An STG by M2, the latest in the Aleste series, is focused on a team-gameplay style. Having the same lead programmer as Rolling Gunner, it carries over a lot of it's gameplay style and it's hyper system.
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tried this in GIGO arcade
so much going on
the yellow one kinda carried me lol
so much going on
the yellow one kinda carried me lol
I 1cc'd this at the mikado game center in Ikebukuro. Senjin Aleste is pretty great if a bit uninspired. The character rotation system makes this a very generous shmup but still challenging enough to be stimulating even on the lower difficulties.
Senjin Aleste is arguably the first Shooting game since 2012 to feel like the high-polish, well presented games of the likes of Cave, Treasure and Taito. It's probably the game's biggest claim to fame and attention.
So it's really kinda weird that the game underneath that veneer is kinda fuckin weird and unpolished. Ex-Cave programmer Daisuke Koizumi has just decided to throw a bunch of ideas at the wall here, and it... mostly works.
The core of Senjin is very similar to Koizumi's doujin-production Rolling Gunner (and frankly, every game he touches). High difficulty in bullet patterns, a dynamic difficulty system which multiplies score, an obsession with hyper modes, bullet cancels and item pickups. This system works really well in Rolling Gunner, and is generally excellent here as well. In fact, i'd say it makes senjin a pretty great scoring game and a pretty thrilling shmup outright to just play.
Koizumi's grasp of pacing, bullet patterns and level design is top draw. There's nothing about the pure feel of this game that feels any worse than Cave's peaks. Stage 5 in particular is an absolute triumph of shmup level design and is an incredible finish to the game. It feels an awful lot like Ketsui's stage 5 - partially because it cribs a couple of its ideas - which is close to the highest praise i could give it. It's helped by fantastic pixel art and Tatsuhiko Kasuga's pretty great soundtrack.
Senjin's stutters come from it's more from it's out of the box ideas. The main one being it's life/character system, where instead of having a set number of lives, you control four different ships, and when one is hit, it swaps out for the next ship in line and takes about two minutes before it can be swapped into again. All the while you can switch ships by grabbing cycling pickups.
The concept of this system is actually really good, and it almost works. It lends well to the game's theming and presentation, it makes the game far more forgiving to early mistakes, allows the game to do some truly heinous patterns, and makes the game flow really nicely when you're swapping characters in at just the right time. It also creates some unique tension when you've got one character left, but getting another two chances may only be a few seconds away which you have to survive til - it's neat.
The problem really comes in the execution. The character balance is pretty bad, and the special abilities of each captain (which of the four ships you choose as your primary) are a complete crapshoot. Type D captain is basically the only valid choice for a survival-focused clear as she speeds up repair time for hit ships by a pretty huge amount, whilst Type B is by far the best for scoring as she gives the ability to chain hypers to super long lengths as more character switch drops which give meter. In actual gameplay, Type C is amazing, Type B is almost useless, Type D is amazing defensively but does no damage, and Type A is ok. Whilst this isn't so bad as everyone plays the same characters, once you know what you're doing it tends to lead to gameplay loops where you're not really using all characters in a balanced way and are mostly trying to switch back to Type C whenever you can. It's clunky.
The other core problem is one i kinda wrestle with a lot in my head. The way the game's life system works means that early game deaths dont matter so much, which is great. Whilst i personally like the really punishing edge to arcade shmups, variety is nice and it makes it a far more approachable game. But at point on survival runs it makes at least stages 1 and 2 completely pointless. And for score runs, the sheer difficulty of some of senjin's patterns even in those early stages, where on a survival run a hit or two is fine - causes some real restart syndrome.
The one thing that does really mesh well together in Senjin is the poorly named "burst", which effectively acts a fast recharging mini-bomb which sends nearby bullets outwards - only for them to home in the player after. It's a system that ties in extremely well to Koizumi's fetish for hyper systems, buying players time and adding another layer to dodging certain patterns.
In the end, Senjin feels a lot like the late-era Cave games Koizumi cut his teeth on - or at least, their first releases. Like those games, the potential and fun in Senjin is there, but locked away behind some wonky balance and design decisions.
Those previous games - Dodonpachi Saidaioujou and Akai Katana in particular, got those revisions, in 1.5 and Shin respectively, which are frankly massively improved versions of both those games (even if i think Akai Katana Shin still kinda sucks). If Senjin Aleste can get that same boot in quality with it's inevitable console port, it may well end up something truly special. Time will tell.
So it's really kinda weird that the game underneath that veneer is kinda fuckin weird and unpolished. Ex-Cave programmer Daisuke Koizumi has just decided to throw a bunch of ideas at the wall here, and it... mostly works.
The core of Senjin is very similar to Koizumi's doujin-production Rolling Gunner (and frankly, every game he touches). High difficulty in bullet patterns, a dynamic difficulty system which multiplies score, an obsession with hyper modes, bullet cancels and item pickups. This system works really well in Rolling Gunner, and is generally excellent here as well. In fact, i'd say it makes senjin a pretty great scoring game and a pretty thrilling shmup outright to just play.
Koizumi's grasp of pacing, bullet patterns and level design is top draw. There's nothing about the pure feel of this game that feels any worse than Cave's peaks. Stage 5 in particular is an absolute triumph of shmup level design and is an incredible finish to the game. It feels an awful lot like Ketsui's stage 5 - partially because it cribs a couple of its ideas - which is close to the highest praise i could give it. It's helped by fantastic pixel art and Tatsuhiko Kasuga's pretty great soundtrack.
Senjin's stutters come from it's more from it's out of the box ideas. The main one being it's life/character system, where instead of having a set number of lives, you control four different ships, and when one is hit, it swaps out for the next ship in line and takes about two minutes before it can be swapped into again. All the while you can switch ships by grabbing cycling pickups.
The concept of this system is actually really good, and it almost works. It lends well to the game's theming and presentation, it makes the game far more forgiving to early mistakes, allows the game to do some truly heinous patterns, and makes the game flow really nicely when you're swapping characters in at just the right time. It also creates some unique tension when you've got one character left, but getting another two chances may only be a few seconds away which you have to survive til - it's neat.
The problem really comes in the execution. The character balance is pretty bad, and the special abilities of each captain (which of the four ships you choose as your primary) are a complete crapshoot. Type D captain is basically the only valid choice for a survival-focused clear as she speeds up repair time for hit ships by a pretty huge amount, whilst Type B is by far the best for scoring as she gives the ability to chain hypers to super long lengths as more character switch drops which give meter. In actual gameplay, Type C is amazing, Type B is almost useless, Type D is amazing defensively but does no damage, and Type A is ok. Whilst this isn't so bad as everyone plays the same characters, once you know what you're doing it tends to lead to gameplay loops where you're not really using all characters in a balanced way and are mostly trying to switch back to Type C whenever you can. It's clunky.
The other core problem is one i kinda wrestle with a lot in my head. The way the game's life system works means that early game deaths dont matter so much, which is great. Whilst i personally like the really punishing edge to arcade shmups, variety is nice and it makes it a far more approachable game. But at point on survival runs it makes at least stages 1 and 2 completely pointless. And for score runs, the sheer difficulty of some of senjin's patterns even in those early stages, where on a survival run a hit or two is fine - causes some real restart syndrome.
The one thing that does really mesh well together in Senjin is the poorly named "burst", which effectively acts a fast recharging mini-bomb which sends nearby bullets outwards - only for them to home in the player after. It's a system that ties in extremely well to Koizumi's fetish for hyper systems, buying players time and adding another layer to dodging certain patterns.
In the end, Senjin feels a lot like the late-era Cave games Koizumi cut his teeth on - or at least, their first releases. Like those games, the potential and fun in Senjin is there, but locked away behind some wonky balance and design decisions.
Those previous games - Dodonpachi Saidaioujou and Akai Katana in particular, got those revisions, in 1.5 and Shin respectively, which are frankly massively improved versions of both those games (even if i think Akai Katana Shin still kinda sucks). If Senjin Aleste can get that same boot in quality with it's inevitable console port, it may well end up something truly special. Time will tell.