In Toaplan Arcade Shoot 'Em Up Collection Vol. 1, a quartet of classic arcade shooters from a genre powerhouse get a decent modernisation, capturing the moment the genre strutted towards bullet hell. Our review:
Despite those contributions, Toaplan's most famed creation is one they'd likely be none too proud of. The infamous mistranslation 'all your base are belong to us' in the European Mega Drive port of their game Zero Wing has transcended the studio, genre, and even video game medium to become a touchpoint of popular culture.
Game information can be displayed, as seen here with Out Zone. Yet it is a rather bare bones offering compared to how dev M2 handles the same. Zero Wing, meanwhile, was very likely informed by the success enjoyed by the arcade icons that are R-Type and Gradius. With the horizontal scrolling and sometimes claustrophobic level design, it's certainly informed by the convention set by previous 'horis', but there's enough personality and pace for it to feel much more than derivative. Zero Wing is likely closest to R-Type, and yet it moves and plays with the energy more typical of later vertically scrolling 2D shooters.
The highlight, though, must be Out Zone. In breaking a scattering of the rules that make up the strict shmup design template, this brilliant creation delivers something really special. Putting you in the boots of a cyborg soldier, Out Zone is as much a run 'n' gun as a 2D shooter. It scrolls vertically, but the scrolling stops if you do. With some weapons there is multidirectional shooting, and there are plenty of hazards on the ground such as pits to tumble into.
The thing is, the standard set by M2 has now left shooting game players with rather high standards. Beyond a game's own difficulty settings, Bitwave's effort does include 'normal' and 'hard' variants. But there are no thoroughly reinvented 'arranges' as seen with M2's ShotTriggers series, and the scanline, data display and related functions are a little basic.
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