"You'll come out battered and bruised, but with a big smile on your face"

Galaxy Force II is a typical run-of-the-mill Shmup in many respects. The Fourth Empire is devastating Junos, the last free solar system of the Milky Way, and in retaliation, the Space Federation recruits several attack pilots in an effort to reclaim the once peaceful civilisation. All that concerns you is strapping into a TRX-5 Quasar aircraft and ripping through dozens of Halcyon fighter jets until everything goes BOOM!

Junos comprises five distinct planets, all in a state of equal strife. As such, it is up to you to decide the order in which you take things. Compared to other Shmups, Galaxy Force II is skeletally anorexic when it comes to power-ups -- a pathetically weak laser, some harder hitting missiles (which can be upgraded to lock-on to as many as six targets at a time) and a basic shield system are all you start out with, and all you finish with, too. It really doesn't matter which order you tackle the planets in, but since energy is a most valued commodity (your source of fuel which gets hammered if you're hit without a protective shield), newcomers can take things as suggested whereas braver souls can jump about if they wish.

Each planet has its own environmental challenges from asteroid belts to worm-like spurts of lava. Galaxy Force II utilises an into-the-screen perspective with multiple scrolling layers of sprites used to give an accurate impression of depth and movement. As such, the graphics are pretty stunning for its age. Having been developed on an arcade board (which were far superior to home consoles back in the days) means that Galaxy Force II also boast a booming sound system that perfectly captures the feeling of shooting up tons of airborne enemy forces into bits of scrap metal. However, what really makes the game stand above the rest is its unique arcade cabinet.

You don't sit on a bar stool staring down several inches into a boxed-in screen. Instead, Galaxy Force II puts you in a replica cockpit of a TRX-5 Quasar with the lights from neighbouring arcade systems reflecting off its metallic bulk. As if that wasn't enough to pull you into a temporary state of virtual reality, the entire cockpit swivels around as you negotiate past obstacles, and should you get hit or inadvertently bump into walls or fast-approaching asteroids, the unit jerks you around like mad. Thus, even though flying through the planets isn't always appealing to the eyes -- the culprit being the fortress sections which are made up of a series of relatively bland corridors -- the force feedback and constant kinetic energy makes things infinitely more exciting.

Of course, Galaxy Force II's popularity eventually resulted in it being ported to home consoles, and although they managed to retain the essence of the Shmup (which isn't all that much in the first place), the lack of interactivity turned them into rather boring air assaults that followed a simple formula of outdoor areas to inner fortresses to energy cores (i.e. super lame 'bosses'). Shmups are fun because of two things: insane power-ups and a nail-biting challenge; both of which are absent in Galaxy Force II. However, when you actually jump into an arcade cockpit, things change as everything you pull off affects your own self in real time.

The chances of playing Galaxy Force II how it was intended are now next to zero. Recent Sega Ages re-releases have made it possible to enjoy arcade-perfect emulations, but without the custom-made cockpit cabinets, it just isn't the same. And Galaxy Force II just doesn't deliver much without its motion-based gimmick. It's like playing Dance Dance Revolution on a control pad versus a dance mat; it doesn't work. Overall, this is an average Shmup sporting some cool sprite scaling effects and If it wasn't for an arcade cabinet that rocks the hell out of you, it would have gone unnoticed by the masses.

VERDICT - 7.5/10 Actually it was STILL gone unnoticed by the masses; their permanent loss.
If you are intending to play the Sega Ages compilation, you can knock a full point off my score.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 12/03/07

Game Release: Galaxy Force II (US, 1988)