A remake of Gunhed
Blazing Lazers is a top-down shooter featuring 9 levels of varied and fast-paced action. The story here is the usual save-the-world variety. You must pilot your ship against 8 super-weapons and ultimately destroy the menace once and for all. The power-up system in Blazing Lazers deserves special mention. There are four main types of weapons, and each type of weapon can be upgraded several times to produce an incredible amount of firepower. In addition, there are secondary weapons systems that provide you with shields, homing missiles, multi-fire units, or super weapon power.
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This is my "trapped on a deserted island and can only bring one Turbografx16 game with you" game.
I asked Maru, the resident PCE super fan, on what games I should start with on my PCE Mini that arrived earlier this week. This was one of the three he recommended as foundational games for the system. A good introductory shmup, he called it. I overall agree with that sentiment, as this was a game I thoroughly enjoyed. I beat it in one sitting, nearly 1CC-ing it, but needing to resort to save states at the final boss (who took me many tries to kill XP).
Blazing Lasers was originally a licensed tie-in for the movie Gunhed in Japan, but had all of the licensing scrubbed out of it for its US release on the Turbografx (which is likely why that's the version included on the PCE/TG16 Mini). You're a space ship going through 9 areas on a mission to save the world, I guess. Aesthetically the game is all over the place, going from inside some sort of horrific meat tunnel to over a rocky desert covered with pyramids and Moai heads in the span of going from one level to the next, but the sound is pretty darn good and the framerate & graphics all look great, een for an early HuCard game.
Mechanically it plays VERY similarly to Star Soldier, with 4 main weapons you can upgrade through as well as several sub weapons as well. The main difference between this and Star Soldier that I found was that in Star Soldier is that in Star Soldier your weapon powers down when you get hit (in some games), while in this game you just die XP. I personally preferred weapon 3 (the shield laser) and the shield sub weapon as well. That shield can take a TON of punishment, and even when you get hit, your weapon also provides a shield. Sure, the weapon powers down when you get hit, but the lower rank shield laser weapon is arguably better than the higher ranks in many regards, so that never bothered me much XD. There is also a golden extra life mechanic, where instead of going backwards to a checkpoint, you immediately respawn. While I never figured out how that was activated, it was still nice to get here and there.
Verdict: Highly Recommended. This is a very fair shmup, and there were only a time or two (the last level when you die to the final boss, for example) where the place the game respawned me at was just utter trash and I had no chance of possibly surviving. It's a really good balance of quick reactions and diversity of powerups (although weapon 4 kinda sucks). The presentation is good and the length is just right. It's a nice easing into the genre for newer players (especially with that awesome shield) and a good but fair challenge for experienced players as well. It may not be as memorable as something like Star Parodier or Parodius, but it's still a great time and it absolutely deserves its good reputation.
Blazing Lasers was originally a licensed tie-in for the movie Gunhed in Japan, but had all of the licensing scrubbed out of it for its US release on the Turbografx (which is likely why that's the version included on the PCE/TG16 Mini). You're a space ship going through 9 areas on a mission to save the world, I guess. Aesthetically the game is all over the place, going from inside some sort of horrific meat tunnel to over a rocky desert covered with pyramids and Moai heads in the span of going from one level to the next, but the sound is pretty darn good and the framerate & graphics all look great, een for an early HuCard game.
Mechanically it plays VERY similarly to Star Soldier, with 4 main weapons you can upgrade through as well as several sub weapons as well. The main difference between this and Star Soldier that I found was that in Star Soldier is that in Star Soldier your weapon powers down when you get hit (in some games), while in this game you just die XP. I personally preferred weapon 3 (the shield laser) and the shield sub weapon as well. That shield can take a TON of punishment, and even when you get hit, your weapon also provides a shield. Sure, the weapon powers down when you get hit, but the lower rank shield laser weapon is arguably better than the higher ranks in many regards, so that never bothered me much XD. There is also a golden extra life mechanic, where instead of going backwards to a checkpoint, you immediately respawn. While I never figured out how that was activated, it was still nice to get here and there.
Verdict: Highly Recommended. This is a very fair shmup, and there were only a time or two (the last level when you die to the final boss, for example) where the place the game respawned me at was just utter trash and I had no chance of possibly surviving. It's a really good balance of quick reactions and diversity of powerups (although weapon 4 kinda sucks). The presentation is good and the length is just right. It's a nice easing into the genre for newer players (especially with that awesome shield) and a good but fair challenge for experienced players as well. It may not be as memorable as something like Star Parodier or Parodius, but it's still a great time and it absolutely deserves its good reputation.
I enjoy a good Shmup, but I am also very picky because most of the time they'll start off hard as hell and can be discouraging to play for most people. The pace to building up its difficulty for this one is perfect and very rewarding to play, I didn't want to stop. Turbo Grafx 16/PC Engine Shmups are some of my favorites, this one especially right next to Air Zonk.
Funny story, I went to play a random Turbo/PCE game on my backlog here and turns out "Gunhed" is just the Japanese version of this which strips away the original movie licensing. So that was hilarious.
I hate to play the bad guy here, but I feel almost like I've been lied to about this game, because the pacing is absolutely abominable. The first two-thirds are so easy I could probably beat the stages with my toes on another controller, all while still practicing my Super R-Type pro difficulty 1CC with another gamepad in my hands. By the time I started getting drowsy Blazing Lazers decided to hit me with a low blow from behind in the form of an absurdly long bubble stage that suddenly wanted to bring in checkpoint respawns, and all 50,000 of my bombs were getting use finally. This all capped off with a finale that dared to bitchslap me with a boss rush, and mood whiplash from an attempt at seduction with a final boss woman who can shoot lasers at me. The titular Blazing Lazers maybe?! I assume she was in the movie.
Looking again at the release date I can get why people were impressed by it visually, but man, as a shmup I think it reeks. Having such a toothless difficulty for a long time only for it to suddenly put it's dentures in five days later is the worst way to do it I feel. I could try a replay to reaccess it, but by the end of it all I was sick of looking at it and that's a death sentence for any shmup to me. I ain't going back to 1CC this anytime soon I'm afraid, not enough slowdown like Super R-Type.
Seriously, I can't tell you how severely my brain was rattled when I thought I was playing a middling/below average PC Engine shmup called "Gunhed" only to find out it was actually the acclaimed "Blazing Lazers". Like shit, do I have bad opinions or is everyone else wrong? Maybe both....
I hate to play the bad guy here, but I feel almost like I've been lied to about this game, because the pacing is absolutely abominable. The first two-thirds are so easy I could probably beat the stages with my toes on another controller, all while still practicing my Super R-Type pro difficulty 1CC with another gamepad in my hands. By the time I started getting drowsy Blazing Lazers decided to hit me with a low blow from behind in the form of an absurdly long bubble stage that suddenly wanted to bring in checkpoint respawns, and all 50,000 of my bombs were getting use finally. This all capped off with a finale that dared to bitchslap me with a boss rush, and mood whiplash from an attempt at seduction with a final boss woman who can shoot lasers at me. The titular Blazing Lazers maybe?! I assume she was in the movie.
Looking again at the release date I can get why people were impressed by it visually, but man, as a shmup I think it reeks. Having such a toothless difficulty for a long time only for it to suddenly put it's dentures in five days later is the worst way to do it I feel. I could try a replay to reaccess it, but by the end of it all I was sick of looking at it and that's a death sentence for any shmup to me. I ain't going back to 1CC this anytime soon I'm afraid, not enough slowdown like Super R-Type.
Seriously, I can't tell you how severely my brain was rattled when I thought I was playing a middling/below average PC Engine shmup called "Gunhed" only to find out it was actually the acclaimed "Blazing Lazers". Like shit, do I have bad opinions or is everyone else wrong? Maybe both....
The last level is a piece of crap. Absolutely ruthless stuff that just made me go "forget it" and rewind my way to victory. A marathon of a level with a boss rush. Yuck.
Before that, it felt like a pretty good beginner shmup... until that bubble stage, which also sucks.
Also not sure how good of an idea is it to have a checkpoint-based shmup, instead of respawning on the spot.
Before that, it felt like a pretty good beginner shmup... until that bubble stage, which also sucks.
Also not sure how good of an idea is it to have a checkpoint-based shmup, instead of respawning on the spot.
its got all the foundations of a good compile shmup with high speed, hella weapons to mix and match with, and tons of stuff onscreen, but the overall balance is godawful. The upgraded powerups are so broken that levels 1-6 are practically braindead to go through even for someone who is ass at this games like me, with level 7 being a slight challenge, 8 actually being a really solidly fun challenge and 9 being an absolute rocket punch in the dick. I'm talking "lose all 20 lives you've been piling up from the easy-ass first two thirds of the game in minutes" levels of brutal at the end.
I feel like part of the appeal of shmups (and difficult retro games as a whole, really) is watching that slow skill progression through restarting the game at the end of every bad run, with game familiarity allowin ya to not only get to the part you last died at more quickly, but also usually with more lives/continues/just generally better odds at winning. This games pacing really doesn't allow me to experience something like that, as the piss easy nature of the first 2/3rds of the game makes it so that my punishment for getting pot shotted on level 9 and losing all my powerups is having to replay the stupid boring ass first 30-45 minutes that I already mastered on my first run all over again.
For a 1989 game it def is impressive on a technical and game feel level but I guess compile still hadn't gotten proper pacing down by this point. Honestly if they cut out the first 3 levels and put a few more powerups in level 9 to make death at least somewhat recoverable, this'd be a banger.
I feel like part of the appeal of shmups (and difficult retro games as a whole, really) is watching that slow skill progression through restarting the game at the end of every bad run, with game familiarity allowin ya to not only get to the part you last died at more quickly, but also usually with more lives/continues/just generally better odds at winning. This games pacing really doesn't allow me to experience something like that, as the piss easy nature of the first 2/3rds of the game makes it so that my punishment for getting pot shotted on level 9 and losing all my powerups is having to replay the stupid boring ass first 30-45 minutes that I already mastered on my first run all over again.
For a 1989 game it def is impressive on a technical and game feel level but I guess compile still hadn't gotten proper pacing down by this point. Honestly if they cut out the first 3 levels and put a few more powerups in level 9 to make death at least somewhat recoverable, this'd be a banger.