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The Lowdown
Pros: Perfectly fitting sound track, intense shooting, bonus DVD
Cons: Dated and unpolished graphics, "short" playthrough, overload of
stuff on screen
 Purchase
at Play-Asia
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Some would say the age of the side or in this case the vertical
shooter is a dying genre. Recently games like R-Type Final, the upcoming
Gradius V and now Espgaluda have been reviving the genre. Props to Ikaruga,
which was one the games that ignited this trend with its revolutionary
light/dark system. Espgaluda follows in the footsteps and inevitably
lives in
the shadow of Ikaruga. Yet, Arkia's Espgaluda manages to hold enough gameplay
and thrills to make it's own name.If we're going to get right down
into gameplay Espgaluda is a vertical scrolling shooter. Unlike some of
the other revival shooters like R-Type Final, Espgaluda really piles
stuff on the screen. The game throws wave after wave of battle
ships, fairies holding guns and giant robots at you. The endless swarm of
enemies constantly pummels the player with barrages of bullets that you
either have to dodge or block. At times it seems that there is way too
much stuff on the screen for players to focus on. The constant flashing
of the bullets and explosions is at best a minor seizure. On the other
hand, all of the action on the screen drives
players to react quickly, which means there is never a dull moment
playing the game. When you play the game there are a couple of basic
strategies, which are simple to learn, but hard to master. The first is
your basic attack. You can hold down the X button and you'll shoot
out a concentrated straight laser blast. You can also gently tap the
X button and you'll unleash a wide spray of bullets.
At times shot down enemies will release emerald gems. These gems play
a role in the Kakusei system. By pressing triangle your character's
state to an "awakened" state. In this mode the game has a bullet time
effect where all of the bullets change to a purple color and move at
half speed. This means you'll be able to dodge shots easier. If you get
hit while you're awakened you'll automatically use your guard barrier
energy to make a shield to deflect bullets. While you're in awakened
mode you constantly use up your gems, each gem equates to about a tenth
of a second in real time. Gems will also drain when you shoot enemies
down, but if you shoot ships down in Kakusei mode you'll get lots of
bonus points. You can switch in and out of Kakusei mode at anytime, to
conserve gem energy. Although, if you don't switch out of awakened mode
before time runs out the enemy bullets will move at double speed.
Mastering when to use Kakusei mode is a challenge. Fortunately, the game
comes packaged with a DVD featuring a "Super A-Class" player completing
the game, which helps give players an idea of how to use it. The DVD is
something amazing and defiantly a nice addition. If you put it in
perspective many Ikaruga fans purchased the Ikaruga Appreciate DVD for
an extra $50, while Cave packages a comparable DVD for free. The only
catch is the DVD is a region 2 DVD, which means you'll have to break out
your region free player to watch it. The soundtrack in Espgaluda
compliments the intensity of gameplay. The background music is
electronic dance music that sounds something like a Webster Hall
Tranzworld CD. The fast BPM music represents the fast maneuvering a
player has to do to beat the game. Most of the songs sound really good,
even if some of them, like the boss tune, are played too much. The sound
effects such as the explosions, laser sounds and so forth do drown out
the excellent soundtrack. Worse of all about the sound effects is that
they don't sound too sharp. This is probably due to the conversion of
the arcade board effects, which won't be up to the same level of quality
as the PS2 can handle. If there is one thing wrong with this game it's
the graphics. There is nothing wrong with sprite based graphics, if they
aren't smeared and pixilated. The explosions and power up icons suffer
from some serious pixilation. All of this pixilation is surprising since
the game is running at such a low resolution, it doesn't even cover the
width of the screen. The enemies aren't that clear and sometimes blend
in with the screen, which is due to the lack of different colors.
Seriously, there are some Sega Genesis games that use more colors per
level than Espgaluda uses. The low resolution makes the main character
and enemies tiny, real tiny. During a two player game it's easy for your
character to get lost if it's not constantly shooting things. Arika did
have some nice concept art in mind, which can be viewed in the gallery
mode. The original concept graphics have a fantasy feel to them, even
though you're fighting giant machines. Unfortunately, the in game
graphics don't do their original concept justice and don't have much
distinction to them. Espgaluda is a short game if you play it through
using the unlimited continues the game offers. Shooters like these are
more about mastering the game for replay value, rather than offering
lots of bonuses. Arika does offer two different characters to play
with: Ageha and Tateha. Both characters have different
styles of attack for instance Ageha relies more on a powerful linear
attack while Tateha has a wider attack. For a real challenge Arika added
in an arrange mode that has two new characters and no continues for a
real challenge. If you're looking for a challenging and intense shooter
look no further than Espgaluda.
All of the game's menus are in English and story sequences are in
English, which is nice for import gamers. The only thing that remained
in Japanese is the "How to play" tutorial, which explains the game's
controls.
US Bound?
Ikaruga made it over and so did R-Type Final so it seems likely
that this will come over as budget software like Gunbird.
Overall
Espgaluda is sure to quench the thirst of player looking for a new
shooter as a challenge, but it might be too old fashioned for modern
gamers.
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