Saturday 17 July 2021

1 liberation maiden - cool anime sci fi 3d shooter with challenging controls

Dear Readers,

Now to try SUDA51's 3D shooting game he created for the Guild series! I watched the trailer where he presented the game. It's got an anime aesthetic and futuristic mech style story. I admit I bought this to unlock the extras in the other Guild games, but I'm a fan of his and I might as well give it a go!

I looked at the manual as well and it's pretty small. Not much nonsense to it. The 3DS icon features the main character's face wearing a visor and the top screen image kinda looks like a box with official poster art on it. Imagine if this game had a physical release, this image would be like a limited edition.

The title screen has that atmosphere of a shmup's title screen with the main character proudly saying the title with an echo. The logo itself shows English and Japanese. There's a score attack mode and a gallery with about 30 images to unlock. I'm picking the easy difficulty.

I am Shoko Ozora, second President of New Japan! A fully animated and voiced cutscene plays out with me getting elected, suiting up and piloting my mech, flying towards the enemy to destroy it in a very dramatic action scene with lots of missiles and jump cuts.

I have assistance from Kira who offers to teach me the controls. People address me as Madame President. The dialogue boxes are voiced as well! I say yes because I'm gonna need help getting used to the controls.

Ugh... I have to use the touch screen to aim and lock on to things. Not thrilled about having to do this and I'm worried I might damage it. I'll try and work around and see if I can get used to it. I take out a few tanks below.

Next I have to take out targets strategically before taking out a big target. Kira gets very technical and I feel thrown in at the deep end. This all takes place in the Old City on an island and it's all over the water with windmills and highways all around.

After attacking successfully, the island turns green with nature returning to it. Then I have to head for the next target.

I get a tutorial on how to use the sword thing, a powerful weapon that I can use when the gauge is charged. I have to slide the touch screen, so it's more of this kind of control. Yikes.

There are some cool bits like shooting homing missiles out of the air that are heading for me. The music is fast, rockin and quite fun and fitting for a game like this!

I get schooled on the L strafe which is intuitive enough. I destroy some more sizeable targets and unlock the way to a bigger target, or Greater Spike as they call it.

Locking on to targets and building up combos feels like playing as Tails or Dr. Robotnik in Sonic Adventure 2, or Gamma in the first Sonic Adventure. It's familiar. I still I wish I didn't have to do it with the touch screen though.

This Greater Spike was like the boss and it had some cool attacks like shooting lasers and energy hoops at me. I didn't really know how to avoid everything while I was attacking parts of it and I went into this weird counterattack mode, where I had to go up close and slash at attackers up close. The screen went all red and black and it looked very dramatic.

Lyrics came in with the music while I was fighting with the boss too. It was really cool! Very dramatic as well :) I'll have to look up the vocalist and band.

Next up was the decisive moment. Kira told me about the Sacrifice Drive, which is the worst move yet. I have to draw fast circles on the touch screen while my mech drills into the boss' weak spot. I hate this move and I'm worried it's going to damage my touch screen :(

I carried out the move anyway when I got a prompt for it and beat the level. I like how I issued this as an Executive Order and made for a very dramatic decisive anime moment!

When I finish a stage I get bonuses for time and purity. I don't know if I'll go score chasing with these controls... I might just enjoy the rollercoaster of the story but we'll see.

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