After a five year hiatus, the Thunder Force series returned to grace the 32-bit consoles with its fifth title. The hardware update brought about a new change to the series, as the game sprites are now done in 3D, similarly to other shump franchises at the time. Unfortunately, the 3D designs have aged a bit poorly, due to blocky polygons and pixelation issues, though the sprites animate well and the backgrounds look nice to somewhat compensate for this. The major addition to the gameplay is that you now have ability to use Over Weapons. By using the energy of your CLAWs (or CRAWs, as they're now called), you can combine them with your weapons and create improved versions of them, which lay waste to everything in their path. The Over Weapons drain CRAW energy though, and when depleted, you either have to wait for them to recharge or replace them in order to use the Over Weapon again. In their weakened state, the CRAWs will disappear if hit by enemy fire. The game also has a new scoring system that rewards you for defeating larger enemies as quickly as possible via score multipliers.

One of the standout elements of Thunder Force V are its really cool boss battles. One such boss, A3 (Armament Armed Arm), transforms between a walker tank, hovercraft, and flying aircraft. Another, Guardian's Knight, is a Macross-like transforming mech that slashes at you with its huge sword and relentlessly fires at you with a screenful of bullets and a large laser cannon. Some of these are named after heavy metal bands like Deep Purple and Iron Maiden, and each have weird Engrishy intros. But no doubt the coolest moment in the game is when you rocket into space, where you're forced to fight the original Vasteel, a.k.a Fire Leo 4 "Rynex" - the ship you piloted in Thunder Force IV, with a remix of that game's intro theme rockin' in the background!

The difficulty level is easier than Thunder Force II and IV, but a bit harder than III. Much of the difficulty is lowered by the absolutely devastating Free Range weapon that can cut down even the strongest of enemies without much of a problem. Mastery of it will pretty much guarantee an easy play through (except for the very last boss who's a bastard no matter what and who you have to fight on a time limit to see the good ending). Without the free range, the game becomes more challenging but still remains at a manageable level. As expected from Technosoft by now, Thunder Force V has a soundtrack worthy of the series. The score is full of catchy melodies and copious amounts of synth rock composed by Tsukumo Hyakutaro. As a treat for fans, the first stage theme "Legendary Wings" contains a nice little homage to "Back to the Fire" from the third game.

The two versions for Saturn and PlayStation are fundamentally the same, with a few differences. The Saturn version has the edge in the graphics department, since some of the graphical tricks and touch-ups found in it are missing in the later PlayStation release. For instance, in the third level of the Saturn version, the ground is transparent and reveals a city underneath the rubble. This is completely absent in the PlayStation version, and the ground is completely solid. While the Saturn version generally has more detailed backgrounds, the PlayStation version has slightly better texturing on the bosses, but it's barely noticeable. In the long run, though, both look pretty ugly. The PlayStation version also adds little bits of pseudo computer code in between the loading segments.

The Saturn version also had two releases, a normal version and a special version containing an extra CD full of remixed Thunder Force music. The PlayStation version (subtitled Perfect System) expands the game a bit with some added features. Among them are an unlockable boss rush mode, an image viewer, and extra CG scenes. It also improves on some of the slowdown present in the Saturn version, although it was so minimal that it wasn't a huge deal to begin with. Purists tend to prefer the Saturn version, but both are suitable enough to play. Working Designs brought the game to America under the Spaz label, and made it so you couldn't truly "beat" the game unless you set it to the default difficulty level or higher, making "easy" mode a waste of time. Amusingly, the Japanese Game Over screen says "Try to Next Chance", as opposed to "Pilot Error" in the English PlayStation version.

After Thunder Force V, the fate of the series has been in limbo, due to Technosoft having all but disappeared a few years back. Initially, before they went belly up, Technosoft began work on Thunder Force VI, to be released for the Sega Dreamcast. Unfortunately, development of it stopped in the early stages, and proof of its existence only remains in form of a video of the proposed intro sequence that later circulated on the Internet.

Several years ago, an album entitled Broken Thunder: Noise Image Soundtracks Vol. 3 was released featuring tracks that were intended to be used in Thunder Force VI. The tracks on this album were recently re-released along with some new arrangements of past Thunder Force songs on the album Broken Thunder -project Thunder Force VI-. Sega producer Tetsu Okano was so enthusiastic about the series that he incorporated its basic mechanics (and even its music) into the final stages of the Dreamcast parody sim Segagaga. Another CD was released called Absolute Are -Project Thunder Force VI-, although most of it is music from Hyper Duel, another Technosoft shooter.

In 2006, a doujin studio announced a game called Broker Thunder, which was to be a tribute to the Thunder Force series, utilizing the released soundtrack. However, it was very poorly made, and quickly pulled from store shelves, under the promise that it would be "fixed." That never ended up happening, because in 2008, Sega eventually picked up the license from the departed Technosoft, and designed a new Thunder Force VI from the ground up.

Many of the basics have been carried over from Thunder Force V, mostly its level design and speed. The graphics are once again all 3D, and the game uses this to its advantage, zooming and panning around the ship for dramatic effect, while the action still takes place entirely on a 2D plane. This might bring back nightmares of the early PlayStation shooter Philosoma, but it's pulled off much better here. The graphics themselves are really just average - there's a lot of blurry, repetitive textures and noticeable fog. It's not bad, but it's a step back from Gradius V, or even earlier PlayStation 2 shooters like R-Type Final. At least it keeps a lot of the silly Engrish from Thunder Force V, although a lot of the text is written (and spoken) in Mongolian.

Thunder Force VI (PlayStation 2)

The major difference from its immediate predecessor is that all five weapons are available at all times, even when you die, and you'll continue right where you left off whenever you use a credit, as opposed to restarting the stage. The overdrive system is powered by greens orbs left by fallen enemies, so you no longer need to sacrifice a CRAW to use it.

Even though these seem to be some welcome changes, the initial impression of Thunder Force VI really isn't all that great. The first few stages lift too many sections from previous games - the opening section of the third stage is taken almost directly from the first level of Thunder Force V. During one of the final encounters, you fight the ship from Thunder Force IV, which is cool - too bad Thunder Force V already did it too. There's very little originally, and it seems bent far more on homage than innovation.

At the outset, it's also a bit too easy, at least on the default difficulty levels. On the plus side, the Kids difficulty allows pretty much anyone to practice, while the availability of the Hard and Maniac levels provide a much larger and more satisfying challenge. Multiple playthroughs will unlock a couple of extra ships. The Rynex, the ship from Thunder Force IV, even has a different weapon set and loses its weapons when it's destroyed, making for a more traditional experience. The second unlockable ship, alas, is just a variation on the first. There are several "documents" to unlock too, although they're all in Japanese.

The music is something of a disappointment, as it doesn't use any of the songs from the Broken Thunder release. Despite assembling a squadron of shoot-em-up music veterans, including Tamayo Kawamoto (Rayforce), Go Sato (Raiden) & Motoaki Furukawa (Gradius), the soundtrack is a bit too laid-back, sounding more appropriate for a trippy Darius game as opposed to the hard rocking themes of the previous Thunder Force games. It's still good, but it just doesn't fit with the lineage of the series.

Though it's a bit disappointing that Thunder Force VI feels so recycled, at its core, it's still a well-made shooter that pulls off the difficult task of appealing to both casual and hardcore shooter fans.