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This shoot-'em-up was supposed to mark the revival of the 'new' Soft Action after the scandal of a bugged release version of Fox Ranger II and much more the accusations made public by former Soft Action programmger Kim Hakkyu about internal issues like unpaid salaries and disproportionate amounts of overtime. The game is brutally hard for all the wrong reasons. In the first stage players circle around huge mother ships to destroy their much-too-tough installations, which also prevent your bullets from reaching the attacking enemies. Decent weapons are extremely rare, and it's even impossible to pick up powerups during the invincibility window after respawning. Ironically, the game shows a shield bar for both players, which can even be filled up (it starts at 50%), but everything kills instantly, anyway. The music is the same midi greatness as ever, but like Fox Ranger II, sound effects are all the same annoying piano bleeps. Visually the game appears almost like a tech demo, with some new impressively implemented feature in most levels, be it crazy parallax scrolling or pseudo mode-7 effects that resemble Axelay. |
