Thunder Force III

"The breaker of soooo many sterotypes of shooters."

This game is the centerpiece of the classic cult shooter series Thunder Force, made here in late 1990 by Techno Soft and distributed by Hot-B.

Here's the plot in a nutshell: the evil Empire of Lone gives some devestating assails on the virtuous Galaxy Union, The Galaxy Union gets more and more outnumbered, The Galaxy Union creates the STYX through project Thunder Force 3- a final resort with two pilots whose mission is to go to the Lone Star System and blow up everything that moves, blah blah blah.

The premise of the game is the same as any other shooter; the screen scrolls forward slowly while you avoid shots, collect new weapons and blast anything in your path.
Back to the weapons, this game has added and removed a few weapons since it's prequel. There are seven weapons on the game:
1. Twin shot: your starting weapon. It fires from the top and bottom of ship (through mysteriously invisible guns).
2. Backfire: very similar to the ''double'' shots on Gradius; one bullet fires from the front, and the other fires from the back.
3. Lancer: triangle shaped shots that fires exactly like the twin shots from the back and gives one shot from the front.
4. Wave: overall the most effective weapon for bosses; it fires small waves that get slightly bigger as they advance.
5. Fire: single shots from the front and wall scaling vertical missles from the sides.
6. Sever: a very powerful double laser that fires one at a time.
7. Hunter: my favorite. Rapid firing shiny little circles that quickly home in on enemies, but are very weak.
You can hold every weapon on the game at once.

There are also two accesories:
1. Claw: similar to the Gradius Options, but better. This is a two-pack of guns that circle around you, triple whatever shots you use, AND blocks small shots.
The hunt and the claw is a VERY dangerous and cheap combination!
2. Shield: what do you THINK?

You're probably asking, ''so what REALLY seperates this from The R-types, Gradius games and other shooters? You'll see.........

OVERVIEW I

GAMEPLAY: 10!

Your ship is very easy to control, you don't need any items to change your speed- all you have to do is push a button to go slow, medium, fast or VERY fast.
The weapons were (in fact, ARE) very inventive and effective and the fast-paced action never has you bored and always has you manuvering.

LEVEL DESIGN (I changed the order for this game): 10!

There are six planets secured by the Empire to waste (no, trust me, there are only six- no extras whatsoever!). Here are some:
HYDRA: the forest planet that has enemies such as deadly flowers (I don't mean ninjas) that pop out of the ground. The boss is a colossal robotic dragon plant (it looks a lot cooler than it sounds) as a boss.

It's a very easy level as forest I'm concerned:)

GORGON: a hell of a planet... Really! I mean the planet is an inferno!
HAIDES: a very annoying seismic planet where the walls keep caving in and the ground keeps elevating.
SEIREN: an equally refurbishing underwater level where water pressure slowly pushes you upwards. The boss is a cyber-crab.
ELLIS: an ice planet.
If I keep on at this pace it might as well be a FAQ! So that's enough.

GRAPHICS: 10!

Beau-ti-ful! The native surroundings of each planet couldn't be any better! Although a few of the levels are full of the same drab shades of grey, Ellis is very vivid and majestic. The big friggin' ship level that must be on every shooter looks nice too.
But NOTHING beats the amazing effects on planet Gorgon! The twisting flames on that level look better than ANYTHING ON THE GENESIS! Period! You have to see it to believe it!

SOUND: 7

Um... Interesting. Pretty unexplainable.... Just interesting.
Nothing sounds like it's supposed to, but nothing's aggravating either.

MUSIC: 9

Again, hard to explain.
Anyone remember Commadore 64 music? The cool music of this game sounds a lot like your average Commadore 80's tecno. The theme songs of Haides and Gorgon are especially invigorated.

CHALLENGE: 6-8+

Back to what really seperates this game from other shooters; it has REAL challenge! Not cheap ploys to make the game longer. Here are four reasons how (Konami, Irem and Squaresoft- TAKE SOME DAMN NOTES!!!)

1. When you die, you don't lose ALL of your weapons! You only lose the weapon you're using when you get destroyed. Unless you like it that way- then you can play on the hard or mania modes.
The mode also determines how many times the enemies shoot at you and how many hits it takes to beat the bosses.

2. No cheap-@## hits- warnings are given BEFORE a giant fireball appears in the middle of the screen! They almost always give you a chance to manuver.

3. When you die, they DON'T start you back at the beginning of the level! You start back EXACTLY where you were so there is an actual diffrence between lives and continues!

Most of all?

4. YOUR NORMAL SHOTS CAN ACTUALLY DO SOMETHING!!!!! Even if you do lose all of your weapons you won't be left with a pea-shooter!

Despite how hard this game can be sometimes, the last boss of the game is a total WASTE!

Amatures, want to know a cheap albeit less fun way to make the game easier? Just frequently pause it when the action gets too hot.

REPLAY VALUE: 7

You'll probably be done with it for a few years after you finish all four modes.
You might want to try without any special weapons after a while.

OVERVIEW II

YES!: the game has innovative weapons, real challenge without being cheap, and huge bosses.

NO!: the game is somewhat short, the last boss is a letdown, and the ending is the same as most shooters.

SAY WHAT?: both Thunder Force 2 and this one were the first ''next generation'' system shooters.
They remade this game on the SNES over a year afterwards and called it ''Thunder Spirits''. Amazingly, the SNES version is nowhere near as audio or visually good as this one. Plus, you can't select the planet order on that one.

OVERALL: 10!

This is at least one of the best five shooters of all time. You can't find any shooters like this. Everything about it is above average except for the plot.
If you want a shooter where you'll except losing without breaking a controller, or just want top-quality action, give it a try.

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 09/13/00, Updated 09/13/00