Blazing Star

The Good
The game graphics utilise an excellent amount of CG-like textures, with anime characters for the pilots and vibrant backgrounds in each stage. The music is as thrilling as the game itself, with sometimes a sense of free flying or a sense of suspension. Some of the more astute may notice that the fourth stage track sounds a lot like Vangelis' "Chariots of Fire". Apart from the storyline not being told, the introductory presentation is superb, just like it came straight out of a 90s anime film akin to the theme of AIC's "Gall Force".

Gameplay-wise, the controls are very easy to work with: straightforward firing, rapid firing, charging firepower and of course alternate firepower, a mode that is exclusive to this game. The selection of ships you get are drastically different in their firepower and capabilities, it's like a dramatically unique select difficulty option. And it's nice to see Dino 246 make a return from Pulstar. I recommend Aryustailm to accumulate the most points. The game itself is okay in difficulty, with adequate warning signs for incoming ships and some mini-bosses throughout the stages. Bosses in the stages work differently, having many techniques, you can improvise with different ships you pick to find the optimum way to destroy them in the shortest time. And that ranking system prompts you to give it all you got stage by stage.

The Bad
Difficulty in the later stages of the game isn't very well balanced due to the ridiculous number of projectiles that enemies can throw at you and that your large ship has little room to squeeze between them without getting hit. The Peplos ship is perhaps the most useless in the game because it cannot get any stronger, there is absolutely no reason to have it, unless you're a glutton for dying over and over. For some ships, activating the rapid firepower really aches the fingers, so that it's hardly worth using it just to wipe out a fleet of enemy ships.

The game does a have a strong tendency to mock you by calling you a "Poor Player!" whenever you lose a life. Some of the LUCKY bonus pickups are extremely elusive, so that no matter how many times you play, you may never find them all. Lastly, the final stage looks to be in pretty bad taste since it resembles a giant-sized version of abortion by killing an alien embryo baby inside a giant womb. What had the makers of the game been smoking when they came up with this final boss?

The Bottom Line
This game manages to be its own sort of game instead of trying to be an R-Type variant with its own cocktail formula for space-shooting. It certainly maximised the effectiveness of arcade graphics and gameplay. The six different ships available truly bring out replayability and incentive to combine the different firepowers in a two-player game. You really don't need to play Pulstar before you play this one. Blazing Star is exactly the arcade game for space and sci-fi fans anywhere, though you do need to be a practiced player to make it to the end of the game smoothly. If you're not grossed out by the final stage, I can guarantee you'll love and respect this Neo-Geo title.