Gaiares is one of those schmups I heard a lot of praise for. In fact it has so much praise I've even seen it be called a top 10 for 16 bit games in general. A top tier game for the Mega Drive Schmup genre. So I thought hey why not try it. I think judging from my score you might know where this is heading.
Look I'm going to confess, I suck at schmups, I know I could practice for days trying to beat it so I'm going to fully admit I did use save states to help me get through it because I'm going to say it, some of the crap this game pulls at you is actually frustrating to me.
First to go with the positives for a second, I do like some of the presentation in this game, it's quite nice for a Mega Drive title though there was one background that hurt my eyes like it was really hard to look at. The music is your typical Telenet music where I swear they all use the same sound. I even like how they try to do a story though its about as deep as others I've seen from the genre. I would have liked to have seen more personally. In terms of the gameplay I also really like the whole taking abilities from other enemies. It probably makes for good replayability and I would love to see another schmup try this idea.
Now I'm sure if I was a veteran or just actually good at these games. Maybe I would love it as much or close to Battle Mania 2 but I just don't and I probably have no one but myself to blame. I'm sorry but some of the stuff this game does just annoys me to no end. Like why does the game sometimes just have funny gotcha moments like there are times I swear you don't have enough reaction time for. But what really annoys me the most is this is one of those games that takes you to a checkpoint if you die. Again this is probably no issue for pros at this game but I'm just so used to other good schmups not doing this that I prefer it much more.
Some of the bosses are also so inconsistent in difficulty. That one boss near the end of the game with the sword is one of the worst bosses I've ever fought. Seriously does anyone know if I was just fighting the boss wrong? It not only have this super annoying 3 spread projectile attack but I can't even figure out its hitbox at all. It takes like over 5 minutes and THEY MAKE YOU FIGHT IT TWICE! The worst part is the two bosses after are way easier which makes me convinced I was doing something wrong after all.
Also why does the game basically give up on level design by the last few levels. It's basically just refighting bosses the entire time and fighting new ones. It just feels weird there's like nothing to it.
So yeah, I got kind of mad. I'm sorry if this was really negative especially for anyone who is a fan of this game. Maybe if I play it more I'll love it? It's just man it really left a bad taste in my mouth. I really want to like it but I just need to get better at this genre. I can't really recommend it to anyone who sucks at this genre like I do. Though like I said probably like 5 times already lost count. This probably does deserve praise if you are amazing at these kind of games.
Look I'm going to confess, I suck at schmups, I know I could practice for days trying to beat it so I'm going to fully admit I did use save states to help me get through it because I'm going to say it, some of the crap this game pulls at you is actually frustrating to me.
First to go with the positives for a second, I do like some of the presentation in this game, it's quite nice for a Mega Drive title though there was one background that hurt my eyes like it was really hard to look at. The music is your typical Telenet music where I swear they all use the same sound. I even like how they try to do a story though its about as deep as others I've seen from the genre. I would have liked to have seen more personally. In terms of the gameplay I also really like the whole taking abilities from other enemies. It probably makes for good replayability and I would love to see another schmup try this idea.
Now I'm sure if I was a veteran or just actually good at these games. Maybe I would love it as much or close to Battle Mania 2 but I just don't and I probably have no one but myself to blame. I'm sorry but some of the stuff this game does just annoys me to no end. Like why does the game sometimes just have funny gotcha moments like there are times I swear you don't have enough reaction time for. But what really annoys me the most is this is one of those games that takes you to a checkpoint if you die. Again this is probably no issue for pros at this game but I'm just so used to other good schmups not doing this that I prefer it much more.
Some of the bosses are also so inconsistent in difficulty. That one boss near the end of the game with the sword is one of the worst bosses I've ever fought. Seriously does anyone know if I was just fighting the boss wrong? It not only have this super annoying 3 spread projectile attack but I can't even figure out its hitbox at all. It takes like over 5 minutes and THEY MAKE YOU FIGHT IT TWICE! The worst part is the two bosses after are way easier which makes me convinced I was doing something wrong after all.
Also why does the game basically give up on level design by the last few levels. It's basically just refighting bosses the entire time and fighting new ones. It just feels weird there's like nothing to it.
So yeah, I got kind of mad. I'm sorry if this was really negative especially for anyone who is a fan of this game. Maybe if I play it more I'll love it? It's just man it really left a bad taste in my mouth. I really want to like it but I just need to get better at this genre. I can't really recommend it to anyone who sucks at this genre like I do. Though like I said probably like 5 times already lost count. This probably does deserve praise if you are amazing at these kind of games.