A 3D mech shooter which blows my mind in managing to capture the feeling of the kinds of dogfights you see in anime between two mechs or otherwise flying characters zipping about blasting at each other. Frankly I didn't think it was possible, but with its mechanic of being able to orient the player's movement in a sphere around locked-on targets but still aim independently to said lock-on, it makes for a shockingly fluid control scheme which solves a lot of the difficulties of full 3D movement elegantly than a lot of games released after it. The mechanic of locking on to the same target multiple times before firing to deal more damage per shot also helps in adding meaningful decision-making to the shooting as opposed to just blasting away any chance you get. The game manages to be extremely stylish and substantive at the same time.

Some levels are more open-ended and others are built like a rail-shooter. While the full-range stages are of course impressive, the use of 3D with the lock-on to flip the camera from the back to the front to hit targets zipping past or coming up behind you is a really smart use of the new gen technology. it really makes me appreciate this era when 3D wasn't simply taken for granted, but as a new novelty to be experimented with, thus granting us gems like this which play with it in ways you rarely see even today.