A shoot-em-up
review site is NOT a true shoot-em-up review site unless it contains
certain games. Musha for the Megadrive happens to be one of them.
Shmups has been online for around three years now, and nobody has
sent in a review for it yet? What’s up with that? Somehow this one
got overlooked. Now there are some who go absolutely nuts over this
game, and say it takes the prize for best shooter on the Megadrive,
but I wouldn’t quite go that far. To be honest, the first few times
I played Musha I thought it wasn’t very impressive. But the game
has grown on me, and quite a bit. Much like a foreign movie, this
is one of those shooters that must be viewed several times to be
fully appreciated. Why? I don’t know, but it seems like the more
I play the more I like Musha.
Musha
Aleste: FFE is the Megadrive version of the Spriggan series (those
familiar with Toaplan/Compile’s style will instantly recognize the
yellow symbol “fireworks” like powerup present in most of their
games). It plays a LOT like the PC-Engine version of Spriggan, with
similar themes (heavy Japanese), graphics, and gameplay. Speed is
changeable by the player via a meter in the pause screen, and weapons
consist of a regular shot and a secondary weapon, which powers up
when you get the same color several times in a row. Red gives grenades,
green gives a lightning laser, and blue gives a rotating shield.
Shooting and collecting those fireworks things powers up your regular
shot and increases weapon strength. You also have the ability to
change the arrangement of options, which appear when you build a
little weapon strength, to the tune of 3 way, forward, backward,
reverse, etc. And this is one of the great features of Spriggan,
the wide variety of weapon setup.
Enemies,
bosses, and minibosses are extremely varied. You will fight both
ground and air targets of many forms. This is a nice refresher from
wave after wave of normal air-based enemies in most vertical shooters.
Speaking of bosses, most are full screen and very creative. In fact,
playing through Spriggan games is almost like walking an art gallery,
with the player thinking, “what are they going to impress me with
next?” Music is also top-notch, and this is one game where you can
just go into the sound test mode and listen to each track independent
of the game. Tracks are fast paced, like the game, and done in techno
style. Despite all of these factors working together to make a great
game like Musha, there are a few problems. I keep dying in quick
succession, and it’s very easy to throw your whole game just by
messing up once. You lose powerups after getting blasted, and with
the fast pace of the game it’s hard to build them up again. And
sometimes at a boss you can’t even tell what’s killing you. Suprise,
you’re dead! So adjustment to the speed is one necessity. So subtract
a few points for play control. But overall, Musha is a must play
for shooter fans, and a welcome addition to the Megadrive library
of games.
MUSHA
Aleste - Compile/Toaplan
