Aside from the fact that Tim Follin is apparently some kind of eldritch cosmic superbeing who can bring out peak performance sound from every game console he fucking touches, this game is ALMOST good.
The first thing that needs to be touched on is the fact there is no in-game rapid fire, now this wouldn't be the worst thing in the world if it weren't for the fact that literally no enemy (or bullet!) in the damn game dies in one hit. When you combine these two things you get crippling arthritis faster than your thumb or index finger can say "god just end it and send my ass straight to hell". That alone drives the difficulty up a lot higher than it needs to be and it really doesn't need to be there.
The visual clarity of what you can and can't move through or where the bullets are is also sometimes fucked up, you can discern what you can't move through by shooting at it and seeing if your bullets pass through or not, but then that's just even more music for my already aching thumbs to hear. Then you have the absolutely fucked up water ripple effect in the second Reptyl (cause we need to trademark this d-list villain's name) stage that absolutely annihilates the shit out of your eyes, it's not quite the waterfalls in Doki Doki Panic or the baby-killing strobe effect in Mystery of Convoy but it's enough to make me want to bitch about it.
The Silver Surfer himself is also just way too pathetic in this game. A frog's tongue coming anywhere close to this guy's board will put him on the ground faster than any hard liquor, and the non-upgraded version of his shots just do nowhere close to enough damage. Hell, even the upgraded shots don't do enough, because like I said it feels like nothing in this game dies in one hit. His hitbox is just way too gigantic for the absurd speed and patterns the enemies throw out, I've taken plenty of hits that I feel shouldn't have killed me even ignoring his fucking colossal sprite during the vertical segments.
It's honestly a shame, because I actually think the stages themselves are pretty well-designed in a sense and have some really dastardly enemy placement and patterns. It's just that a bunch of other shit that have nothing to do with it drag the game down a ton and make it a lot harder than it needs to be. And yes, I did beat this.
: Using a turbo controller and occasional save stating
The first thing that needs to be touched on is the fact there is no in-game rapid fire, now this wouldn't be the worst thing in the world if it weren't for the fact that literally no enemy (or bullet!) in the damn game dies in one hit. When you combine these two things you get crippling arthritis faster than your thumb or index finger can say "god just end it and send my ass straight to hell". That alone drives the difficulty up a lot higher than it needs to be and it really doesn't need to be there.
The visual clarity of what you can and can't move through or where the bullets are is also sometimes fucked up, you can discern what you can't move through by shooting at it and seeing if your bullets pass through or not, but then that's just even more music for my already aching thumbs to hear. Then you have the absolutely fucked up water ripple effect in the second Reptyl (cause we need to trademark this d-list villain's name) stage that absolutely annihilates the shit out of your eyes, it's not quite the waterfalls in Doki Doki Panic or the baby-killing strobe effect in Mystery of Convoy but it's enough to make me want to bitch about it.
The Silver Surfer himself is also just way too pathetic in this game. A frog's tongue coming anywhere close to this guy's board will put him on the ground faster than any hard liquor, and the non-upgraded version of his shots just do nowhere close to enough damage. Hell, even the upgraded shots don't do enough, because like I said it feels like nothing in this game dies in one hit. His hitbox is just way too gigantic for the absurd speed and patterns the enemies throw out, I've taken plenty of hits that I feel shouldn't have killed me even ignoring his fucking colossal sprite during the vertical segments.
It's honestly a shame, because I actually think the stages themselves are pretty well-designed in a sense and have some really dastardly enemy placement and patterns. It's just that a bunch of other shit that have nothing to do with it drag the game down a ton and make it a lot harder than it needs to be. And yes, I did beat this.
: Using a turbo controller and occasional save stating