Resident Evil Village PS5 Review

 

Resident Evil Village is a Survival-Horror game was released in 2021 for PS5, PS4, XSX/S, XBONE, and PC, and then it got later ported to Switch in 2022 as cloud service version.

It was both developed and published by Capcom, and it is a sequel to the 2017's previous title such as Resident Evil 7: Biohazard.

Previously, I've already covered my review on Resident Evil 7: Biohazard for PS4 which I described it as the return of the Survivor Horror roots since after the previous entry such as RE 6 which was absolute nothing but a dog shit, so thankfully the RE 7: Biohazard just got everything right to create what makes the franchise quite successful back in the old days of gaming. 

I had a blast of playing RE 7 which delivers many great stuffs in the game such as showdown with Jack Baker breaking through the walls, and that crazy bitch surprises you with unexpected jumpscares just adds up the overall scare-fest level. 

The darker tone setting of presentation borrows the influence from 70s horror film like Texas Chainsaw Massacre in terms of crooked-looking house and the insane villains.

The gameplay mixes with the survival and puzzles that keeps you busy with the game to progress throughout the story campaign is what makes RE 7 just stepping in the right direction.

As I previously enjoyed the RE 7, I was hoping to look forward with the another RE games which is why I've bought a copy of RE Village for PS5.

Yes everyone, I've already talked earlier about that I've finally got a PS5 Slim last week ago which is why I am here to make my very first PS5 review that I'll be covering today.

So what is my thoughts on RE Village? well it's all depends on how are these story, gameplay, and presentation went, so is it another good RE games out there or is it not just what I've expecting from the title.

So without go further do, let's start the review.

Presentation

The game sets in 3 years after the events of RE 7, so it started with Ethan Winters, an main protagonist who survived from the Baker's house incident from RE 7, had been settled living with his wife Mia and 6 month daughter Rosemary until the house invasion had happened when Chris Redfield and his team came breaking in and kills Mia in cold blooded, and kidnaps Ethan and his baby daughter being transported in a van.

After the collision crash, Ethan wakes up on the outside of the village and began his journey to search his baby daughter, as well as uncovering the truth from Chris's action behind the house invasion incident. 

The opening scene in the beginning of the campaign is quite unexpected with brutally of teams starts breaking in Ethan's home and showered the f**k out of his wife with multiples of bullets, and knocks Ethan down unconsciously when he's trying to protect his baby from Chris and the teams.

This turns out to be sounds shocking to you fans which you did not expect your all-time favourite hero from the previous RE games had turned out to be bad guy in the game...well there's no explanation what was the main reason he did all that reckless shoot-out which remained mystery, so that's really getting very interesting stuff going on in the game.

First of all, I never been a fan of Ethan Winters as a faceless main protagonist, but in this game his character's development seems to be more of the same with no significant changes whatsoever meaning it's still has the same less emotions characteristics and lacks strong personally just like from the previous game.

Then you have the returning character such as Chris Redfield, as you may know him as the major important character from the previous entries of RE series. 

His appearance in the game are described as much darker and more sinister in contrast to his previous heroic portrayal in the series which I really liked the new changes on his character's role in RE Village a lot better than he was previously appeared in RE 7: Biohazard. 

The game also shares with many great villains that are quite just as likable, so stuff like you have Hammer-wielding asshole Karl Heisenberg, haunting ghost-like Donna Beneviento and her creepy doll Angie, supreme leader figure Mother Miranda, three crazy witches Bela, Cassandra, and Daniela, and of course everyone had talked about the tall-gigantic woman that breaks the internet after watching the trailer such as Lady Alcina Dimitrescu which I got to say it's clearly the best and most recognisable female villain in RE series...seriously no joke, I swear to you guys may going to agree with my view on this 9 foot-tall madam with big-long claws and the scary expression on her face.

I also liked several of the monstrous creatures like warewolf-like mutants, mold-infected human with mechanical modifications wield with scraped-metal axe, fungy-like zombie with claws and teeth, slow vampiric creature wield with melee sword, giant old-brute wield with large war-hammer, bat-like creature flying everywhere outside, mutated soldier wield with arm-mounted drills, and of course mechanically-modified creature with huge propeller stuck on the head, which I considered these concept design looking quite remarkable that fits really well in the game's settings.

The presentation in this game is actually does gives me sorts of Resident Evil 4 vibes to it in regards of these locations and environments are looking quite similar in both.

You have outside of the villages that are looking so abandoned and completely wrecked which really shows that there are many of poorly conditioned houses, churches, and graveyards just really adds up the game's creepiness.

I also liked three of these locations such as Castle Dimitrescu which are cloudy and gloomy at outside of the castle, and I really liked how they designed the castle at outside view just looks like it came from the Bram Stoker's Dracula, where as inside of the castle are described as dark and medieval with old-looking fashioned rooms and halls.

Then you have crooked-looking Beneviento house which appears to be unsettling and has disturbing stuff going on which I considered this ugly looking house as nothing but a most haunted places in this particular location.

Finally you have Heisenberg's factory filled with dark industrial room and has gritty environments all over the places.

Overall, it has brilliant story, incredible presentation settings, and terrifying villains and creatures. 

Gameplay

In single-player campaign, you take control of Ethan Winters in 1st-person or 3rd-person perspective depending on which are these two options suits your playstyle in the game, as your main goal is to rescue his kidnapped baby daughter but in order to do that you must complete several of objectives to progress throughout the game such as puzzle-solving, gathering info from documents and diary, collecting keys and items to gain access to new area, and of course defeating many bosses. 

Pushing the left stick to move player around, while the right stick are used as camera movement.

Pressing the left thumbstick to make player run, and pressing the right thumbstick is to make player crouch down can be used for stealth play.

You can interact and pick-up the objects by pressing the cross button, when the cross button symbol appears on the screen.

You can also go on the inventory screen by pressing the triangle button which takes you to the inventory stuff which allows you to equip and examine weapons and items, as well as re-organising stuff to fit in space for many weapons and items that you've picked up recently from. 

You can set 4 each of your weapons by highlighting them with short-cuts which allowing you to quickly cycle your weapons by hitting the d-pad buttons, so that you don't have to go back to inventory screen to equip others.

Holding the left trigger to make steady aim while moving around the targeting cursor with the right stick control, then shoot it with the right trigger to shoot down these enemies, but you can also reload the weapon by hitting the square button just in case if your ammunition rounds is quite bit low.

You can avoid enemy's melee attack by hitting the left shoulder button to defend yourself from taking damage, and you can use your first aid bottle by hitting the right shoulder button to increase your health when your health is been lowered down. 

You can gain access to your map screen by pressing the touchpad button will display full maps of the locations which helps you navigating the stuff like where you supposed to go and finding a way get to the new area.

You can also save progress by going to the safe room which can be located on your maps, so pay closely attention to the map which also has icons displayed. Once you're in the safe room, you can use the typewriter object which allowing you to save the game which you can always continue the game where you left off for later play, so thankfully you don't really need the ink item in order to save progress because you can save anytime you want in the game. 

So far, the controls in this game works really smoothly because I had no issues with the character's movement and camera system, as you can always change the control settings on the pause option menu such as your look sensitivity control and button layouts preferences to suit your play-ability.

The best things about the PS5 controller is that your adaptive triggers actually uses for the pressure sensitivity which means it's designed for the specific parts in the gameplay element that really adds up a new ways of experiencing to play PS5 games.

For example: when equipping the pocket knife which are lighter melee weapon made your adaptive triggers quite loose, while changing it to other weapons like pistols, shotguns, and rifles that made your adaptive triggers quite tighter to press, so it's like you're pulling the trigger from the gun on your hand just adds up the realism to the combat gameplay which worked really amazing for most of the part. 

It made really good rattling noises on the right trigger when using the machine-guns, and of course pushing the right trigger half-way hard with the pistols just seems to be very responsive which is why I'm amazed with the innovation that's being included on the 9th gen controller.

The gameplay as a whole are just plays great in terms of survival, combat, exploration, and of course the game's difficulty challenge. 

Having to play on casual mode are acceptable for beginners who aren't to keen with the challenge but rather focusing mostly on the story sequences, where as the standard mode delivers a decent challenge without being too difficult to complete, and lastly the hardcore mode is more of the full-on survival root which reduces the amount of resources and making the most of the enemies much tougher and difficult to fight are the best recommendation for most experienced players who loves to participate a bigger challenge.

The mix of combat and survival are nicely balanced as you may need to use some of the survival tool in order to survive in the game such as your weapons and ammunitions which you'll need these to fight off against these monsters when they get too close to you, but don't try to waste many ammunition otherwise you're screwed unless you can only use these when it's necessary, if left no other choice but to fight instead.

Same goes with the health items which you can only use it once if you think you really need to increase your health, so do it wisely or else you'll have no left to use it.

The stealth is the best way to avoid contacting with the monsters or other threats because sometime you don't really want to waste your time fighting with the enemies so much, as you're trying to get to the new areas, so you can hide inside the long furniture, under the beds, and behind the objects like boxes and walls are the best way to prevent getting caught in action.

You can meet up with the big fat Duke which can be found mostly in safe room and places, so you can able to trade stuffs like upgradable weapons which improves upon your weapon performance such as firing rate, power, and reload speed, and then you have attachable items that attached onto your weapon like keeping your aiming steady and adding scope to increase zoom-in distance, and lastly some resources like health and ammo items may come in handy.   

I also loved the exploration in the game is because I really liked how they designed the level environment to be larger than the previous games, so you can use exploration to discover collectable treasures and valuables, uncovering different discoveries, and some interesting stuff going on in these villages and other locations.

What makes the game quite enjoyable is the several of fantastic segments that doing the game's justice, so you have some of the decent puzzle-solving aspects such as changing and placing the portraits, re-arranging the statues, swing the flames left and right to light-up candle, play the notes correctly shown on the paper, shoot 5 bells in room, and many more puzzle stuffs that unlocks the un-reveal paths, as well as obtaining the key items that lead you to the new rooms.

My favourite part of the game is the creepy doll house event that kinda gives me sort of the Konami's cancelled P.T Demo of Silent Hill vibes to it in terms of settings and atmospheres where the whole doll house are fully cursed with disturbing stuffs going on such as the light generator just shuts off loudly, hearing little girl laughing in background noises, the radio shatters up like mad, and of course one f***ed up part in the game that I never forget is the ugly-looking deformed baby start chasing you around the rooms is the moment that I finding it quite terrifying, damn that larged deformed baby is sure one ugly mother-f***er.

I also did enjoy the showdown with the bosses are the best thing in the single-player campaign, so you have Lady Dimitrescu where not only she chases you with her deadly claws, but for later part where she's also turned into the final true form which you had to fight her at the rooftops, and then you have Heisenberg which not only he uses his heavy melee weapon, but also has ability to use his power that gathers his scraps to create his defense shields and armor, and of course the throwing attacking weapons, so these are the boss battles that I finding it quite entertaining to play.

I wanted to point out one of the criticism which is a Chris's mission are rather being too short because as I really liked having him as playable character in this story campaign start kicking all the creatures asses, as you can only as him just for half an hour mission which is not quite enough for those who really liked Chris from the previous RE games are expecting his mission to be bit more lengthy, so I wish his mission in the story campaign could have done a bit longer than the half an hour would have made it quite better in my opinion.   

As I did enjoy the single-player campaign, I also had a Gold Edition which Includes the extra Story DLC titled as "Shadow of Rose" where you get to play as Rosemary Winters entering her frightening nightmarish campaign, and you also got the mercenaries mode which is a score attack mini-game where you had to defeat all the enemies to gain more scoring points in time limit, and also I did mentioned the 3rd person perspective mode which are only featured on the gold edition version.   

You can also get a VR mode for free from the digital storefront, so you can able to enjoy playing the new VR mode on single-player campaign if you have the PSVR 2 headset which I also heard many good things about having to play the horror title with the VR headset delivers the new ways to gain the VR horror experience.  

Overall, it has responsive controls, challenging mix of combat and survival, great puzzle-solving, and of course enjoyable boss battles.

Graphics

The overall visual is surprisingly outstanding for the 9th gen system like the PS5 console makes the use of the ray-tracing technologies.

This will allow the system fully rendering the multiples of real-time techniques such as ray casting, photon mapping, and also capable of simulating a variety of optical effects such as reflection, refraction, soft shadows, and other types of effects are really designed to create the photo-realistic design for 9th gen consoles.

In this game, the environmental design of some buildings like Castle Dimitrescu which shares the great use of sharp and bold textures mapping on the walls, objects, and structures that are sometime shiny and smooth or others can be hard and solid just seems to be very well detailed. 

Stuff like you have the shiny floors, wavey puddle of water, smooth looking dinning tables, and those objects like wine glass and bottles are the prime examples of using the ray-tracing technologies that adds up the realism of game's design.

The lighting and shadow effects are quite spot-on where you see bunch of the light candles and chandeliers in some rooms just made it quite brighter where as you can see the dark shadows in corridors that are being reflected by surrounding like windows and objects just makes the good balance of the overall brightness and contrast level.

The character's animation is looking quite top-notch using the quality motion capturing system that made not just only the digitized movement and motions that delivers the great level of body and facial figuring technology, but the details that's been added on the characters are very much more of like a real people is just rather looking impressive throughout the cinematic sequences and real-time in-game playthrough. 

The frame-rate on each consoles has different advantages depending on which platform you're playing on, so for the PS5 and XSX/S both of them has two options like performance mode or ray-tracing mode.

The performance mode runs fully on 60fps delivering a smoother gameplay, where as the ray-tracing mode are mainly focused on full graphical power giving a console a full advantage of rendering a visual techniques.

To be quite honest, the performance mode is actually did a good job on both consoles with no slow-downs whatsoever but the visual quality level may not look as crisp, where as the ray-tracing mode are also did good too with the graphical level term but I also heard it ran mostly better on XSX/S (X model) takes the advantage of being able to run on between 55 and 60 fps, where as the PS5 just ran on between 50 and 60 fps, so to be fair it doesn't seem to really affecting on your experience which you may likely to enjoy the game in both ways.

I also wanted to point out that some say the S model of Xbox Series are looking quite bad in comparison with the X model are way better for the frame-rate and graphical level, so it's better off playing on the X model of Xbox Series instead.                    

Overall, it has outstanding environmental design, amazing character's animation, and stable frame-rate performance. 

 

Music and Sounds

The original soundtrack in the game is stunningly fantastic for most of the part. There are several of the soundtrack that are pretty strange but also quite an interesting choice for this type of horror game like "Village of Shadows" and "The Duke" are kinda gives me sort of Danny Elfman vibes to it, where as the others like "Promensons-nous dans les bois", "A Bad Feeling", and "Crisis" just sounded like it's belongs to other horror games that sounded quite similar like Konami's Silent Hill and Red Barrel's Outlast which really fits well on some chase sequences and in-game action.

It was composed by Shusaku Uchiyama and Nao Sato did a fabulous job of capturing a daunting level of scares throughout the game.

The use of sound effects did a splendid job on ambient sounds and background noises just makes the use of 3D audio technologies which allowing the player being able to hear the surrounding stuffs like the footsteps, dropped objects, and of course the sounds of the screaming and laughing voices coming from the other rooms just adds up the unsettling level which proves the overall sound design is indeed very good for the 9th gen standards. 

The voice cast did a excellent job on their character's portrayal especially Maggie Robertson's performance on Lady Dimitrescu are sounds really amazing in the game. 

Overall, it has fantastic soundtrack, very good sound design, and excellent voice performance.

Special Features

The gold edition includes Shadows of Rose DLC story, the mercenaries additional orders which includes more new playable characters, 3rd-person perspective mode, and of course online-only game such as RE: Re:Verse.  

You can also get the VR mode off from PS Store as free DLCs are recommended to those who had PSVR 2 headset may going to experience the single-player campaign using the VR headset.

Overall, an absolute solid content for gold edition and including the free DLCs VR mode.

Advantages

 

Incredible story presentation and settings 

Terrifying villains and creatures

Challenging mix of combat and survival 

Great puzzle-solving  and enjoyable boss battles

Fantastic soundtrack and sound design

Disadvantages

Unlikable main protagonist

Chris's mission in story campaign are too short 

Final Verdict

Presentation 8.5/10 - brilliant story, incredible presentation settings, and terrifying villains and creatures.

Gameplay 8.5/10 - responsive controls, challenging mix of combat and survival, great puzzle-solving, and enjoyable boss battles.

Graphics 10/10 - outstanding environmental design, amazing character's animation, and stable frame-rate performance.

Music and Sounds 9/10 - fantastic soundtrack, very good sound design, and excellent voice performance.

Special Features 9/10 - Gold Edition includes Shadows of Rose DLC story, the mercenaries additional orders which includes more new playable characters, 3rd-person perspective mode, and online-only game such as RE: Re:Verse.

The free DLCs VR mode are also welcome too.

Overall 8.5/10 - As much I've loved the RE 7: Biohazard back then, the RE Village is another great entry that does the series a justice thanks to story campaign, presentation settings, gameplay design, and of course the overall scare factor just got the whole game right that the fans of the series are likely to enjoy another RE entry. 

I am very glad that Capcom has started to improve the franchise since the early 2010s where games like RE 6 and other stuff are going full-on action-oriented which doesn't seem to satisfy many the horror fans who never really liked how the series went onto different direction doesn't seems to work well, so Capcom had decided to make the U-turn by going back to the main horror roots that is what made the franchise quite success back in the 90's era which is why we had RE 7 and this game is the huge step-forward for the franchise.

That being said, RE Village is a very good horror title for 9th gen system which is definite recommendation to buy it especially the Gold Edition in which you can get it physically on PS5, PS4, XSX/S, and XBONE for between £20 to £30 so be sure to get it in brand new condition because you really need the DLCs code voucher for Gold Edition to unlock it all, and you can get it digitally on PCs and Consoles just for between £40 to £45. 

For those who owns the Switch console are likely to play it on cloud services using the eShop's launcher application, but sadly I also heard it's quite poorly optimised due to it's running on the cloud services requires heavy use of internet connectivity makes the game ran very buggy, so it's best not to play it on the Switch and stick it to the other platforms like the Playstation, Xbox, and PCs are better ways to play and enjoy the game.  

So hopefully, I will look forward to get Resident Evil 4 Remake in sometime future.

  

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Finally got my PS5 (Breaking News)

 

Yes everyone, I just finally got a PS5 slim off from retail store such as Argos thanks to yesterday's sales deal cutting down prices from £480 to £420.

In case you've been wondering about what really took me so long to get a new system in my home after 3 years since the console launch release, so let's get started with my PS5 journey.   

First of all, I remember at the time when the horrible pandemics had already happened back in 2020, and after the system had launched in winter holiday I've began to notice the console shortages drama had happened when companies like SONY had shipped a small numbers of units which is not quite a lot on online retail store are the reason why it had sold out pretty quickly, and for those who wanted to get a hands on with the original PS5 console which unfortunately it filled with so many scalpers especially on online stores like Ebay or Amazon goes up to higher than the original price which led many consumers with disappointment when they cannot afford it with their budget.

It took about 2 years after the system launch release to restock more units, so that many consumers wouldn't had to go through with the console shortages and scalpers drama bullshit.

I wasn't really entirely being ready to get a original PS5 console because the system is quite big and bulky which is really going to be a real pain in the ass to fit on my TV cabinet, so thankfully around a year later when SONY had launched the slim version at the winter 2023 had shrink the console a bit little, so they'll be a chance for me to get a slim PS5 console in near future.

In around this year when the PS5 Slim had gone on sales deal at limited time in some retail stores like Amazon, Very, HMV, GAME Retail, and Argos, so I had to rush to get one off from Argos before the sales deal lasts which I am happy to say that I finally got my PS5 slim making it my very first 9th gen console to own.

I had the reason to have a PS5 Slim is because not only just the size of the console is quite compact and easy to fit in my TV cabinet, but also this system has 1TB SSD internally which is kinda sounds a bit tad too short but also 200GB bigger than the original PS5 console which has 800GB SSD...well you could say it's better than having a low storage capacity, so you could also have an options to add SSD M.2 slot inside the system up to 8TB size or use external SSD or HDD devices plugged with the USB connector to free up the space for games that you have installed.

Most of the PS5 consoles are also has the ability to play most of the PS4 games both physically and digitally as backward compatibility which is a great for those who really like to revisit their favourite past PS4 games.

Lastly I'm looking forward to collect many PS5 games that I really want to look forward to play such as mostly both the 1st and 3rd-party titles available on this system, as well as the upcoming titles that I don't want to miss out which I had the reason to own my PS5 slim.

      

I will consider making my future blogpost to cover further more details about owning the system as part of my "5 reasons" series pretty soon, as well as my very first PS5 games review which I'm hopefully to get that covered pretty soon, so stay tuned gamers.         

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Sonic Frontiers PS4 Review

 

Sonic Frontiers is an Action-Adventure Platformer was released in 2022 for PS5, PS4, XBONE, XSX/S, Switch, and PC. It was developed by Sonic Team and published by SEGA.

We all know Sonic the Hedgehog is one of the SEGA's biggest flagship franchise started back in the early 90's when SEGA had bought their killer software title for SEGA Genesis/MD at worldwide to introduce their blue hedgehog hero as part of the SEGA's own video game mascot. 

The first original Sonic the Hedgehog game was commercially successful and had gained universal praise for its fast-paced platforming gameplay, colourful detailed visuals, and had recognisable original soundtrack is what made the game quite success at worldwide which sold 2 million unit by the end of the year 1991 becoming SEGA's best-selling title that helped their console's sales market.

The success of the first original had spawned with numerous of merchandise, animated OVAs, TV series, feature films, and of course various of sequels and spin-offs games which proves that SEGA's own franchise had became so popular for over the decades building up many fanbases, communities, and of course the younger audiences got their hands-on with their favourite blue hedgehog hero, which many labelled Sonic the Hedgehog as an iconic video game mascot that deserves a similar recognition as their rivalry such as Nintendo's own plumber hero such as Super Mario.

Sonic main series are doing a fine job with the later classic 16-bit titles like Sonic CD, 2, and 3 & Knuckles, as well as the 3D platforming titles for Dreamcast such as Sonic Adventure 1 and 2 are the final last two titles that are so good on the system just before SEGA had ended the system's lifecycle in early 2000s to focus on the software titles for multi-platform instead. 

Sadly the later titles like Sonic Heroes, Sonic 06, and Sonic Unleashed are pure hot garbage that didn't do SEGA's justice with horrendous gameplay design, clunky controls, and out of date visuals that adds-up the huge injuries to SEGA's own branding, until it went better with Sonic Colors and Sonic Unleashed as this time when SEGA just finally got their game right, then it went down again with Sonic Lost World, Sonic Boom, and Sonic Forces are just as bad as the other threes titles that I've mentioned above.

Sonic Team are not quite as they used to be back then since the 90's when we had really great Sonic titles mostly from Genesis/MD and Dreamcast days, as opposed to later ones that aren't as good which adds-up really concerning about the future of the Blue Hedgehog franchise which has quite some ups and downs. 

They are quite lucky with some decent spin-offs titles like SEGA All-Star series and Mario and Sonic at Olympics Games, having Sonic makes his appearance as playable roster for Nintendo's Super Smash Bros Brawl and Ultimate, and of course the two of the 2020s live-action films like Sonic the Hedgehog 1 & 2 and 2022's animated TV series like Sonic Prime had received generally praised proving that SEGA had done better job on spin-offs titles and other medias then the main series itself which seems to be quite shocking that the SEGA couldn't do well on main stuff, but doing better on others.

Sonic Team had decided to create a new title of the main series that are quite different from any of traditional 3D platformer, so they bought Sonic Frontiers to the modern platforms in the year of 2022.

Instead of being stucked on the traditional 3D platformers like the previous Sonic games, it's more of the mix of 3D platformers and open-world adventures being combined together which I think the ideas from Sonic Team had gone into a different approach that delivers a entirely new Sonic experience.

You just simply start roaming around the areas to explore, completing numerous puzzle mini-games and side-story, and of course an adventurous single-player campaign with wacky main levels and cool boss battles is what gains me an attention to give this game a worth of try. 

The question is could it be a good Sonic game again? which is why I am here to review this title in regards of how are these presentation, gameplay, and visuals really helped the new 3D Sonic title in terms of quality overall.

So without go further do, let's start the review.

Presentation

The game starts out with when the all-time villain Dr. Robotnik travels to the unknown place called Starfall Islands to steal the technological secrets created by Ancients, a creatures related to Chaos.

Then he has his A.I unit named Sage which he began to upload her into the portal causing to summoned several of robotic defence unit, which led Sage ceases hijacking the portal and initiates a protection protocol causing Dr. Robotnik getting dragged into an artificial dimension called Cyber Space.      

Meanwhile, Sonic and his friends went to their flight trip at the islands to search for the Chaos Emeralds, until their plane is sucked into a wormhole to Cyber Space which separates Sonic and his friends.

Luckily Sonic had managed to escape to the islands in the real world, and he then discovers the disembodied voice gives him a tasks with findings the emeralds and destroying the robotic titans to remove the boundary between the real and digital worlds believing this will bring his friends back to normal.

The story in the game is somewhat pretty decent in my opinion. You do have a good opening scene which involves your friends got stucked into a different dimension known as Cyber Space, where as you as a blue hedgehog hero had managed to escape to the real world and being given a task to gather all the emeralds and defeating all titans are the only way to bring your friends back to the reality, while you had a villain Dr. Robotnik who are also got stucked in the Cyber Space aiding with Sage, an mysterious A.I girl who had been given an orders from crazy scientist to keep the track on Sonic and finding the way to escape from the dimension that he don't belong in, which makes these plot seems to be quite straightforward to follow.

Then you have several of memorable characters featured in the game such as Sonic the Hedgehog which we all know he's one of the greatest hero in the whole franchise without giving much explanation because...what do you know it's f***ing Sonic everyone, so we all loved him as our favourite childhood mascot.

Then you have three supporting characters like Miles Tails Prowler, Knuckles the Echidna, and of course Amy Rose which are also just as likable in Sonic franchise.

I also liked the Dr. Robotnik as a series long-running villain who are well you know, up to no good as always in entire Sonic games.

What I liked about him is that he seem to like being as the Sage's father-figure which proves that he created her as an A.I unit, so it's builds-up sort of a father and daughter relationship which is pretty charming to have connection between them that keeps the story worth watchable.

The presentation in this game is looking remarkable for its open-world environments because I would consider each of these islands is well-designed with constructive areas and landmark settings. 

Stuff like Kronos Island filled with ancient ruins, graveyard, giant waterfall, and fields and Forrest areas across mountainous terrain.

Ares Island is a desert land filled with rocky ground and high plateauing outcroppings, palm-trees and patchy grass, temples, and cave.

Chaos Island is a rocky land filled with lava, volcano, grey skies, dead trees and moss.

Lastly Ouranos Island has a similar features to first one, but has larger open-wide areas.

I really liked how are these island are being well structured with great landscapes, study mountains and hills, atmospheric backgrounds, and man-made pre-historic themes with ancient tech stuff going on which feels very unique for Sonic titles like this.

I also liked the Cyber-Space stages which feels like it's an reminiscence to early classic Sonic games that you may recognise some of the familiar looking levels like one of them are straight-up Green Hill Zone, and others are kinda like from Chemical Plant Zone which is why it made Sonic games well remembered throughout the years.  

Overall, it has decent storyplot, memorable cast of characters, and incredible presentation settings.

Gameplay

In single-player campaign, you take control of Sonic in 3rd-person perspective of open-world environment, as your main goal is to complete all the tasks in whole Islands such as various of main stages, puzzle challenge, side-missions, collecting chaos emeralds, and defeating all titans. 

Pushing the left stick which moves Sonic around the surrounding areas, where as the right stick are used as camera movement.

Pressing the cross button which makes Sonic jump, then double tap again for double jump to reach the higher platforms.

While in the air, hit the square button to use as homing jump attack on enemies or used for platforming on bouncy objects when the targeting symbol automatically appears on screen.

Tapping the square button which acts as melee attacking on enemies dealing with damages.

Holding the triangle button then push the left stick around to make a cyloop around which used as stunning or damaging the enemies, as well as activating the objects for puzzle elements.  

Holding the right trigger then push the left stick forward which makes Sonic run faster, so it traverse through the areas much quicker.  

Tapping the left or right shoulder button uses as dashing moves which allow Sonic to dodge enemy's projectiles or shift onto other rails.

After learning how to control Sonic, you'll be exploring around the areas in which you can able to access the map screen by simply pressing the touchpad button, so it will display the whole map of areas with bunch of icons that represents stuff, such as portals, key items, puzzles, emeralds, and etc.

So that you can able to navigate these by highlighting with the place marker which allowing you to traverse through the area till you've reached the destination.   

You really need to find a cog items which can be found in various areas or specific guardian enemy, so that you can use them to gain access to the Cyber-Space stages by activating the Cyber-Space man-made portal with the cog items. 

In order to get your friends back in action you must collect all the chaos emeralds which each of them can be unlocked by numerous of required key vaults to collect, in order to collect key vaults you must complete all Cyber-Space stages in each island to gain enough key vaults, so that you can able to obtain these emeralds which is required to fight against these 3 titans.   

Sonic are also requires to upgrade his skill levels such as his speed and rings requires many kocos to collect, as well as the bunch of red and blue seeds for his defence and attack system. Once you have collected all skill items then you will need to meet with the two elder kocos that they can able to increase your skill level which improves upon with your speed to boost even faster, ring to expand your health points, defence to reduce your health damage, and of course the attack to make your melee feel stronger to hit enemies with heavy amount of damage hit.   

You can also learn a new moves and techniques from the skill tree option by gaining enough skill points which can be done by defeating various of enemies, destroying objects, drawing a circle with cyloop, and completing the fish mini-game, but I highly recommend to unlock Air Trick which allowing Sonic to perform an stylish air stunts while in the air may reward you with so many skill points.

You can spend these skill points on stuff that you want to unlock various of new moves and techniques such as phantom rush when the combo meter is maxed out allowing Sonic to perform more powerful combo attacks, Sonic Boom is a high-speed kick that unleashes shockwaves that pummels the enemy, Wild Rush uses the zig-zagging attack, Stomp Attack that swoops down from above on to the enemy, Homing Shot launch a volley of energy spheres at the enemy, and various of the moves and techniques that really adds-up Sonic's fighting strengths. 

So far, I've managed to enjoy the main single-player campaign in the game because I really liked exploring around the island where I can able to spend time grinding many skill points, collecting red and blue seeds as well as kocos improving Sonic's attributes, learning new moves and techniques, and of course completing various of challenges such as puzzle mini-games that unlocks the new map display, collecting numerous of vault keys items that leads you to unlock chaos emeralds, meeting with the friends in side-missions, and of course defeating various of enemy's guardians will reward you with cog items which requires to unlock the Cyber-Space stages through portal is what really keeps me playing the game most of the time.

There's one of the problem that I encountered in the exploration is the mostly camera system that keeps switching places, so basically when you reached onto the platforming structures the camera system just purposely locks-on and turns into fixed angle which unfortunately I finding it quite distracting because if I wanted to start exploring around the areas by running though the terrains then the camera system shouldn't had to locked on to fixed angle, so I really understand it's useful for platforming segments but it's completely unnecessary for the exploration.   

I've managed to enjoy numerous of Cyber-Space stages which is similar to previous 3D Sonic games, so stuff like you have several of stages that gives us a throwback to earlier Sonic games, so for the platforming action I really liked the overall design because each of the stages has multiple short-cuts, has cool stunt objects like riding on the rails and jumping on popping balloons, and has so many hazardous stuff like spikey obstacles and enemies that flies around the level.

I got to say the titan boss battles are actually pretty fun to play because it had sort of trials and errors tactics where you had to find a specific weak spot which can be done by the parrying system, which means that you really need to use parry when one of your boss attempts to hit you, so you really need to make a perfect timing in order to evade the boss's melee projectiles then once you successfully performing the parry in time then the boss's weak spot may appear. 

This works pretty well in the game once you get used with the boss battles, so the more you practice the better you can able to play perfectly.    

The cool thing about the game is that it includes some unlockable stuffs like new game plus which carries the stuff that you've collected from the main campaign adding a nice replay values, and it does comes with battle rush which is basically a challenge mode where you had to defeat various of enemies alongside with their mini-bosses and main-bosses while racing against the time in order to get a high rank and then you have an arcade mode that let's you manually select stages from the core game are also a great extra bonus to this game.       

My least favourite part in the game is mostly the "Final Horizon" which is another story campaign that offers free downloadable for the game, introducing an alternative story ending, additional playable characters, along with new story elements, bosses, level designs and Cyber-Space challenges.

I don't really mind having the additional playable characters but sadly they're being locked in one Island instead of all 4s like the previous main campaign and it was bit let down for not having include them for Cyber-Space stages which is kinda shame because that would have made the game quite fun to play if they add them in the stages. The Cyber-Space does have some fair stages with different challenges like racing with hologram Tails and bomb-ticking stuff which is fine, but I'm never been a fan of other stuff like collecting flickies, speed boosting challenge, and moon gravity stage which is quite a time-wasting to play, so I rather stick with the main campaign's Cyber-Space stages instead which is way better in my opinion.

There are some stuff that I want to point out some criticism such as Master King Koco's boss trial where you had to beat all 3 bosses in time limit which unfortunately it wasn't as fun because of the annoying time limit are rather too short making it impossible to beat all 3 which took me about 5 tries to beat it. 

I got to say the one major flaw that I did not enjoy the most is the last final boss because I really don't like how these bunch of trees kept blocking my view during the battle, and I find these weak spot system is rather clunky compared with the previous ones in main campaign that I don't have an issue with, so this final boss fight is rather poorly balanced which makes it everything quite tedious to play.     

That being said, just stick it to the main story campaign which are way more enjoyable and better to play than the another story campaign that are quite disappointing, so don't get me wrong because it's just part of my opinion.

 

Overall, it has fine combat system and exploration, great platforming stages, and epic 3 titans boss battles.

    

    

Graphics

The graphics in this game is actually looking good on both the previous and current gen system. I say the open-world environment has a quite big landscape from draw-distance, the texture details on the grounds and wall surfaces are just as fine and smooth at outside, the water animation is bold and sharp at the ocean side, it has the lighting and shadow effects on some of the areas, and the character's design is looking quite great in the game.

I also liked the environmental design in the game such as having a large ancient ruins, has plenty of man-made sculptures, bigger mountains and hills, and has various of the objects and landmark stuff going on in the game.

The Cyber-Space stage are also looked pretty decent with good platforming design and fair sized-level is just looking right for recent 3D Sonic games, so you have a detailed environments on the background, and has colourful and wide looking foreground is just looking great so far. 

There are few things that I should point out is the skies that are stays on the static image instead of using real-time dynamic movement which is why the skies or clouds never moves during the in-game exploration, but to be fair on this game it does actually have a real-time day/night cycle system depending on how long the daylight cycle will last till it automatically changes to night time which is fine.

I got to mention the important thing in the game is basically the weird pop-ins objects on the platforms, so when you're standing on the higher platforms or you explore around the ground area you don't actually see many of platforms appearing in mid-range distance unless you had to move forward a bit till the platforming objects starts pops-in on the screen in 2 seconds which is kinda strange to see Sonic games like this are not nearly polished as the other action-adventure games which offers a better range of graphical details with clean structures and has no pop-ins delays whatsoever.  

The overall performance on any of these platform has some advantages of frame speed and screen resolution such as the PS5 and XSX/S has two performance options, so you have 4K mode which makes the game plays on 4K display for the cleaner images but it capped on 30fps, where as the 60fps mode which capped to 1800p but delivers a much faster-rate really fits better for speedy paced gameplay.

The 8th gen version are also look just as good with the PS4 Pro and XBONE (X model) system runs on 1080p, but capped on 30fps which is slightly bit less compared with the 9th gen consoles but still plays absolutely fine, where as the launch base model PS4 and XBONE has the same frame-speed as the later model version but the base PS4 version ran on 1080p resolution as opposed to XBONE ran on 900p, in which the base PS4 is slightly better for the resolution than the base XBONE but still they are both just as playable.

The Switch version runs on 720p docked and 480p handheld which I heard that it may not looked as good in terms of graphical design and frame speed are way better on the Playstation and Xbox counterpart that the Switch version had lacked, but overall it's still remains playable I suppose.

Overall, it has big open-world environments, good platforming design, and has fair performance for 8th gen console which makes the 9th gen console a clear winner overall.

Music and Sounds

The soundtrack are pretty solid in many ways, so you have several of amazing orchestrated music in open-world exploration as well as some of the story cutscenes just really fits the action-adventure personalities, where as in the Cyber-Space stages has some catchy electronic music just fits right for the platforming action.  

The best part of the soundtrack has to go for 3 of these titans boss themes which delivers awesome Metalcore songs such as "Undefeatable" and "Break Through It All" which sang by Kellin Quinn of Sleeping with Sirens, while you had Tyler Smyth of Dangerkids (who has previously sang one of the song such as "Infinite" from Sonic Forces) also provided his vocals for the song such as "Find Your Flame" just amps up the game's excitement.

The sound effect in this game offers really solid overall sound design filled with whooshing noises, collisions, and some ambient sounds in some areas just worked really well in the game entirely. 

The voice casting in the game is quite acceptable especially with Sonic and his friends are still remain sounded as same like from the previous game, so no complaints whatsoever. 

Overall, it has good soundtrack, decent sound design, and acceptable voice over.

Special Features

I did mentioned the "Final Horizon" campaign before which comes as free downloadable update to this game, but as I said earlier I never actually liked it.

The good thing about the game is that I also did mentioned earlier about the unlockable modes like new game plus, arcade mode, and battle rush are nice bonus to this game.

The physical PS4 copy comes with free upgradable PS5 version which is a fantastic edition for those who had a physical PS4 version will get to enjoy a free PS5 version for future play. 

Overall, it's okay features, but not perfect.

Advantages

Decent storyplot 

Memorable cast of characters

Incredible presentation settings

Fine combat system and exploration

Epic 3 titans boss battles 

Nice visuals 

Good soundtrack

Disadvantages

Annoying camera system switching

Weird platforming pop-ups

Final Horizon campaign nowhere good as the main game itself 

Final Verdict

Presentation 8/10 - decent storyplot, memorable cast of characters, and incredible presentation settings.

Gameplay 7/10 - fine combat system and exploration, great platforming stages, and epic 3 titans boss battles.

Graphics 7.5/10 - big open-world environments, good platforming design, and has fair performance for 8th gen console which makes the 9th gen console a clear winner overall.

Music and Sounds 8/10 - good soundtrack, decent sound design, and acceptable voice over.

Special Features 6.5/10 - crappy another story campaign (Final Horizon), but has cool unlockable game modes.

Overall 7/10 - Sonic Frontiers is yet a better than I've expected despite few flaws. Unlike some of the previous 3D Sonic games on 8th gen era that are nowhere near fun to play, this game could be an improvement for its main story campaign which provided a really good storyline and has the likable characters being featured in the game is what makes Sonic franchise quite interesting to play for its story development.

Having a Sonic title shifted to the open-world adventure is stepping in the right direction which I really had a ton of blast to speed through the Islands by running around the areas to discover, does a wicked stunts in mid-air, collecting chaos emeralds, upgrading Sonic's skills, solving puzzle mini-games, completing several of action stages, and of course fighting with the 3 titans just makes the Sonic's speedy adventure a positive experience.

Yes I know the "Final Horizon" campaign is not that great which is why I liked the main story campaign even more is all to do a overall balance and fun factor aspect is what really matters the most. 

Is it worth playing? the answer is mainly for Sonic's fanatics because it's nowhere near the same level with other action-adventure titles like the recent Nintendo's Legend of Zelda and Marvel's Spider-Man in terms of exploration, combat, missions, and quality which are so much advanced and better overall, but don't get me wrong because this game is still quite decent to play which is perfect for young players will likely to enjoy this type of Sonic games are great for beginners.

The price for physical copy for console platforms goes between £20 and £30 which seems to be acceptable purchase, where as the digital releases for both PCs and Consoles (via PS Store, Xbox Store, eShop, and Steam) cost about £50 are slightly expensive which it's better off getting the physical copy instead.   

      

I am hoping the Sonic Team will eventually gonna make another 3D Sonic games with better gameplay system and overall game's design in the near future, maybe just maybe they will able to succeed it someday...never know.  

That's being said Sonic Frontier is still good enough to play which I didn't regret purchasing this title, so this will going to impress you if you really love the Blue Hedgehog franchise like myself...just give this game a worth of try that will likely make you change the mind and see if you really enjoying it.

   

     

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5 Christmas Wishlist of 2023

 

Have you ever been wondering about what's all these decorations and all other stuff going on that keeps happening on every winter season year? well as you can see, these people are celebrating the holiday season that involves setting up the lights, bobbles and tinsels hanging on the trees, building up bunch of snowmens in every street homes, making roast dinners for families and friends get together, watching favourites family's winter films, singing jingle bells all the way, and of course Santa giving away all the gifts to kids while flying on the sleigh with the Rudolfs.  

So what do you know guys it's f***ing Christmas because it's one of the biggest and most common holiday celebration in every winter years.

I had done listing my 5 most wanted Christmas stuff that I'm considering to get it on the day of Christmas or maybe it's week before the Christmas depending on how my planning went.

Okay, enough talking for now because we should be enjoying the Christmas holiday for now and without go further do here is my 5 Christmas Wishlist of 2023.

1 - Sonic Frontiers (PS4)    

After struggling to find a decent Sonic titles over the years since my childhood starting from classic 16-bit platformers to modern 3D platformers.

Stuff like Sonic 1,2, 3, and Sonic & Knuckles are the prime definition of being a best 16-bit platformers that helped the hardware sales of the SEGA's 16-bit machine, and in years later SEGA had transitioned a Sonic titles into a 3D platforming action such as Sonic Adventures 1 and 2 which is heavily regarded as one of the greatest 3D platformer of the franchise, where as the games like Sonic Heroes, Sonic 06, and Sonic Unleashed are among being the worst libraries of the series that hurts the SEGA's beloved franchises.

It made a great comeback with the later games like Sonic Colors and Generations that got the game just right where it should be, then it became so bad again with the Sonic Boom and Sonic Forces, and then gone great again with the Sonic Mania.

SEGA's Sonic the Hedgehog franchise had a shares with flaws when SEGA's development teams hasn't had learned their lesson from the past which is why it couldn't able to beat their rivalry with Nintendo's most successful franchises such as Super Mario is the major examples of how to make a biggest quality platforming titles that attracted the attention of young audiences can able to pick-up and play it on their system, which SEGA couldn't do any better with their blue hedgehog franchise is due to polarising reception of some titles from the media critics and gaming fans which made them turned away from the flagship franchise that helped the company since the era of early 90's gaming.

SEGA then trying to win their trust back to their fans which they had bought a yet better again with Sonic Frontiers which many gaming critics had labelled it as an improvement over the previous installiment which seems to be a good news for the Sonic fans can able to give those a blue hedgehog title a second chance, so this is what SEGA could have done better with the previous titles from the past. 

As I am looking forward to play a Sonic's new installiment, this game is somewhat quite different from any of traditional 3D action-platformer with large open-world environments to explore, has multiple challenges, fight robotic enemies, gaining new abilities, and many single-player campaign levels, so this feels more like if SEGA had given us a new Sonic Adventure sequel which is why I am interested in playing Sonic games that doing something different rather than repeating a same old traditional 3D action-platformer from the previous titles.

2 - Virtua Cop: Elite Edition (PS2)

Being a fan of the light-gun shooter genre which is quite common back in mid-80s and early-90s. Stuff like the Nintendo's classics like Duck Hunt and Hogan's Alley are the major examples of introducing the players with the light-gun controller that allow players to point and shoot things at the screen, which had became quite popular in Arcades and NES releases in 1985. 

Then Taito did a same with the Operation Wolf which popularised the military-themed light gun shooters at late-80s, and pushing forward with the early-90s titles like Midway's arcade hit Terminator 2: Judgment Day and Konami's Lethal Enforcers uses the digitised sprite visuals that are looking quite realistic at the time.

There's one of the SEGA's franchise that caught my attention which is Virtua Cop, the very first light-gun shooter title that make use of the real-time 3D polygons in shooter game genres. 

It was a huge success in 1994 on both the Arcade and Saturn releases which received acclaimed praise for its innovation such as 3D graphics, camera system, realistic animations, and ability to target specific body parts.

The success of the SEGA's 3D light-gun shooter title had influenced on later shooter games with 3D polygons being adopted by subsequent light gun shooters such as Namco's Time Crisis and SEGA's The House of the Dead.     

It had follow-up title such as SEGA's Virtua Cop 2 which was released in 1995, a year after the first original, which also received similar praise hailed the game as a improvement over the original game due to its more interactive environments and higher intensity in the chase sequences making it feel more of the big budget action movie.

Both of these Saturn's classics light-gun shooters are also received a fully remastered releases for PS2 titled as Virtua Cop: Elite Edition which featured an enhanced visuals, gallery extras, and implementation of Namco's G-Con 2 light-gun support. 

It's does sounds like a perfect titles for those who previously loves Virtua Cop 1 & 2 on Arcade or Saturn should consider checking these out for PS2.

 

3 - Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg (Gamecube)

       

    

I really love the 3D action-platforming game in general which I grew up playing the classics from the mid-90s such as Nintendo's Super Mario 64, Rareware's Banjo-Kazooie, and SEGA's Sonic Adventure are the major examples of how to create the best 3D platforming title which fully defines not only it changes the whole gaming industries, but also our childhood that made me loved the video games as my all-time favourite hobbies.

I also being grateful with some of the 3D platformers like Rareware's Conker's Bad Fur Day and Ubisoft's Rayman 2: The Great Escape, as well as the later ones in modern day era such as Activision's own remastered titles like Crash Bandicoot N.Sane Trilogy and Spyro Reignited Trilogy which is why I really loved playing the 3D title with real-time 3D environments, open-spaces levels with full exploration and goals, and platforming filled with puzzles and obstacles that keeps me playing all day night and long.

There's one of the game that caught my interest which is SEGA's own obscure title that some of you may or never heard of this before such as Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg which was released exclusively on Gamecube in 2003.

what made the game quite interesting is that the game was created by a same team behind the success of SEGA's flagship series such as Sonic the Hedgehog.        

It is a 3D platform game which involve rolling throughout the levels with the gigantic egg which allows the player to perform several of cool techniques with the egg, such as egg dunking, slamming, dashing, and shooting which adds the uniqueness of platforming gameplay style that are quite different from any of the traditional 3D platformers.

This is the kind of the 3D platforming game that I'd like to play that are doing something new which is why I really wanted to play this on Gamecube, so despite the game's poor commercial sales and had received an average reception from gaming media which didn't really stop me from picking this game up because I also heard plenty a good things from those who previously liked this 3D platforming title, so it's quite a shame that it never got any of sequel and remastered, and of course it still being remained stuck on one console platform which makes Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg as one of the SEGA's most forgotten gem in years.    

4 - Wolfchild (SNES)

           

Speaking of hidden gems related-stuff, I love spending my time to collect many games libraries to add it to my gaming collection, but when it's comes with the hidden gem titles that are sorely being long forgotten or is it a failed to notice that are being completely ignored by the public's eyes which is why we had an internet that allow us to discover and browse the games that are not being well remembered or is it met with the poor overall sales.

Sometime these forgotten games can also be labelled as an cult-following by the fans communities or maybe these games are actually plays pretty good that are worth owning to our collection. 

I was considering to get a copy of a obscure SNES action-platformer called Wolfchild, a 1992's title was originally released for Amiga, Atari ST, SEGA Mega CD, Genesis/MD, GG, SMS, and of course SNES was developed by Core Design, a development team behind the commercially successful series such as Tomb Raider. 

After watching the YouTube gaming channel such as Console Wars who recently made the video comparison between the SNES and Genesis/MD to see which are the best version of Wolfchild to pick up and play, so it's easy to say that I might be interested in to pick an SNES version in terms of gameplay and graphics quality.       

Even though it never been released outside of the U.S which likely the U.S imports will not work on PAL format consoles, but I also had a SNES converter adapter that allowing the imports games being played on any region consoles makes it easier to bypass the SNES's restrictive region-lock system.  

5 - Contra 4 (DS) 

  

Contra is one of the Konami's well recognisable series that defines the Run n Gun genres back in the mid-80s.

Stuff like we had Contra and Super C on NES which many of gaming press had labelled them as being one of the best arcade to console conversion for 8-bit platform, where as the later titles like Contra III: The Alien Wars on SNES and Contra: Hard Corps on Genesis/MD really showcasing the 16-bit hardware with greater level of parallax scrolling details and aggressive use of visual effects are surprisingly looking impressive for the 16-bit standards, while sharing with the solid gameplay action filled with over-the-top action-platforming levels, unique weapons power-ups, and of course frantic boss stages is what made Contra so special back then.

There's one of the game for DS that caught my attention which was came out at the year of 2007-08 in the U.S and Japan lacking the UK/EU releases, so that is Contra 4 developed by WayForward Technologies, a same development team behind their well-known indie series such as Mighty Switch Force and Shantae.

The game serves as a direct sequel to SNES's 1992 title as Contra III: The Alien Wars to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the franchise.

What made the Contra 4 so great is that it made the return to the form for the franchise since the previous entries such as Contra: Legacy of War and C: The Contra Adventure for the PS1 are completely flopped that destroys the franchise's legacy, where as the Contra: Shattered Soldier for the PS2 made an improvement over the previous twos.          

Contra 4 is one of the game that Konami should have been sticking to the traditional 2D scrolling shooter, instead of wasting their time on crappy 3D style top-down shooter like the two PS1's titles that I've mentioned above. 

The good news is that most of the DS games are fully region free which means that it can be played on any of the region DS system without any restriction, so there's the chance that I will able to play it on my Nintendo's dual-screen system someday. 

Honourable mention:

Virtua Fighter 4: Evolution (PS2)

Rygar: The Legendary Adventure (PS2)

Raiden 3 X Mikado (PS4)

Super Fantasy Zone (Genesis/MD)

Metal Gear Solid: Twin Snakes (Gamecube)

Bomberman Generation (Gamecube)

Maken X (Dreamcast)

New Super Mario Bros 2 (3DS)

The Lion King (SNES)

Super Smash Bros (N64)

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This is Zeeshan Mirza's Blog and I'll see you next time, happy blogging and have a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you all.      

Top 5 16-bit Shoot-em-ups Games

 

The genre that I mostly like spend time playing it on the 16-bit platform like on the SNES, Genesis/MD, and of course TG16/PCE (I own PCE CG Mini) that shares many great libraries of shooters which is we all know it as the term called Shoot-em-ups (A.K.A Shumps). 

The shoot-em-ups came with the 2 different categories of 2D sub-genres like the side-scrolling horizontal shooter and top-down perspective vertical shooter which is commonly being well known back in the late 80's and early 90's for its unique power-ups that allow players to shoot multiples of firing weapons, dodging many of enemy's projectiles been scattered around the screen making it very difficult to evade stuff, and battling with the bosses which requires the strategic ways of defeating them such as finding their weak spot and memorising their attacking patterns is what made the genre so amazing back then.

Today I decided to pick my 5 favourite titles that I mostly enjoyed playing it on the 16-bit platforms to give it reason why I liked the game that are so ground-breaking for the 16-bit perspectives.

So without go further do, here is my top 5 16-bit Shoot-em-ups games.  

5 - Blazing Lazers (TG16/PCE) 

Blazing Lazers is a vertical scrolling shooter game was released in 1989 for TG16/PCE which was developed by Compile, a same team behind Puyo Puyo, M.U.S.H.A, Aleste, and Devil's Crush.

It is also known as Gunhed in Japanese release which is based on the Japanese film of the same name in 1989.

You're taking control of the Gunhed Advanced Star Fighter must battle against the enemy space armada called Dark Squadron and its Super Weapons to save the galaxy.

What made the Blazing Lazers so great on the PC Engine/TG16 is the fast vertical scrolling gameplay and a wide array of weapons for the player to use that really adds the intensity of game itself.

It features 9 vertically areas to playthrough contains one or more bosses to defeat, and it has numerous types of weapons can either be upgraded or changed by collecting various numbered power-ups and purple orbs starting from rapid-fire main cannon to long-range plasma lazers. You can collect optional power-ups to help fight through the game such as multibodies, homing missiles, shields, and enhanced firing capabilities, so these are the weapons are fast and responsive works effectively against the large enemy's ship that took time to defeat which requires a much stronger weapon adds up a difficulty pretty nicely.

The level design is crispy and detailed in each areas from space station to alien's organs, desert planet to big floating bubbles which I am very impressed with the use of scrolling effects, colors details, and background visuals really fits the graphical capabilities of hardware itself showing much appreciate to its quality, and it has the incredible use of sound design with no sign of scratchy noises and it definitely has the best soundtrack of all PC Engine/TG16 library with outstanding percussion and melody throughout the game's Shoot-em-ups action.

Blazing Lazers is regarded as one of the better Shoot 'em up video games for PC Engine/TG16 system is the must play for the fans of the genres.

Despite the closure of Wii's Virtual Console service since this version got re-released in 2007, I was hoping this game should deserve another re-release for Switch (via eShop) in future or if any of you preferred to play it on actual hardware instead then be warned the actual copy of the game cost around between £170 and £200 making it harder to find it online or alternately you can also get it on built-in miniature system such as PC Engine CoreGrafx Mini for more than £100 which included this game as part of 57 pre-installed titles, so I just got lucky for owning the miniature system that I had one for two years ago just for worth £70.  

4 - Gradius III (SNES)

Gradius III is a side-scrolling horizontal shooter was originally released for arcade in 1989, and was came later for SNES in 1990/91 which was both developed and published by Konami.

You're the pilot starfighter controlling the fighting ship called Vic Viper to battle against the evil alien empire to save the entire galaxy. 

What made the game so great on the SNES is the gameplay mechanics system where your ship started out quite slow and weak at the beginning of the first stage, so you will definitely needed to upgrade your ship by collecting and using these single power-ups items which let's you choose any of these 6 power-ups when the desired power-up is highlighted on the bottom screen.

Stuff like you can increase the speed of the ship makes the movement bit faster, it drops missile on the ground areas, it fires long-range laser dealing heavy damage, it has ripple that deals with wave-sized projectiles, the shields that protects you from taking damage from enemy's projectiles, and of course the best of all is the 5 option projectiles which allowing you to fire additional range of vulcans or lasers. 

The game was notoriously being the tough ones thanks to narrowly layered level design for some areas and multiples of enemies makes really insane amount of projectiles are the reason why it's made it quite tougher to beat which requires many learning curves and strategy in order to successfully beating the entire game which is why it made the game quite good to play. 

The boss battles are insanely epic that made Gradius III worth to play, so stuff like you have long-sharp armed Goliath, big blobbed Bubble Eye, metallic ship Big Core MKIII, long-firey Vulture Dragon, large-piranha Choking Weed, blue-glossy Crystal Core, and many more total non-stop bosses that gives you a great ass-kicking all the way.

Gradius III is a solid Shoot-em-ups title that never officially got released at PAL region, so thankfully I've bought the copy as an Super Famicom releases which I also had a SNES converter adapter that allowing me to bypass the Japanese imports games on my PAL SNES system due to system's region-locked restriction.

You can get the SNES copy of either the NTSC US or JP version just for less than £30 online or you can also get it on PS2 titled as Gradius III and IV for £40 or less, and PSP titled as Gradius Collection for £50. 

Oh it is also available on PS4 and Switch as arcade archives for between £5.79 and £6.29 could be a better and affordable option for newcomer too.  

3 - U.N Squadron (SNES) 

     

U.N Squadron (A.K.A Area 88 in JP release) is a side-scrolling horizontal shooter was released in 1989 for Arcade, and was later released in 1991/92 for SNES which was developed and published by Capcom, and it is also based on the manga series of the same name titled as Area 88.

You take control of 3 of the pilot fighters went on the mission is to stop a terrorist group known as Project 4.

As I previously enjoyed the arcade version quite a long time ago, I decided to give a SNES version a go to see if the game does anything do better in terms of additional features and gameplay wise, the answer is it's a damn fine SNES shoot-em-ups game that does the job right.

What made the SNES version so interesting is that it featured additional mission select which allows you to choose any of the level such as the main and bonus missions.

What made the game quite unique to play is that each of the 3 fighter pilots has different style of play such as Shin Kazama has mid-range vulcan cannon which is perfect for well-balanced players, Mickey Simon has strong valcan cannon but has weak air-to-ground options, and Greg Gates has Gatling gun that has a second gun that shoots downward angle but has stronger ground options. 

After beating each stages will earn you with currencies which you can spend these to the weapon shop that gives you ability to use a variety of explosion bombs and various of planes with different capabilities such as the firing range and damage which really adds up the gameplay experience.

The graphics and presentation in this game are surprisingly look amazing for the SNES shooter with detailed landscape, nice foreground layouts, and great use of colours just feels like a true 16-bit title had to offer, and of course it provides the best soundtrack in any of Capcom's Shoot-em-ups that makes you keep playing the game for the action.       

       

U.N Squadron is a fantastic Shoot-em-ups game that I highly recommended to all SNES owners who grew up playing this particular genre. The SNES copy are not particularly that expensive which goes from £20 to £35 more which is worth owning the title for the retro collectors.

2 - M.U.S.H.A (Genesis/MD)

      

M.U.S.H.A (A.K.A Aleste in JP release) is a vertical scrolling shooter was released in 1990 for Genesis/MD which was developed by Compile, a same team behind behind then again such as Puyo Puyo, Blazing Lazers, Aleste, and Devil's Crush.

You take control of flying mecha pilot who has the mission to destroy a large super intelligent computer that threatens the human life and planet Earth. 

This game plays on vertical perspective view and the player starts off with the main weapon that can be increasingly upgraded by collecting power chip, so there's are three different types of special weapons can be picked up such as piercing lasers, fire-based explosives and rotating shields. It also has useful drones which can be set to one of the six attack modes, such as aiming forward, behind, or rotating around the player.

What made the game incredibly impressive is that the gameplay as a whole has tons of action-packed levels starting from floating temples to industrial facility then solid-rocked layed area to dark-thunderous skies which has the best overall design for its stage presentation, and you can't go wrong with the mecha bosses like golden templed freak fires with 5 waves of firey projectiles, big metallic headed barfing out bunch of scraps out of his mouth, big fat dude with two kabuki heads floating around the multi-spiked ball and firing 4 silvered orbs, a large ship with creepy-looking facemask with 2 floating fists throwing punches at you, the badass mecha guy shoots you with 4 blue projectiles and uses long-range blue whip as melee weapon, and many more to fight against is what made the game quite epic for its atmosphere. 

The graphics as a 16-bit standards are looking spectacular which really shows the power of the SEGA's 16-bit machine for its technical stand point.

The use of background layered parallax scrolling, the foreground special effects, the crispy and sharp looking animation, and detailed environments are such an incredible to look at for its design perspective making it a most technically impressive title of 16-bit libraries, and of course you had to give the game a remarkable credit for its blazing and wicked heavy metal soundtrack which makes it being the best part of the Shoot-em-ups games like this really fits the personality level of SEGA's 16-bit machine. 

M.U.S.H.A is one of the game that shamefully never got the release at PAL region (not until it got re-released on Switch (via N.S.O Subscription E.P in 2021), but still it is also an outstanding Shoot-em-ups game that you really need to play this on Genesis/MD. This game is stupidly expensive for game collectors out-there because it's goes up for more than £300, so I got lucky that I've bought this game as a reproduction copy of the game from Ebay for £7.00 a very long time ago. 

You can also play it on the Switch under the Nintendo Switch Online subscription (Expansion Pack) which are also an welcome options for newcomer who are interested in playing the 16-bit Shoot-em-ups libraries.          

 

1 - Thunder Force IV (Genesis/MD) 

  

Thunder Force IV (A.K.A Lightening Force in US release) is a side-scrolling horizontal shooter was released in 1992/93 for Genesis/MD which was developed by Technosoft, a developer teams behind Herzog Zwei, Dragon's Fury and Hyper Duel, and it is also a fourth title of the series. 

You take control of fighter spacecraft called Rynex to battle against Vios forces throughout the 10 stages.

You can select any of these stages at the level select menu, and the game plays on the horizontal perspective view.

The game still retains the same upgradeable defaults, speed settings, and unique extra weapons from the previous third game, as you have ability to change the speed of the ship that suits for your playability starting from slow to fast settings making the ship's movement feels realistic.

You also have each types of weapons that gives you the advantage of using the powerful projectiles which ranges the level of firing system starting from twin shot to blades that shoots forward, back shot to rail gun which fires backward, snake that fires 2-ways angle, hunter that fires multiples of bouncy projectiles, and of course the free way that fires insane amount of missiles which I consider these firing system as being one of the ground-breaking things they ever done in any of Shoot-em-ups libraries had to offer. 

It has 10 epic stages with intense action that are fast-paced and over-the-top, it has multiples of insane enemy's ships in the whole on-screen that fires amount of projectiles, has cool looking bosses that are ridiculously large, and has quite an atmospheric level design with in-depth environments going on starting from top to bottom of the areas are quite lethal to play thanks to numerous of hazardous objects and structures which is why it made the game so amazing to play.

The overall visuals is what I call it the bestest things that they ever done for SEGA's 16-bit machine in terms of heavy use of parallax scrolling, detailed environmental layouts from back to front, crystal sharp textures, and magnificent overall use of animation and special effects which I call it a biggest technical marvel of one of the SEGA's ultimate hardware console of 16-bit era.

The game also has epic use of heavy metal soundtrack that are sounds incredibly awesome especially with the title track such as "Metal Squad" which really blew everyone mind up with the heavyness of action-packed music that fits the game's Shoot-em-ups action. 

Thunder Force IV is definitely one of my all-time favourite 16-bit Shoot-em-ups game that defines my gaming childhood, and it is definitely must play for Shoot-em-ups fanatics.    

The copy for Genesis/MD goes from £40 to £50 more which is quite bit pricey, but also recommended for big game collectors out-there.

You can also get it on Saturn titled as Thunder Force Gold for more than £70 which is hella expensive, but the best way to play this game is the Switch release as part of the SEGA Ages collection (via Nintendo eShop) for £6 digitally.   

Honourable Mentions:

Axelay

R-Type 3

Space Megaforce

Gleylancer 

Gaiares 

Vapor Trail 

Lords of Thunder

Soldier Blade

Ginga Fukei Densetsu Sapphire (Galaxy Policewoman Legend Sapphire)

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