My target audience for this site is those, who like me, want a review to be all-encompassing, lengthy and detailed. I often include my previous experiences with the title, significant historical context, and/or the story of my introduction to the game in order to provide the reader with context for my reaction.
While this, I hope, provides a more entertaining and engaging read, it also results in fairly lengthy articles that may alienate those that couldn’t care less about my experience and the nitty-gritty details of the gameplay; they just want a quick, succinct overview of the game and to be told whether or not it is a fit for them.
In the spirit of inclusion, I am providing shorter adaptations of previous reviews. I will always still produce the intensive reviews first to avoid straying from my original vision for the site.
Blazing Lazers
Visuals (10/10): Some of the best graphics on the TurboGrafx-16. Provided a 16-bit experience in a market largely dominated by its 8-bit contemporaries. Colorful, large boss sprites and a variety of vivid, non-open space locales are the highlight of the game.
Sound (8.5/10): A fast-paced, hypertension-inducing soundtrack that is so catchy and well-composed. The poor sound quality of TurboGrafx-16 HuCards detract from an otherwise stellar experience.
Gameplay (9.5/10): Mechanics are absolutely perfect, with adjustable ship speed, ability to hold down the fire button and incredibly responsive controls.
Four up-gradable weapon types, four sub-weapons and the ability to create alternate modes of fire by way of the “Firepower” sub-weapon result in a highly customizable experience.
Negatives include:
- Needing to input a code to unlock other difficulties
- the near uselessness of “Weapon I” and “Homing Missiles”
Who Should Play This:
This is the perfect entry level shmup for gamer’s who are good at video games in general, but are inexperienced with the shooter genre. It is not terribly hard, but not so easy as to be boring… JUST RIGHT.
Due to incredible design and a spectacular audio-visual experience, even grizzled veterans of the shmup genre will really enjoy this game, despite the moderate difficulty.
Link to the Original Review and Added Guide Content:
Blazing Lazers Resource (Turbografx-16/PC Engine)
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