Author Profile
- Username
- Tom-Massey
- First Article
- News/Features
- 2
- Reviews
- 60
- Avg. Review Score
- 7.2
- Article Comments
- 2,883
- Total Articles
- 62
- @supercancelhgj
Review Batsugun Saturn Tribute Boosted - The Best Home Release Of Toaplan's Final Shmup
The Iceman Cometh
Toaplan, a shooting game developer that flew high in the '80s with titles like Twin Cobra and Truxton, possesses a formidable resume. Batsugun, the company's swan-song shooter, and one of its most historically significant works, spearheaded an evolution of the genre that remains prevalent today. Programmer Tsuneki Ikeda joined...
Review Star Gagnant - Takahashi Meijin Tests Your Trigger Finger With A Simple Shmup
Shooting Watch
In the 1980s, Takahashi Meijin was a supermarket clerk turned home programmer, eventually picked up by Hudson Soft to work as a software salesman. This, however, was only the start of his journey into 8-bit stardom. In 1985 he co-presented a TV show in Japan that hosted tournaments, usually for Hudson Soft’s shoot 'em up catalogue...
Mini Review Pulling No Punches - A Surprising, Satirical Beat 'Em Up That Lives Up To Its Name
Violently political
If you think the title is little more than a healthy pun, think again; Pulling No Punches means what it says. Politically charged, littered with incendiary themes, and crammed with expletives, this Brazilian indie title is quite the surprise, combining combat with combative opinion. A scrolling beat 'em up in a retro style, its...
Mini Review Nightmare Reaper - A Roguelite, Boomer-Shlooter Bloodbath
Psychoactive
Nightmare Reaper’s procedurally generated stages are as rawly aggressive as the thrash metal motifs that drive it. Coined a looter-shooter, it’s a roguelite that revels in retro visuals, blazing speeds, and the ensuing spectacle of its bloodbath. In a novel move, it procedurally generates levels, meaning each time you die or start...
Mini Review Cyber Citizen Shockman - A Belated Western Debut For The First (And Worst) Shubibinman
Positively shocking
Confusion abounds with this one. This isn’t the same Shockman that was originally released for the TurboGrafx-16 back in 1991, which was a localisation of Japan's Shubibinman 2. This, Cyber Citizen Shockman, is a new 2023 translation of the original Shubibinman game from 1989; and frankly, that’s the most special thing about...
Mini Review Wild Dogs - Solid Contra-Style Running And Gunning
Contra addiction
Wild Dogs borrows almost everything from Konami’s classic Contra series, and this is a good thing. Initially glowing in perfect shades of monochromatic green and formed like a beautifully detailed Game Boy title, it’s both visually pleasing and successful in its nostalgic reimaginings. Playing as mercenary Frank Williams and...
Review Castle Of Shikigami 2 - A Fine Version Of The Best Game In The Bullet-Hell Trilogy
Something familiar
Shikigami no Shiro, or Castle of Shikigami in localisation, is a shooting game series by Alfa System, a studio that once upon a time pitched in on the likes of Wonder Boy III and several Ys ports for the PC Engine CD-ROM. Castle of Shikigami’s main series spans three games, and, despite the third entry’s intriguing Hi-Tension...
Review IGS Classic Arcade Collection - An Excellent Selection, Poorly Presented
Romance of the Arcade Kingdom
IGS, or International Game System Co., Ltd — not to be confused with '90s Japanese developer IGS (Information Global Service) — is a dedicated arcade developer hailing from Taiwan. Still going strong after 25 years in the industry, it maintains an incredibly strong foothold in both Taiwan and China, producing...
Review Cannon Dancer - Osman - The Bold, Concise Strider Sequel You Always Wanted
Strider Too
Following his departure from Capcom, director Kouichi Yotsui was burdened with expectation following Strider's success. Sadly, despite his inventive, risk-taking approach to game development, he would never again win the limelight. In the mid-'90s he had a fling with Mitchell Corporation, a studio formed of ex-Capcom staff that coaxed...
Review Grim Guardians: Demon Purge - A Creative, Character-Swapping Ode To Castlevania
Double Switch
From Inti Creates, developers of the critically acclaimed Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon duo and the Mega Man Zero/ZX series, comes a new Metroidvania rendered in a 16-bit graphical style, utilising modern hardware for various special effects, animation, and sprite creation. And it’s a fine-looking game, overall. While some areas...
Review Akka Arrh - A Scrapped Atari Shooter Gets A Psychedelic Llamasoft Refurb
A bomb in hand is worth two in the bathroom
Jeff Minter, international man of gaming mystery, is back in action. If you’ve never heard of him, the 60-year-old has been in game coding and development, and seemingly happily off his rocker since 1979. Going by the moniker ‘Yak’, Minter cut his teeth on the Sinclair ZX60 in the early '80s, going...
Review Akai Katana Shin - One Of CAVE’s Very Best Horizontal Bullet Hells
Live by the sword
CAVE Co. Ltd, the pioneering, god-tier arcade developer that reignited the shooting game genre in the '90s, has a portfolio to die for. After 17 years of cast-iron quality and unceasing invention, the sound of gunfire finally rang silent in 2012 with their swansong, Dodonpachi SaiDaiOuJou. Among Cave’s output, only a few entries...
Review Drainus - A Spectacular, Showboating Tour De Force For Sci-Fi Shmup Fans
Drain the core
Drainus. Whether a ham-fisted portmanteau of Darius and Gradius, or relating to the game’s core mechanic, it’s a silly name any way you look at it. Japan-based developer Team Ladybug, more recently known for the rather good Record of Lodoss War: Deedlit in Wonder Labyrinth, has had the Switch shooting game hardcore waiting eight...
Mini Review Wonder Boy Anniversary Collection - A Great But Gouging, Exploitative Package
It really makes you wonder
Wonder Boy Anniversary Collection gets a lot right. It features six great titles in the series, with complete region variations and all their alternate console ports, from arcade to SG-1000, to Master System, Mega Drive, and Game Gear — 21 titles in total. It has a bevy of in-game options for finely tweaking the image...
Review Breakers Collection - Visco's Neo Geo Fighters Return In Fine Form
Give me something to break
Visco Corporation, responsible for shoot 'em up Andros Dunos (1992), was a Neo Geo stalwart, releasing 15 titles across SNK’s arcade and console hardware. One of its only forays into the fighting game arena was Breakers and its semi-sequel, Breakers Revenge. In 1996, the fighting game market was flooded. And, while it...
Review Samurai Maiden - A Saucy Hack-And-Slash That Makes For An Entertaining Romp
Pleated Swords
Samurai Maiden’s characters look great. Really great. While perhaps not leaps and bounds ahead of the competition, nevertheless, they’re a striking cast of multicoloured, glassy-eyed femme fatales that glow from every angle. As is much the case with most output that falls into anime ecchi categories, they’re not particularly...
Review The Rumble Fish 2 - A Cult Classic Fighter Gets A Great Port
Big Fish
Despite its title being ostensibly plucked from the 1983 Francis Ford Coppola movie of the same name, publisher Sammy’s The Rumble Fish series bears zero resemblance bar the odd bout of fisticuffs. Or, in this case, bout upon bout of fisticuffs, with a cast of colourful and interestingly designed characters. The Rumble Fish series’...
Mini Review Swordship - A Challenging, High-Speed, 'Dodge 'Em Up' With Style
Burning The Tide
Swordship looks like something from the world of Wipeout, except here the race is for your life. With buttery cel-shaded graphics and a cool ambient techno soundtrack, it's stylistically polished. The frame rate maintains a perfect 60 FPS, with its industrial periphery altering between cities and the colour of the seas moving...
Review Astronite - 1-Bit Metroidvania Adventuring With A Dash Of Dark Souls
The full Spectrum
Astronite looks like it hails from the ZX Spectrum, and that’s precisely its goal. Touted as a “1-bit Metroidvania”, it’s rendered in stark black and white, with thin line art and all the evocative hallmarks of PC gaming's bygone age. It even features little floppy disk icons at its save points and old-style telephones at...
Review Neo Geo Pocket Color Selection Vol.2 - A Fair Retro Package With Some Intriguing Curios
Rolling the dice
One of the only real criticisms we levelled at the recent Mega Man Battle & Fighters, a re-release of a Neo Geo Pocket Color title included in this new package, was that nobody had bothered to translate the content from Japanese. It was an issue exacerbated by a fan translation already existing online for those willing to go the...
Review Cobra Kai 2: Dojos Rising - A Good Idea Very Poorly Executed
Full of Kreeses
The magical appeal of Cobra Kai as light entertainment is that it’s totally aware of what it is: garbage. It’s Sunset Beach crossed with Saved By The Bell, driven by the one-note parody of Johnny Lawrence being stuck in the '80s. For anyone old enough to remember the original Karate Kid movies, there’s a throwback attraction...
Review Atari 50: The Anniversary Celebration - A Painstaking Love Letter To Gaming's Pioneers
Graft from the past
Atari, and its exuberant founder Nolan Bushnell, were 1970s trailblazers who formed, established, and pioneered the video game industry. Brushing a near-century of mechanical coin-operated gaming aside and barging pinball into a dusty corner, Atari became the focal point of bars everywhere with Pong in 1972. It was the dawning of...
Mini Review Sophstar - A Solid Shmup Bursting With Originality
Soft touch
Following the excellent Star Hunter DX, Raging Blasters, and Crimzon Clover - World EXplosion from Steam to the Switch eShop is Banana Bytes’ Sophstar, a vertically oriented bullet hell shoot-em-up with clearly delineated sprites set against simplistic rolling backgrounds. There are a whopping nine ships to choose from, all with...
Review Them's Fightin' Herds - Cute And Cuddly Characters Mask An Incredibly In-Depth Fighter
Chomping at the bit
The craze now coined as “bronyism” — a heavily documented My Little Pony fandom that took root in 2010 — turned out to be more about inclusion than it did the show (Friendship is Magic) itself. Despite our attempts to get into it based on recommendations, we found its adult appeal largely overvalued. It acted as a conduit...
