooting in white armor mode while in golden armor pressing D-Pad while shooting will let you move around while keeping the angle. The latter sounds good however ammo consumption is increased in that mode.
By the way, pressing jump while jumping will make you hover in a spot. Also, pressing down+jump on very few platforms will actually make you fall below instead of 'teleporting'.
There are options. There is usual sound test. You can disable music or sounds effects separately. And it got two difficulties to choose: SUPEREASY and SUPERHARD. SE is more like a practice mode while SH is more arcade-like experience so I recommend you to beat the former first. Like, in the former you get infinite continues, you can select weapons again after death and the game gives you passwords so you can continue from any stage. SH just gives you three continues. And yea, no lives in this game. There are also few changes to difficulty. Additional platforms in sewers on SE, I haven't seen some bosses use certain attacks either. Phoenix charge takes away a bit more health. I am not sure if damage numbers are different tho.
That and if you pause the game on SE mode you can actually slow down the gameplay by pressing left or right. So while the game I quite difficulty it will let anybody beat it if they really want it.
Graphics are one of the best on the system. Why? Because Treasure went “go big or go home” on bosses and all of them are not only huge but made from multiple sprites that give them smooth animations. Every. Single. One. Turning and moving smoothly with complex animation. AMAZING! Everything else is top too.
Sounds and music are also fancy, including the cheery announcer for some arcade feel.
Overall, Treasure's swan song for hardcore gamers but everybody else is welcome too with SUPEREASY mode. Shame about Sega putting in slower European version tho.
