Very interesting game, difficult too. I feel like in this day and age, it's primarily more interesting to people who enjoyed Hellsinker since you can see the evolution of a lot of the mechanics and themes present there in Radio Zonde. It's also hard as hell. At the end of the day, it's a free game and if you're here and haven't played it you might as well give it a go yourself.
HellSinker in preschool
Part of a list review series. Reccomended by PKmudkipz.
So, I don't like Hellsinker.
Honeslty, I could probably just the end the review there, because Radio Zonde is just a complete distillation of that game, being it's predecessor. Ridiculously awful User Interface and User experience brush up against a shooter with great bullet patterns but is really bland aesthetically, with weakish stage design, and is way too complicated for it's own good.
In fairness, the process of actually getting to play the game is the thing that really puts a bad taste in my mouth. Downloads of the game aren't easy to find despite it originally being freeware, and then they're missing some random .dll file you have to beg the hellsinker fans on your discord to impart knowledge of, and then it's one of these old doujin games which unless you've got a PC running with JP text will just through a scrambled options menu at you, then your screen resolution will get fucked up, and then you get introduced to a main menu that's so pointlessly obtuse and literally hiding things it feels like a joke. And then the game is some Diet hellsinker and i just sleep. I watched the STG weekly video on this game to try and get more to grips with it and just ended up more pissed off at it being so needlessly awkward at every step of the gaming process that's not just dodging.
I'm not going to give it too low a score because like Hellsinker, I do get this vibe that there's a nugget of gold deep down here somewhere. And the bullet patterns are generally quite good. There's part of me that thinks that the way I think about this game now is similar to when i didn't get Shmups at all.
And then the game literally refuses to close without me getting out the task manager and I start to doubt my leniency.
So, I don't like Hellsinker.
Honeslty, I could probably just the end the review there, because Radio Zonde is just a complete distillation of that game, being it's predecessor. Ridiculously awful User Interface and User experience brush up against a shooter with great bullet patterns but is really bland aesthetically, with weakish stage design, and is way too complicated for it's own good.
In fairness, the process of actually getting to play the game is the thing that really puts a bad taste in my mouth. Downloads of the game aren't easy to find despite it originally being freeware, and then they're missing some random .dll file you have to beg the hellsinker fans on your discord to impart knowledge of, and then it's one of these old doujin games which unless you've got a PC running with JP text will just through a scrambled options menu at you, then your screen resolution will get fucked up, and then you get introduced to a main menu that's so pointlessly obtuse and literally hiding things it feels like a joke. And then the game is some Diet hellsinker and i just sleep. I watched the STG weekly video on this game to try and get more to grips with it and just ended up more pissed off at it being so needlessly awkward at every step of the gaming process that's not just dodging.
I'm not going to give it too low a score because like Hellsinker, I do get this vibe that there's a nugget of gold deep down here somewhere. And the bullet patterns are generally quite good. There's part of me that thinks that the way I think about this game now is similar to when i didn't get Shmups at all.
And then the game literally refuses to close without me getting out the task manager and I start to doubt my leniency.
É massa, mas sei lá
It's wild that the developers of that one weird Doujin fighting game I played as a teen that I barely remembered, went on to do this and Hellsinker. If Hellsinker's even better, then I'm going to be surprised if it doesn't vibe with me.
Damn, I had to add this game to IGDB myself. So yeah, to the two other Backloggd users in the universe that have played this game, you're welcome.
VERY cool game to try out, ESPECIALLY if you enjoyed Hellsinker, as this game was made by the same developer before it. As it turns out, there are a ton of stuff in this game that carried over to Hellsinker. Atypical weapons, enemy types and attacks, SOL/LUNA/STELLA, branching level paths, and even some of the music, among other things.
But holy goddamn, don't expect to beat this shit anytime soon. Tonnyori must've been out of his fucking mind back then because it's ten times harder than Hellsinker ever was. You've got a 2x2 hitbox and a rechargeable shield, and you better utilize that and every other tool available to you because the game will NOT relent. The game bends you over and prepares the punishment as early as Stage 1, jesus christ. But it's so much fucking fun, even if I can't actually beat the game. I was able to get past the first phase of the final boss on one credit though, and I'm really proud of that.
EDIT: For anyone else having difficulty running the game, make sure to switch your computer's locale to JP (or use the Locale emulator) before you run the game, and download the d3drm.dll file and put it in the same directory as the .exe.
VERY cool game to try out, ESPECIALLY if you enjoyed Hellsinker, as this game was made by the same developer before it. As it turns out, there are a ton of stuff in this game that carried over to Hellsinker. Atypical weapons, enemy types and attacks, SOL/LUNA/STELLA, branching level paths, and even some of the music, among other things.
But holy goddamn, don't expect to beat this shit anytime soon. Tonnyori must've been out of his fucking mind back then because it's ten times harder than Hellsinker ever was. You've got a 2x2 hitbox and a rechargeable shield, and you better utilize that and every other tool available to you because the game will NOT relent. The game bends you over and prepares the punishment as early as Stage 1, jesus christ. But it's so much fucking fun, even if I can't actually beat the game. I was able to get past the first phase of the final boss on one credit though, and I'm really proud of that.
EDIT: For anyone else having difficulty running the game, make sure to switch your computer's locale to JP (or use the Locale emulator) before you run the game, and download the d3drm.dll file and put it in the same directory as the .exe.