Namco System 1 games are pretty awesome in general with so many great titles like Galaga '88, Pacmania, Marchen Maze, Dangerous Seed and may fav of them all - Blast Off.
It's a vertical scrolling shmup, similar to Dangerous Seed but with the graphics and feel of Galaga. It's so unique, however, that it pretty much blows Galaga and its brethren out of the water.
There are three different stages of each of the levels - a lead up to the space station, a fight to get into the space station and then, the fight through the space station and boss fight. The last stage sees your ship sprite blown up on screen as if the camera zoomed in. It makes the fighting feel more intimate and the close quarters are suitably claustrophobic, but very, very cool nonetheless.
Andi from the shmups forum stopped by last weekend and we played a bunch of stuff for something like 7 hours and spent a good deal of time on Blast Off. We finally made it to the 5th stage, which is where I set this first high score.
Like many good old school titles there is a simple shooting system (four different types of shots selectable with the B button, fire with A) and really fun gameplay. The OST is good, but not really amazing. It does fit the game and make the whole package a good vintage shmup worth a look in.
2 comments:
I can't believe I've never tried this in MAME before! Nice find! You know what it reminds me of most? A Compile game or at least a couple of the "Soldier" series by Hudson. Agree? Disagree?
It does remind me a bit of the Soldier series, but it reminds me more of a continuation on of the Galaga series - especially after Galaga '88.
It's definitely an overlooked classic.
Post a Comment