SHMUPS





Trouble Shooter - Vic Tokai


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Trouble Shooter!

Reviewed by Shizukana Wolf

Take control of the Trouble Shooters, Madison and Crystal as they try to save King Fredrick's son from the evil clutches of Blackball! You control Madison with Crystal flying close behind. You can "flip" Crystal to attack either forward or guard your back.

 
Here's Madison. Doesn't she look moody? Well, so would you if you were stuck at the back most of the time     Mind you, Crystal looks in a huff too. Still, controlling two babes at once with your joystick will cheer em up! :)

Weapons: At the beginning of each stage, you can pick from only 4 special weapons to use. Though once used, it will recharge over time so you have unlimited use of it. You also pickup powerup icons to increase your normal weapon. Nothing really exciting about the weapons in TS, but they work.

Graphics: Nice, colourful anime style graphics with intermissions between stages. Stage 3 is the typical battleship that makes a shooter complete, you know, the "fly-around-a-huge-battleship, blasting-off-pieces-n-stuff". Unfortunately is pretty bland, and definitely doesn't have enough stuff to mangle! Check out the boss, so that's how those things get power. The next stage is inside the battleship and the graphics there are okay, the boss isn't much to look at either. Though the stages do have a good bit of animation to give it depth, expectedly on Stage 2 and 5.

Challenge: Easy is pretty much that, you should be able to finish on this setting with little trouble. You can shoot just about any enemy bullet, which is a nice touch when you are fully powered up. Difficult lets the enemies and bosses hold nothing back. Boss have new attacks they unleash on you that they didn't on easy. Most stages have middle bosses and sometimes pre-bosses, someone to soften you up before the real deal. It also has those boss that just don't take dead for an answer! Difficult lives up to its name, giving you lot's of challenge, but not -too- impossible.

Music/SFX: TS uses lots of those digital drums to give the music some nice beats. The tunes are good, but nothing outstanding. SFX are decent, lasers, explosions and some minor voice effects.

Overall?: This is a pretty good shooter, if you can stand some of the bad humor. If you get a bit tired of little ships and rather control a chick with a jetpack, then TS is for you!


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Traveling in style with a Mini full o' weapons! As usual, Madison gets the back seat.

Crystal must be the 'man' in the relationship then.


Blast that big goofy head! Isn't that one of the most stupid looking mechs you've ever seen?

Tiny hands, impractical socks, and a stance to make Freddy Mercury blanch make for one boss you just have to kill.


Yup, that person -is- the bad guy. It's not really hard to tell, the fact that he has a dead rat on his head gives him away.

Good thing you didn't stop him right here, or this would have been one very short shooter!


Going down, watch for buzzsaws, as they can give your nylons a nasty pull, not to mention slicing your pink legs into sandwich ham.

 


Oi! troubleshooters!! Behind you!!!

Kill the mecha construction foreman from hell! Serves him right for wolf-whistling at you earlier.

His lasers form barriers so don't get trapped. He'll soon lose his arms and go berzerk around the screen, dodge and shoot.


Yup, this shooter is complete! Every self respecting shmup has to have a giant battleship section!

Unfortunately, the only things you'll be shooting at are fans, cannons, robots and their dispensers.


No more workout for you! Stay low and fire at his head

Inside the battleship, strange parodies of megaman attack.

Guess this is what it's like to be in an engine, and you are the harmful particle. Dodge or shoot those creatures then blast away at those piston things. Be careful though, the screen moves around and tried to squish you against the edges of the screen

Looks like you have a tag along. He moves opposite to your movements and provides some extra firepower.

Destroy those 4 laser pods, then that pod above the mechanical bird takes pock shots at you, then after those, the bird tried to skewer you with it's tail. Just shoot the bird and it will soon decide to die.

What could this last unexpected place be? Be prepared for a few mini-bosses until you get to the real fight!

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Hey Shizukana, cheers man! Has anyone seen the followup to Trouble Shooter, called Battlemania? Apparently it got a 100% rating in some of the Japanese games mags at the time - pretty well received then! It's more of the same stuff as you've got here, except with slightly nicer graphics, and a whole lot more action. - Malc


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