Post-Mortem Dreamcast Shooters

Under Defeat is the second game from G.rev, the guys who did Border Down. It's usually compared to Psikyo's Zero Gunner 2, since both involve flying a helicopters that can kinda sorta rotate to shoot in different directions. It's much better implemented here, however. Instead of manually rotating your craft, it automatically angles itself when you move left or right. By holding down the fire button, you'll lock the position and continue shooting in that direction. The game tends to scroll at an angle instead of straight ahead, so this is really useful. Similar to the RayStorm games, you fight against both air and ground-based targets. Although air targets can be easily destroyed by your machine gun, the terrain can block any fire directed at the ground. It's remarkable how three dimensional the game feels, despite only working on the 2D plane. If you hold off firing for a few seconds, an option will pop out of your ship, which will help you fight off bad guys until it runs out of steam.

The graphic design is technically somewhat on the drab side, but it pulls off Raiden in 3D much better than Raiden III actually did. To make up for it, there are lots of cool details, like the swaying trees in the first level or the billows of smoke pouring out of destroyed battle cruisers. It also has some really amazing explosions, especially the bomb animation, which ignites the entire screen in a flamboyant orgy of mass destruction, easily the coolest detonation since the old Defender games. It's almost worth trying the game just to see it. The music is composed by Shinji Hosoe (known mostly for random Namco games like Dragon Spirit, but also for the more recent Ibara), and while it's pleasantly catchy, it sometimes feels a bit too laid back for this type of game, much like Border Down.

With no other ports on the horizon, Under Defeat seems to be following the path of Border Down and might get really rare/expensive in the future. It's one of the few games that comes in a DVD-style case instead of the standard CD case. There's also a limited edition version with different cover artwork and a soundtrack CD featuring extended versions of the music.

Last Hope is technically a homebrew game from the German group NG:DEV.TEAM, which basically consists of two guys. Although it was initially created as a Neo Geo cartridge game, it was later ported to the Dreamcast, which was a wise move, considering that they were charging over $700 for the Neo Geo AES carts. In comparison, the Dreamcast version was released for $40, complete with a full color Japanese manual and professionally pressed CD. However, it's still technically an unofficial game, and since it's still on CD, it won't work with late model Dreamcast.

It's easy to tell from the pictures that Last Hope is essentially an R-Type / Pulstar clone, right down to the slow moving, memorization based gameplay. This in itself isn't remotely a bad thing, since this style of game is all too rare amongst the flood of bullet hell shooters. Unfortunately, it lacks some of the spit shine polish of the classics it seems to imitate. Like R-Type, you have a satellite next your ship, which is rotated with the trigger buttons. However, it's a bit touchy and it's hard to get it positioned just the way you want it. Although it has its own independent weapon, it shoots a split second after you hit the fire button, making it hard to hit anything that isn't right in front of you. Unlike R-Type, it only absorbs certain bullets and doesn't protect you from enemies. Most of the time you won't know what it can and can't absorb until you try it, which usually results in your destruction.

Other oversights can cause more cheap deaths - some explosions are almost too animated, and it can be hard to distinguish them from enemy fire. Similarly, both your powered-up shots and the satellite can block the view of your ship. To compensate for this sloppiness, your ship can take three hits from regular enemy fire before blowing up.

As can be expected, Last Hope can get ridiculously hard, but all things considered, it's not really that much more difficult that Pulstar. Each stage usually has about three checkpoints, and you're granted unlimited continues, as well as the ability to save the game and restart at the last level you reached. If you have the patience to tolerate its quirks, it's actually plenty of fun and a really well done homage. The graphics are entirely sprite-based, and generally look very professional. Even the darkest mechanical corridors are usually spruced up by some ominous glowing lights, and the flame effects in the fifth stage looks fantastic. The only weak link is the main spaceship sprite, which looks a little on the dorky side. The soundtrack has more in common with composers like Chris Hüelsbeck or Vangelis than your typical Japanese shoot-em-up, but the laid-back atmospheric tunes work well is such a methodically paced game. It's also fun to spot the homages - there's a mini Dobkeratops (the first boss in R-Type) in the first stage, and the fourth level is named "Katakis", after the famous Commodore 64/Amiga shooter.

Triggerheart Exelica was created by Warashi, which had previously done the Shienryu games, one of which was brought to the US on the PSOne under the title Geki-Oh: Shooting King. Now, if anime/manga like Saishuu Heiki Kanojou (She: The Ultimate Weapon) has taught me anything, it's that loli and mecha are serious business. The heroines - Exelica and Cruel Tear - are two young girls with brightly colored hair and power suits, which grant them the ability to cause all kinds of destruction.

The gimmick here is that you can capture almost every enemy and either use them as a shield or fling them at other foes. Capturing small enemies is as simple as shooting them with your anchor, but bigger enemies require you to lock on for several seconds. It's really awesome to capture a battleship that takes up half the screen and toss it right back at the opposing fleet. Some enemies can't be captured, usually bosses, but you can target and lock your fire on to them, so all you need to worry about is dodging. It's a little bit hard to get a hang of, especially if you've set the "auto throw" option to off, because you need to rotate the joystick quickly in order to toss something. It's also way too easy to misjudge a trajectory and throw something off into oblivion.

The scoring system isn't particularly in depth - when enemies are killed, they drop little bits of gold. As they fall closer to the bottom of the screen, they get bigger, and thus more valuable. When you let go of the fire button, they'll automatically be attracted to your ship, increasing your multiplier. Some of the boss battles change slightly depending on how well you pull this off.

While Warashi obviously put some effort into the character artwork, the actual ingame graphics are pretty awful, roughly equivalent to Trizeal but with a light color palette. The music is all carried by an incredibly cheesy synth, but it's really poppy and fun - and most importantly, a lot more catchy than the dreary techno found in a lot of the other Dreamcast shooters.

In addition to the standard arcade mode, there's a Story Mode which features plenty of unnecessary (fully voiced) dialogue, along with some extra boss battles, depending your performance.

Karous is the third game from Milestone (the name is a lousy, lousy pun - it's technically spelled "karasu", meaning "crow" in Japanese, but if you pronounce the words "karous" (hard 'o' sound) really fast, it sounds like "crows".)

For all intents and purposes, Karous is a sequel to Radirgy - the engine and basic gameplay system is almost exactly the same. However, graphically, it's like the total inverse - the visuals are still cel shaded, but most everything is black, white, and dozens of shades of grey. Sure, it's gloomy, but it's original and works surprisingly well. The heroine is a thirteen year old goth chick named Karous, and your support is a purple haired girl named Shigi, who looks suspiciously like Tadayo from Radirgy. There's still some in-game text, though they're not as prevalent as the e-mails from Radirgy.

Karous

There's only one ship type to choose from instead of three, but the mechanics are basically the same, including the same sword, shield, and bullet vacuum attacks. The biggest difference here is that you level up three different stats - gun, sword, and shield - based on how often you use them. In other words, it's a lot like Radiant Silvergun. At higher levels, your wimpy gun becomes incredibly powerful, your tiny sword becomes a wave of destruction, and your shield will actually absorb enemy fire and bounce it back at them. This encourages drastically different styles of play based on which area you want to strengthen. It's also more interesting than Radirgy's system, since you're playing to upgrade your craft instead of just playing for score multipliers. The result is a much more refined and enjoyable game. Too bad the only thing they didn't fix is the music - the drum and bass soundtrack is forgettable at best and irritating at worst.