1 ASTRO WARRIOR - LASER BLASTING THE WAY TO NEBIROS

Dear Readers,

Lots of RPGs and Minecraft lately! Let's play a shmup/stg! I played a bit of this on my SEGA Arcade Gamer Portable.

I played a bit of this before for another blog I did but not too seriously. For this session I wanted to suss the power up system. I looked up the instruction manual online but didn't get that much information. It also recommended using a turbo controller, which sadly, I don't have access to on this thing. I'd love to have something like that though, as it would make the experience a lot easier!

Anyway, I learned that most of the power ups are speed boosts. The other two types of weapons are triple shot and twin lasers, and you can get an extra 2 trailing option ships to help with firepower too.

To get power ups, you have to shoot those boxes on the platforms. It's not about shooting special ones - it's about shooting as many as you can to unlock the power ups that float down the middle of the screen.

After some testing, I decided the lasers suited me best, because they shoot through everything and don't get blocked by the walls that keep coming up. These walls are a bit confusing, because you can fly past them but normal shots don't go through.

Now to talk a little about the enemies. On the first level, it feels pretty good to destroy the grouped ones at the beginning with just one shot. On the second level, there are some really troublesome ones. The tiny round ones at the start just drop like stones and you have to have your wits about you. The ones that split in two also drop fast and I kind of avoid shooting at them. There are some spidery ones that follow you around the screen and another annoying one that sneaks down the sides and shoots out a spreading shot. The second level is pretty darn tough!

After settling on my laser strategy and many retries, I eventually got as far as the second level boss Nebiros with a score of 127,000. My highest so far. I had a stroke of bad luck when I was fully powered up, but lost a life right before the boss, which meant I had to face it without any power ups. I'll have to suss its pattern next time. I noticed the demo always has a part where Nebiros shows up so I can learn a bit about its pattern this way. It's got those fast lasers as well, so it's pretty intimidating!

I love the way you go into warp speed between levels! It reminds me of Star Jacker on the SG-1000 when you get the warp skip. That fast whooshing is pretty fun! It also makes me wonder if the two games are connected somehow.