NIGHT STRIKER GEAR

I really want to love this game but there are three things that would make the game better: 1. Scanlines! Please, pixels need scanlines. 2. Faster reentry. Its an arcade game but takes forever to get to the gameplay! Let me at least skip or fastforward the tunnel/levelselect sequenz. 3. Practice mode! Come on, we love to practice the levels. I'll give it a thumbs up though - because it captures the retro feeling and is fairly priced.

結構楽しいです！アトラクションみたいな乗り方で、操作は昔より慣れてます。

I've played this game since release having received it as a gift thanks to a dear friend, and since then I've grown nothing but love turned into pure hate as I went in further and further. To begin, I want to give a bit of a background regarding my experience with this sort of game. Last year, I played the original Night Striker. I had a mixed relationship with the game, but as I got better, I grew to absolutely love its complexities that set it apart from its inspirations at the time. Those complexities coupled with what made the game great in feel all shattered and turned to dust in Gear. One key detail are the graphics. While not *bad*, they're not exactly the way to go for a game of this style. The high neon coloring of the renders mixed with blooming do not help visibility at all. At times, I had moments where the orange bullets (meaning they're initiating contact with the player) are almost invisible with how bright the background and stage presentation can be. The graphics are also a big offense towards the controls. The original Night Striker used a method of manually moving the camera point of view by pushing the player ship towards a direction, offering ways to planning how to approach certain enemy patterns or even fully avoiding certain obstacles like the golden missiles. Due to Gear's shift to a 16:9 aspect ratio rather than the original game's 4:3, the movement of the player ship was shifted to be able to travel said screen ratio quicker, HOWEVER the camera felt slower in comparison. This leaves the movement of the game to feel almost nothing like the original, and thus gives moments where moving the camera either up or down is a real slog, especially trying to dodge obstacles in the way like the ones in the city stages. The quicker movement also makes certain parts of the game almost impossible to maneuver and dodge (that one spinning pattern in Zone G). The game's main attraction, the Gear System, is also very flawed. Filling the gauge is tied to two things, eliminating enemies and blue polygonal obstacles that you go through. What makes it so flawed is that it's the only way to really draw out any sort of real power when shooting. The main shot is severely weak, and makes shooting enemies and bosses a poor job to actually eliminate. The Gear System, while interesting in concept, is in the end just a useless gimmick to act as the shield of the game's real issues regarding player-to-enemy contact. The length of the game, while not horrible, could've been better. Stages are pretty boring and don't offer as much action as the original game did in my opinion. I also found the idea of B-Side just an excuse to give the players something to the equivalent of an actually full game. I wish this game had more time in the oven, I would not have minded a long development schedule a la Ubusuna or Aleste Branch, but the over-exhaustion of its director and his worsened health, coupled with the fact they had to restart from scratch really hurt this project. M2, please, don't involve yourselves in projects that you know won't come out to become big hits or something all fans of these IPs will enjoy. We saw it with Senjin Aleste, Salamander 3, and we'll probably see the same with Zaleste. Quit messing up. Also, Asura the Striker is waaaayyy better. Unlike this game, that game goes on discounts!