[h1]Flawless blend of classic SHMUP gameplay and new school elements[/h1]
A challenging yet heartfelt ode to the arcade SHMUP classics of the 80s and 90s.
Shoot, dodge, switch weapons, blow up bombs, repeat.
[b]Zone of Lacryma[/b] takes the genre into a role playing direction by introducing a leveling system that provides the player with [u]Upgrade Points[/u] upon leveling up. You level up by, you guessed it: [i]running missions and earning experience[/i]. The player can repeat any mission after completing it as many times as the player desires, which allows for the possibility of upgrading your ship as much as you want before proceeding ahead. It adds a nice replayability mechanic to the game that helps soften the blow from the crippling dearth in campaign content that [b]Zone[/b] suffers from.
You'll find the first few levels pretty easy. The game then hits a massive difficulty spike on the fourth mission when you're required to tail a bogey in front of you with the Turbo Boost™ enabled (queue Knight Rider theme) through a majority of the mission. As of this review, I'm still on this mission and have yet to beat it.
I can only surmise that the game gets more difficult after the 4th mission, probably incorporating more of the cat-and-mouse chase tactic on top of also most likely deploying more hostile baddies shooting at you. That's a promising future, to me. Unfortunately, there's only a remaining 4 levels, hence the dearth in content I mentioned earlier. But, as also mentioned, the game's brevity is offset by its ability to fully upgrade different aspects of the ship's functionality. You're expected to rerun missions to get enough [u]UP[/u] to flesh out your ship's capabilities; so in effect, you have to recycle content. [i]This is the only negative aspect of the game to me, so far[/i].
The game itself has enough layers in the combat that it requires a constant sense of spatial awareness; the game is great at keeping your brain engaged. [b]Zone of Lacryma[/b] is an arcade-em-up in the truest sense, and its design reflects this authenticity very well.
The story line is short, and to talk about it in bits and pieces would give large chunks of it away, so I won't -- but there IS a story here.
I'm still wrestling with whether or not I feel the price tag is justified. I generally find 1$ / 1 hour of play time to be an acceptable metric of "did I get my money's worth?" As one can see, I haven't hit that playtime yet, so I won't yet make that value judgement. I can, however, say that I definitely enjoy the gameplay, and from THAT viewpoint, the purchase price is justifiable. So while the content is lacking, the satisfaction and reward of completion is definitely tangible.
[h1]Gets a thumbs up from me![/h1]
