Last year I played Battle Mania for the Mega Drive and I really liked it even though it feels like a lot of people aren’t the biggest fans of it. I liked it so much I went and dived into the sequel immediately after. I loved the sequel so much, being one of my favorite games of that year. Now I’ll be honest. I said in my Sailor Moon Mega Drive review that “To this day it is still my favorite Mega Drive game and I expect it to stay that way.” and that was a goddamn lie because this game is my favorite! I really don’t know how I didn’t give this a 10/10 last year.
This game is a shmup where you control a girl named Mania. You can shoot forward or back depending on the direction you’re facing and you can even fire in 8 directions if you choose to do that setting. You also got your partner Maria who will either shoot the other way or the same way with you depending on your settings. Never worry about her getting hit or anything as she can’t get hurt. Unlike most shmups, you have HP and can have as much as you want as you can collect hearts for more of it and getting 20,000 points gives you 1 HP. You will go through 9 stages in this one filled with lots of action and nonsensical wonders.
Mania also has access to 4 different special weapons. Sure you got your normal default weapon that can be powered up by collecting P icons but you also can choose a special weapon at the beginning of most stages. The first is Neo-Thunder which will send two powerful bolts of lightning to hurt enemies. Second is Eraser which has two lasers with one above and one below Mania as they shoot horizontally. Third is Chainsaw which has two chainsaw blades that extend vertically. Lastly there is the Benten Bomb which will have explosions happen around you. All of these moves can be used as long as they are charged up. Keep in mind the less you use them, the more points and higher rank you get.
Now the stages is where this game hits its strides. There’s so much variety to the levels and aesthetics and it’s all top notch. I adore all the levels so much and there isn’t a single bad one in the game. I really like the level where you’re driving in your car and it’s also the only time you’re forced to use an 8 way shot. I should point out that a lot of people say this game is easy and they would be right but I could care less because my god I have so much fun playing them. There’s never a dull moment and they all look really nice. The enemy variety in them is also amazing and the patterns to follow never feel too repetitive or uninteresting. It’s all just amazing and I have no complaints here.
Bosses in this game are plentiful with the likes of stuff like a robot playing basketball, a crane machine with toys that will shoot at you, and even a clone of Mania. There’s not really any bosses that cause me too much problem as they are once again pretty easy. There are a few that got a hit or two on me. If there is one gripe I have is I don’t like how the final boss can crush you giving you an instant game over, I never understood why crushing does that anyway, feels awfully harsh. You know this game will leave a good first impression when beating the first main boss in stage 1 has it ending with Maria crashing into the boss from a building with her damn car, it’s so badass!
The presentation in this game is Ultimate A material! You get this high pumping intro with an awesome looking title screen. This game even tries to do fake anime eyecatches for two of the game’s cutscenes. The story is pretty nonsensical but the presentation is pretty good minus the underwhelming font. All the characters and enemies look great and are a big upgrade from the previous game. Even the options screen is amazing having a bunch of chibi Maria’s playing to the beat of each sound channel for every song. I could gush way more about it but I don’t want to bore anyone. The music is also really great taking advantage of the Mega Drive’s excellent bass sound. So many songs sound so rockin it’s banger after banger. A lot of effort was put into all this stuff and even the few voice samples are nice. It’s hard to resist me shouting “POWER UP!” or “SPEED UP!” or “Thank you!” god, I love so much about this game.
I know I probably could have written more but I think this does a decent job of explaining my love for this game. I know it’s a boring opinion to list this shmup high on the console but idc because this is my favorite game on the console and I love it so much. I recommend trying this game if you don’t mind using an emulator. This game was given a low print run back in the day and copies now go for over $1,000. Sadly it seems due to Vic Tokai now not being a video game developer, we will probably never see this game ported. M2 did try to get it for the Mega Drive Mini but it didn’t happen. A US version of this game was also meant to be released under the name Trouble Shooter Vintage but never came out. There was also a sequel planned for the Dreamcast but was sadly canceled and didn’t really go anywhere. I love this game like I’ve said many times already so I hope you also enjoy it if you haven’t tried it yet. I wanna say this game is obscure but I’m not really sure tbh, still JUST PLAY IT ALREADY!
This game is a shmup where you control a girl named Mania. You can shoot forward or back depending on the direction you’re facing and you can even fire in 8 directions if you choose to do that setting. You also got your partner Maria who will either shoot the other way or the same way with you depending on your settings. Never worry about her getting hit or anything as she can’t get hurt. Unlike most shmups, you have HP and can have as much as you want as you can collect hearts for more of it and getting 20,000 points gives you 1 HP. You will go through 9 stages in this one filled with lots of action and nonsensical wonders.
Mania also has access to 4 different special weapons. Sure you got your normal default weapon that can be powered up by collecting P icons but you also can choose a special weapon at the beginning of most stages. The first is Neo-Thunder which will send two powerful bolts of lightning to hurt enemies. Second is Eraser which has two lasers with one above and one below Mania as they shoot horizontally. Third is Chainsaw which has two chainsaw blades that extend vertically. Lastly there is the Benten Bomb which will have explosions happen around you. All of these moves can be used as long as they are charged up. Keep in mind the less you use them, the more points and higher rank you get.
Now the stages is where this game hits its strides. There’s so much variety to the levels and aesthetics and it’s all top notch. I adore all the levels so much and there isn’t a single bad one in the game. I really like the level where you’re driving in your car and it’s also the only time you’re forced to use an 8 way shot. I should point out that a lot of people say this game is easy and they would be right but I could care less because my god I have so much fun playing them. There’s never a dull moment and they all look really nice. The enemy variety in them is also amazing and the patterns to follow never feel too repetitive or uninteresting. It’s all just amazing and I have no complaints here.
Bosses in this game are plentiful with the likes of stuff like a robot playing basketball, a crane machine with toys that will shoot at you, and even a clone of Mania. There’s not really any bosses that cause me too much problem as they are once again pretty easy. There are a few that got a hit or two on me. If there is one gripe I have is I don’t like how the final boss can crush you giving you an instant game over, I never understood why crushing does that anyway, feels awfully harsh. You know this game will leave a good first impression when beating the first main boss in stage 1 has it ending with Maria crashing into the boss from a building with her damn car, it’s so badass!
The presentation in this game is Ultimate A material! You get this high pumping intro with an awesome looking title screen. This game even tries to do fake anime eyecatches for two of the game’s cutscenes. The story is pretty nonsensical but the presentation is pretty good minus the underwhelming font. All the characters and enemies look great and are a big upgrade from the previous game. Even the options screen is amazing having a bunch of chibi Maria’s playing to the beat of each sound channel for every song. I could gush way more about it but I don’t want to bore anyone. The music is also really great taking advantage of the Mega Drive’s excellent bass sound. So many songs sound so rockin it’s banger after banger. A lot of effort was put into all this stuff and even the few voice samples are nice. It’s hard to resist me shouting “POWER UP!” or “SPEED UP!” or “Thank you!” god, I love so much about this game.
I know I probably could have written more but I think this does a decent job of explaining my love for this game. I know it’s a boring opinion to list this shmup high on the console but idc because this is my favorite game on the console and I love it so much. I recommend trying this game if you don’t mind using an emulator. This game was given a low print run back in the day and copies now go for over $1,000. Sadly it seems due to Vic Tokai now not being a video game developer, we will probably never see this game ported. M2 did try to get it for the Mega Drive Mini but it didn’t happen. A US version of this game was also meant to be released under the name Trouble Shooter Vintage but never came out. There was also a sequel planned for the Dreamcast but was sadly canceled and didn’t really go anywhere. I love this game like I’ve said many times already so I hope you also enjoy it if you haven’t tried it yet. I wanna say this game is obscure but I’m not really sure tbh, still JUST PLAY IT ALREADY!
FallenGrace
1 year ago