Stop me if you've heard this one before: A vertical shoot-em-up with multiple routes, massive bosses, and multi-leveled shot types with secondary weapons that help you manage enemies on your flanks. AND it's on the Sega Saturn?

Blast Wind isn't doing anything unique, but that's fine, because it's a pretty damn good game even if it may feel derivative. I was watching Jeff Gerstmann of Giant Bomb The Jeff Gerstmann Show rank NES games the other day, and he questioned if vertical shooters had run their course. I'd love to say the genre is still rich with games pushing the boundaries of what a shoot-em-up can be, but on my life I can't think of anything past Ikaruga that I would describe as anything other than "good but expected."

And that's Blast Wind in a nutshell. You've probably played a lot of games like this before, but it doesn't do anything wrong and pretty much nails what it's going for. Feels good, it's approachable but offers a solid challenge, the sprite-work is great, I like how the explosions sort of sound like a badly digitized voice going "bwaaaah," and the soundtrack is fantastic. Though it doesn't do anything revolutionary or break the vertical shoot-em-up mold, it doesn't need to.

However, that does mean Blast Wind's historical relevance is mostly limited to its rocky development, having failed an initial localization test that saw the game reworked into the more humorous Inazuma Saber, which also failed its own localization test. It took another four years before Blast Wind hit the home console market in Japan, and in such low quantities that it now fetches one of the highest aftermarket prices for a Sega Saturn game. It is funny looking back at old forum threads where people were speculating Blast Wind wouldn't hit triple digit prices back in 2005. Loose discs now command nearly 300$ with complete in box prices creeping just past that. Time makes fools of us all, though they were right about one thing, Blast Wind has nothing on Hyper Duel.