Lovely vertical STG with really creative stage visuals, I love stage 3's dungeon theme. I think presentation is really this game's strong point. I like a lot of the attention put towards little details like Chiita's ship having a cape, townsfolk running around on the ground scrambling to get away from the Gobligans, things like that. It does feel a bit on the unforgiving side if you end up dying due to the power up system, but maybe it's just the stage 5 boss having some insane amount of health idk. The characters are really cool, and I honestly enjoy playing literally all of them with none of them feeling particularly underpowered or anything.

Considering Raizing would almost immedietly go on to become purveyors of the finest jank, their first game, Sorcer Striker/Mahou Daisakusen, is a very easy game to like. The core gameplay is fun, conventional, and easy to get to grips with, and it combines with wonderful presentation and music, and only moderate difficulty by arcade standards, makes it a very easy STG to just get into and play and enjoy.

If there is a blemish on Sorcer Striker, it is that gameplay though. It essentially plays like a spin-off of Aleste, which makes a lot of sense considering Raizing was founded by a group of ex-COMPILE staff. In general, it feels a lot like Musha Aleste, which is fine, that game is great, but if anything is simpler and less interesting. It's basically pick the weapon pick up you like best, shoot, and survive. This can work fine and even simpler conceits have made for better STGs (most notably I'd argue is the exceptional Thunder Dragon 2), enemy waves aren't that interesting, and there is absolutely nothing to the scoring system beyond basically pure survival.

And whilst Mahou isn't generally that difficult, the difficulty it does have is a bit poorly balanced, and full of spikes. The stage 2 boss is going to be a big roadblock for people, and one of the Stage 6 midbosses easily eclipses the final boss. It's nothing that bad, but is a bit of a mark against the game.

But whilst the gameplay struggles to get much higher than "pretty good", the wonderful presentation really picks up the slack. The world of Mahou Daisakusen is this adorably kitsch high-fantasy/steampunk world that's beautifully realised with great sprite art, imaginative enemy/character designs and some great direction - there's an ebb and flow to the game, forming a little heroes' journey in a way, with recurring rival enemies, and great pacing with the levels, culminating in it's pretty great Stage 6.5 which really rounds things out. It's a setting that's built with just the right amount of seriousness that it feels dramatic whilst also having plenty of levity. It's a bit like viewing a more professional, artistic version of those original, kinda goofy Magic The Gathering cards that you fly and shoot things through.

And that's really it in general. Mahou is a game that does leave you wanting a bit more. Wanting a bit more interesting gameplay, but also just wanting another window of this adorable high-fantasy world to blast through.

Dirk the Daring makes the transition to 3D with all the grace and elegance of... well, Dirk the Daring. Dragon's Lair 3D has the feel of one of "those games." The kind from this generation where it all works functionally and there's a clear amount of love put into it, but lacking any polish. Combat is extremely clunky, every enemy is programmed to stun lock you, jump inputs are often a suggestion, and audio bugs from huge differences in volume to sounds playing randomly in the background fill nearly every moment of the experience. In a very unintentional way, these flaws keep a lot of the "spirit" of the original FMV game alive. It's frustrating and often unclear what you did wrong or what was actually meant to happen.

All that said, it still works as an action-platformer. For the parts that work, there's a decent amount of charm in Dirk's character and animation, the environments are simple but vibrantly colored, and the cel-shaded graphics hold up decently (with the exception of Daphne, who appears to be made of 6 thick black lines fighting with each other for dominance). It's not the most compelling game in the world, and it gets very aggravating in the back-half when they start adding "new" content that goes beyond the ending of the original game, but there's a decent little adventure here led by one of gaming's more endearing heroes.

AKA Layer Section AKA Galactic Attack

Went in only knowing “its that shmup with the lock-on mechanic,” so I was taken off-guard by what a well-realized journey the game takes you on. There aren’t any intermissions or score breakdowns between levels, just a moment to decompress before the title of the next stage appears on-screen. It’s complemented well by how natural the transitions are, your ship breaking through the atmosphere or descending into the hollow world you’ve been sent to destroy.

There’s also a great tactile quality to everything, maybe best exemplified by the Stage 4 boss, a crab-thing that’s held up by four claws that can each be individually destroyed; go for score and you’ll need to endure a barrage of tough attacks, but take out the appendages on one side of the screen and you’ll send it plunging to an early death. Most of the game is full of these clever moments and surprisingly dynamic backgrounds, but as others have mentioned, there’s a pretty harsh difficulty spike when you get to Stage 6- the screen full of lasers and kamikaze drones that will happily eat through your credits.

I can almost buy this as an appropriate use of the setting, the exciting and detailed locales of the early levels giving way to sterile metallic corridors: a final, brutal line of defense before the last level. At the same time, it’s also hard to shake the, “Alright, you’ve had your fun, now get off the cab” feeling the crops at a similar place in many other arcade games. Maybe it’s just the fact that you can’t bomb, so there’s no way of recovering from being caught out, especially when you’re suddenly being bombarded with so many projectiles. Even more than most shmups, it’s a game that rewards multiple playthroughs, your chances of survival improving dramatically as you learn the choreography and start to preempt enemy waves with your lock-on.

But I imagine that these are issues that will fade with time, and didn’t detract much from my experience with it. In fact, I think this might be a new favorite of mine- left feeling like I had had a much fuller experience than the 30-minute runtime might hint at.

Didn't know this game existed until a few days ago when @MagneticBurn reviewed this and instantly caught my attention with the cover art. What hooked me even more is the fact that everyone is praising this as one of the best shooters on the N64.

Having now beaten the game, this is definetly a very good shooter and you owe yourself to play this game if you are into shooters.

The difficulty is just right. The game is very challenging but fair, and not very punishing as you have limited lives, but unlimited continues.

I actually recommend this for people looking to get into the shooter (shmup) genre as this one is a bit less intense than most giving you a dodge button with i-frames, which is something that absolutely makes this game more accessible to newcomers. If you take advantage of that dodge button, you can clear this game, not too easily, but it makes nothing feel unfair.

What I loved most about Star Soldier: Vanishing Earth is the graphics. It has the most charming type of 3D low poly of the generation, something akin to Mega Man legends or Sin and Punishment. It makes blasting things feel way more satisfying and crunchier.

Heard this game was underrated back in the day and now is getting the praise it deserves. Great surprise and I'm glad I played it. Now I'm in the mood to play more shooters.

it's a fairly laid-back shoot 'em up, there aren't many bullets on the screen. The size of the hitbox seems a bit excessive to me; however, there's the ability to reflect bullets about to hit your ship, with a very short cooldown (approximately 1-2 seconds). Using a controller makes the game very suitable for beginners, and for the more skilled players it becomes a shoot 'em up to relax with.

During boss fights, the quantity of bullets on the screen increases drastically. The third boss annoys me a lot with its tendency to traverse the perimeter of the screen. On the contrary, I enjoyed the other ones; the last boss, Duoss Core Complete, is the one I have a platonic love for.

The three available ships, to choose from at the beginning of the game, differ significantly in firepower, special attack, and speed. They can be interpreted, in my opinion, as an easy, normal, and hard mode. The green one is very slow, and its firepower is kind of on the lower side, making it not a good combination. I would call it the hard mode of the game, but in an annoying way. The blue one is perhaps too powerful, especially because the time window available to reflect incoming bullets is very long. It's effectively an easy mode, thanks to its special attack that can almost immediately eliminate any boss.