On Saturn there's Guardian Heroes and Radiant Silvergun, both games I've always really liked and immediately got the hang of.
And then there's this game...

My first time playing this I felt like I was fighting the game mechanics, I often felt like I was missing something.
I really struggled my way through this game, brute forcing my way to the end while throwing away multiple continues. I didn't understand why it couldn't just be a straightforward run-&-gun or action platformer, it seemed like the added mechanics just got in the way.
It was so frustrating and exhausting to play. I just saw it as the one weak link in the developer's history.
And so this game just sat on my shelf for many years and I'd always remember it as that weird mediocre treasure game.

Only now after coming back to it years later and finally understanding how to play it I feel qualified to write this review.
Silhouette Mirage comes from a developer that is most known for out-of-the-box ideas and experimental game design, and this is one of their games that pushes things even further than usual.

Silhouette Mirage is a misunderstood game, and I also misunderstood it.
This game is deceptively esoteric and deceptively genious. So much so that it took many playthroughs before I finally "got it"

Silhouette Mirage has a color polarity system but the player can't just easily change color at the press of a button you have to face left or right, it's the kind of idea that seems arbitrary and unique for the sake of being unique at first. It's easy to write the mechanics of this game off as shallow the game can almost feel mechanically confused, but the truth is that it isn't just a gimmick, most mechanics are deep and thoughtfully designed.

That's how the game is deceptive, before I really learned the deeper skills and mechanics I assumed that jumping over enemies and trying to move around them was a effective way to play, instead it's all about manipulating and forcing enemies into places where they are at a disadvantage, in other words move the enemy not yourself. It's counter-intuitive to the the way most games would go about something like this. There's a lot of depth to this idea, and it does work in practice once it's properly understood. Many of the bosses in the game feel the same way, before I understood their gimmick, patterns, or weakness they seem tedious and unfair but now they're fun to fight and a reasonable challenge. It's a huge contrast in difficulty all coming from the mechanics themselves. Nothing about Silhouette Mirage is minimal or simple.

This is primarily a run-and-gun game, but it feels a lot like a beat-em-up in some aspects with how spacing is used, it's really important to navigate around enemies and push them into place to control the situation.

You can shoot enemies with the same color and it won't do damage, it might seem like a waste but what this actually does is drain their energy, my first time playing I didn't understand the utility of this and only tried to damage them, it's really important to drain some enemies of all their power first.

It's a really clever layer added to this mechanic, instead of just aggressively attacking everything the game has a focus on disarming your opponent first, so you can get in closer and deal heavier damage. The game prioritizes defense and patience in a really unique way there's not really any run-and-gun game that does things like this. Silhouette is certainly no Contra or Metal Slug, you can't just run in and blast away groups of enemies.

Once an enemy or boss is disarmed they usually have no attacks they can do anymore leaving them open to being grabbed, you can grab and thow almost any enemy and boss which is important for controlling the battle and spacing, but the player can punch money out of enemies and bosses while grabbing them.
This leads to some grinding for shops where you can buy healing items and upgrade weapons, it's essential to have a chance against harder bosses later into the game, there's another layer of resource management added to everything that's already going on here.
It's a lot to keep track of and will keep the majority of players from enjoying it. This is definitely not a game for everyone, I think it has a niche appeal. It's a very demanding, complicated, and punishing action game.

As well as everything works and how well planned and developed many aspects of the game are, there are some serious problems that skill alone can't fix.

My first time actually getting to the final level of the game I was experimenting with weapons and ended up stuck with the Bomb weapon named Angara, the massive problem with this is that Angara can only hit ground targets, you see the final few bosses are exclusively airborne... I could not hit them, I had no chance. My entire playthrough ended right there at no real fault of my own, because the weapon system is so under-developed and unbalanced. The game can be very frustrating like this and not in a satisfying way, there's a smoke/toxic weapon and a targeting homing shot that both take too much setup when you could just get much higher DPS with anything else and worst of all weapons give enemies knockback. This is no issue with the standard shot, Laser, or boomerang, but the rest just hit once launching the enemy away while the rest of the attack misses.
There's no reason not to just use half the weapons.

If I had to pick out the most significant weakness from Treasure as a developer, the most significant and recurring problem that can show up in many of their games, it would be over reliance on gimmicks and one-off ideas.
committing too hard to an idea at the detriment of pacing or enjoyability, at times it's as if they thought the idea was too good of a concept not too put in the game without considering if it's worth including to begin with. I always reward a game for creativity and I think they deserve some credit for trying and experimenting with new ideas, but those ideas can't always be good. Sometimes it's possible to go too far in that direction, I think they get a bit carried away at times.

I think this flaw is the worst demonstrated in this game, often it's just one or maybe two bosses in their games that have this issue but here I can count at least six that do this, it's a lot to explain as the scenarios can be very specific, so I'll let parts from my latest playthrough (on very hard) speak for itself. It's as fun as it looks (so not at all)

SPOILERS FOR FINAL BOSS
https://youtu.be/rUB-91LxKeE

Whenever there's a boss exclusively in the background it's just dreadful, both of those go on for five or more minutes as the player is just waiting around for them to damage themselves.

You would want a game like this to scale in difficulty gradually and naturally, with a few exceptions that's true here and the game overall is challenging, but the semi-final boss is an absurd massive spike in difficulty, and it's fought right after another very hard boss being the third one in a row with no heals or shops in between, it's especially cruel design and it artificially lead to most of my playthroughs ending early.

As it turns out the key to actually fighting them is just holding reflect or attack in the corner, like a lot of the gimmicky parts of the game figuring it out is the challenge but once that's over with it's just pathetic, fighting it knowing the solution just takes all the challenge and skill away. The most mindless nothing kind of gameplay.

For every 3 great boss fights there's a really bad one, the bosses that are straightforward to fight end up being the most fun and thankfully they make up the majority of the game, many have a clever gimmick that just helps or makes it much easier without getting in the way or ruining the overall flow and there are a lot of them, not all boss fights are bad there's a lot of very memorable and fun ones.

I have a lot to complain about in terms of gameplay, but I can't complain at all about the presentation
graphically it's a nice looking game with charming and unique character designs, they're about as unusual as the rest of the game, every level takes place in a very different environment from the others and there's a lot of imaginative and appealing locations, it's nowhere near the spectacle or scope one would expect from Treasure, nothing mind blowing or awe inspiring but it's still above average and the game is very distinct.

The soundtrack is catchy it's not my favorite but there are a few standout level themes and it's well varied
Overall the game has a very unique character and style with a strange and complicated plot to go along with it

Despite being complicated the game is responsive and has many moves to take control of any situation, it feels good to run up walls or slide and the character has a lot of air movement without being too "floaty"

Not every idea works well and it can be cumbersome a lot of times, there are some awful parts in this game that there's just no getting around. It's a game that has a lot to like but it takes a lot of work to learn to like this game. There's some really good bosses and levels here that are brought down by the bad ones I have a list of complaints with this game, but in the end it still has enough good ideas to make it worthwhile.

In spite of everything I appreciate that the developers took some risks, some ideas failed but without that first attempt they may have never learned from their mistakes, and maybe some of the later games that surpassed this one wouldn't have been made, if anything Silhouette Mirage is an extremely unique and unusual game that any action game fan should experience.

Gundam Seed PS2 is a unique, surprising, and mindlessly fun action game, but you probably have never heard of it, not only is it Japan exclusive it's a Gundam Seed PS2 game of which there are at least 4 more with "Gundam Seed" in the title, a very crowded genre with an IP that was being overused at the time. The extremely basic game title here only makes this worse and the bad reputation of the anime and other Seed tie-ins indirectly effect this game. You'd probably never guess this is a run & gun - beat-em-up hybrid, and probably the best of any of the Seed games with some actual effort and creativity put into its development.

This game comes from the same developer as Wild Guns, Ninjawarriors, and specifically the Battle Assault games, it's quite the pedigree, this game doesn't live up to any of those, but it is still well made and fun all the way through, it's definitely one of the better licensed games from this company.

I don't know anything about Gundam Seed, and really my knowledge about Gundam in general is very surface level, I'm not familiar with a lot of it I can't read or understand Japanese anyway so I'm not going to miss the story in the game, but it seems to follow the anime up to the point it was made, to the end of the first season (this is a problem, I'll get into that later)
Overall the presentation here is pretty good, the cutscenes are well animated, some clearly are clips from the show but a lot of it is original for the game, there's 2D animated scenes and some in-engine ones, the menus are sleek and nice looking, and the attention to detail is great, ingame models are decently textured and detailed, and ingame environments look great except for the far off parts of the background being very blurry, some of the ground textures are blurry and out of place in a few spots, enemy explosions leave a lot to be desired with a very small effect and no shrapnel, it looks very unconvincing. Overall it's a decent looking game.

What really stands out visually is as you are fighting enemies are will have their own chatter and reactions as they fly in or are defeated, with a little animated profile that displays above them, many enemies have their very own voice and likeness, these aren't just silent faceless enemies to mow down, I was reminded there are supposed to be pilots here and kind of adds to the seriousness and stake of the setting, it's a cool detail and it makes the confrontation with ingame rivals and end bosses feel a lot more dynamic.
I appreciate the music this game has too, it would be easy enough to just copy over the anime soundtrack or give it a generic orchestral or rock sound, but this has a very nice Synth soundtrack that stands out compared to other Gundam/Mech games, at times it has a sort of Mega Man X PS1 era sound https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYjDzLErnsc
Other tracks set the mood with seriousness or intensity for the fast paced parts well, and an end credits theme that conveys the war ingame is not over and there were some serious losses.


This is a shorter arcade focused kind of game, the beat-em-up elements are satisfying and responsive. Combat has a lot of wind-up and recovery without many actions to cancel out of it and dashing can feel delayed, it does end up feeling like piloting a massive mecha and isn't quite as smooth as you'd hope.
It's not too slow or clunky overall, moves are still fun to pull off, though there's only two attack buttons (long range and short range) there directional inputs, some follow up attacks, aerial maneuvers, and a super move that takes some health, these all add enough depth to it and I was never bored with the mechanics nor did it get too repetitive or old, it's somewhat standard but well executed.
I wouldn't say it's as satisfying or smooth as something like Mad Stalker or Gear Fighter but it's serviceable.

The game has an auto target system that will keep the player facing the enemy, and auto-aims long range weapons, while there are enemies on the same single plane, others fly in or wander in the background shooting back at the player from far away and indicators show where the bullet will cross the play area or hit the plane of ground the player is on, and these can be targeted and fired at from the player too, it's kind of unique and novel for this kind of game and I really appreciate the idea.

Having a side-scroller with fighting game mechanics, where you can target enemies in the background perfectly fusing Gallery shooter with beat-em-up is just fantastic, the potential for a unique and dynamic action game is definitely there.
The main issue with this game is it sort of combines all the ideas from their previous games together, and on paper it's genius the way this could work, but this game doesn't quite pull it off as well as I'd hope, it IS really cool that there's this other dimension to the game with dodging attacks from the background and dividing your offense between the two.

The way long range works is a lot like Wild Guns, and had me remembering a lot about how that game worked if it was just as frenetic and smooth as that game it could have been great. What really limits this and takes most of the skill and depth away is you that can't aim the cursor at all. It locks on automatically and the fire rate is VERY slow no matter what build you choose.
When firing the player is locked in place, there's no dodge roll like in Wild Guns and a delay to jump out of firing, it's just not that satisfying.
This game has the exact same multiplier system as wild guns too, defeating enemies without letting go of fire or moving adds a score bonus this should be a good thing as in Wild Guns this added to some great risk reward depth especially when you could shoot down incoming bullets to keep the chain going, but here you just hold the fire button while all the aiming is done for you, it's way too incentivized to just stand and shoot mindlessly as the brain-dead AI on your own plane slowly walks at you and maybe decides to attack, they often don't get a chance to pose a threat before they've been blasted away, just tanking damage and holding the fire button can nearly get the player through entire levels, and worse, it's the dominant strategy for getting score and leveling up.
This game has the same problem as something like Devil May Cry 2, thankfully it's not as broken or exploitable and bosses will force the player to engage with them, it's a significant oversight but it didn't ruin the game for me.

Score is also experience which adds to you max armor, when you run out of armor the weapons equipped at the beginning of each level break and you're stuck with the basic starting mobile suit, bosses have their own armor and it works the same way, it's a unique and engaging health system

Shooting on the ground locks you in place, but while hovering (which the player can do for quite a while) you can freely move around while shooting, so dodging fire from the background becomes easy, all while the enemies on the ground just stand waiting for the player to land, they won't even try to jump at the player, this loses the score multiplier so at least it's not incentivized but it's a bit broken and unbalanced.

You could stay on the ground and do flashy fighting game moves while guarding strategically and getting score bonuses, but why take the risk?
In between some of these levels there's on-rail sections where the player can freely fly around, these are more focused on shooting and has the same aiming/targeting system, whenever enemies get in close the player can do some melee moves, and sometimes you have to time the attack to counter an incoming enemy, these levels were more simple but were also fun to play, still it's essentially Sin & Punishment 2 but slow and simple, there's not as much going on in these levels but I did kind of enjoy the more minimal approach. These levels were a pleasant surprise despite how simple they are.

The game starts very easy with very few enemies at once, it takes a few levels before it really starts getting more hectic and then when the game seems like it finally hits it's stride, it ends... There's no hard mode or extra levels to really put the players skills and moveset to the test and there isn't much fanfare for the final fight, I had no idea I was fighting the final boss nor did it feel like the last level, that's the worst thing about this game, since the anime hadn't finished airing at the time, they couldn't really have the game end in a substantial way.
This is pretty standard for Natsume licensed games, all the Power Rangers games, Gear Fighter, Endless Duel, all ended abruptly without a satisfying conclusion and I've seen many other licensed games from this company that did the same.

Before any mission the player can choose between some different modifiers to add to the mech, sadly there aren't any other mobile suits or characters to play through the game with, these all have different combos and weapons (though not drastically different) that add a great variety on top of everything.
After clearing the game a score attack mode with no level ups and a VS mode are unlocked, Vs mode lets two players fight on any (ground not flying) level setting with any of the ingame boss Gundams, and the five versions the main game had, it works well enough though the different mobile suits can be unbalanced and it's not as deep as a dedicated fighting game, still a good addition it was fun from what I was able to try.

Mobile Suit Gundam Seed just isn't up to the standard or scope of the original titles that came from these developers it's generally plays like "diet Wild Guns" fused with "diet Gear Fighter" which don't get me wrong, still ends up being a lot of fun. This still surpasses many licensed games in general, and many Gundam related games, it's one of the better ones, and for the unique approach to gameplay alone it was well worth playing, at the very least it has a great visual and audio presentation to go along with that, and a fun enough VS mode for some added content and longevity.

For the price a used copy of this goes for it's really a bargain, and overall I'm not that disappointed by it. The novelty of it makes up for a lot, it's a fun, quick, and easy game to go through in an afternoon. The game is a little mindless, but not every game needs to be deep or difficult. I really wanted to like this more than I did, but it's still a solid game. I'd recommend this one, even for non-Gundam fans, if you like the other games I've mentioned in this review, definitely play this game, it's not going to change your life, but it's a decent way to spend an hour or two.