Arrow Flash

"Hmm. When you rip off but so many games at once, it actually makes it innovative!"

Arrow Flash is one of Renovation's many shooters for the Genesis. It came out in 1990. I never really played this type of game back in the day- probably because I thought Gradius 3 was about as good as shooters would get (thanks to a- certain magazine that begins with an E.....). In the last year or so, they've the absolute cheapest games at Funcoland, so I'm exploring the wondrous universe of shooters now.

Since my copy of this game didn't come packaged with the book, and the intro doesn't explain much at all, for your convenience, I'm giving this game the default shooter plot:

''The evil _____ and his empire of _____ from the _____ galaxy is constantly attacking the Earth. The Earth's forces lost many of battles and the future of the planet looks bleak. So it's up to a last-ditch effort from the Earth's ultimate spaceship, the _____, to put an end to the evil _____ and his _____ empire in the ultimate battle!''

Here's how the gameplay goes: you can select between two forms anywhere during the game. One is the normal spaceship mode and the other is a humanoid Gundam-style robot suit. There are also these cute little special moves called Arrow Flashes. In the ship form, an Arrow Flash fires a large barrage of lasers in an arrow formation. In the Cyborg form, it puts the suit in a force field that makes you invincible and allows you to fry enemies for a few seconds. You can choose two Arrow Flash styles: one mode has it so you can collect up to 16 from icons, and the other mode is R-type-style where you fire them by charging for 3 to 5 seconds (how long the button's held decides the power slightly). Like on most shooters, there are also special weapons, although they're only three. One is a rapid wave blaster, another is a powerful laser and the other is a swiveling laser. And of course you have a shield item that can take three shots. Last but not least, there is the ever-so-popular ''option'' back-up blaster. You can gather up to two at once and eventually add heat seeking missiles to them. All of the special weapons have very slight differences in direction when you transform.

OVERVIEW

GAMEPLAY: 8

Okay, so the weapon selection is about as exciting as an N' Sync album, but I really like the idea of being able to transform and change your arsenal whenever you want. I'm also fond of the idea of holding special moves in stock, but the idea of charging them is almost as cool. The control on those moves is very simple too. You can transform and fire Arrow Flashes with the simple push of a button. Your ships are a bit slow, but that can be overlooked easily

DESIGN: 6

The levels themselves usually have no real difference to them. They all look different, but very few have obstacles in them. There are a couple with asteroids and mountains and such, but they are few and far between.

My biggest qualm with the game is the enemy collection; through almost every level of the game, you fight these goofy, puny turtle-like creatures. Most of the time that you fight new enemies, they're just those same stupid turtles with different shots and color designs. You also fight a couple of tiny ships and ground guns here and there, but overall the enemy selection is poor and a bit repetitive at times, but it never really gets boring. The bosses aren't the best looking things out there either, but they're pretty entertaining. The second boss has a cool pattern in which it fires a few times, charges at you, then spreads out it's guns and does a 5 second full fledged assault that's hard to dodge, but also makes it very open to attack. The third boss has a confusing stretchy gun that swivels around while firing lasers at you.

GRAPHICS: 8

The backgrounds can either be very average or very cool. Half of the levels just have backgrounds full of wasted space (no pun intended) in total black save for a few stars. Later, the game takes you through much more interesting landsca- er- skyscapes. One level is covered in red clouds. As you descend (you heard me- descend), the clouds get brighter and brighter until they're almost white, then darker and darker until they're dark purple. A few of the levels have that cool ''vertigo'' feel to them. There are a few milked levels like a plant zone that looks pretty similar to those on Gradius 3 and Thunder Force 3. But with all of that, don't expect any very colorful and majestic enemies. Your ship has a decent white and blue design that looks like an R-type/Thunder Force hybrid. The bosses have decent designs too.

SOUND: 6+

They're kind of weird, but they never get annoying. Some of the shots sound like zippers moving. One actually sounds like a real laser blaster- I mean- like one would expect a laser blaster to sound. But most of them make weird sounds. And other than those of the weapons, you hardly hear any sounds at all.

MUSIC: 7

The music is almost as bizarre. The second level has an extremely strange high-pitched violin-style keyboard used in it- yet it still manages to keep that ''shooter'' feel to it. Another level has slightly synthesized music that sounds like a screaming ghost. One song even has a striking resemblance to the ''Garden of Eden'' rock song. Although some of the music can be catchy and interesting, most of it is just your average 80's keyboard-style shooter music.

CHALLENGE: 5 to 7+/COOLNESS IN CHALLENGE: 8

There are quite a few ways you can challenge yourself. Renovation did a good job to try to ensure that everyone is challenged, but not too much. You can choose between easy, normal and hard, 3, 5 and 7 players and even rapid or manual shooting! Like all Renovation shooters, you continue at the exact point you were in if you lose a life. I always like that. The only problem with the challenge is the way you can get unstoppable once you get fully powered up. By the time the enemies get lucky enough to destroy the shield by hitting it three times, you'll already have a new shield accumulated! Because of this, after a few play-throughs, I beat the game only losing two lives!..... But if you lose those at certain points, the game is near impossible!

Oh, and that last boss is THE saddest I've ever seen on a shooter! And I've seen some pretty sad last bosses on shooters!

REPLAY VALUE 6+

They're only 6 stages, but it's not too bad. You can lower your lives and higher the difficulty level as you get better (unless your a master like ME). No matter how good you are, you'll probably enjoy at least finishing it once with charge Arrow Flashes and once with them in Stock. You'll probably want to finish it a few of times anyway, then once a year.

OVERVIEW II

COSMIC!

*the innovative transforming
*the cool Arrow Flashes
*interesting backgrounds
*there are lots of ways to play
*the fun bosses
*absolutely no sign of slowdown

WASTED SPACE

*the special weapons aren't too ''special'' at all
*most of the normal enemies are extremely dull
*the lack of obstacles
*the game is always either very hard or very easy- never a perfect difficulty

KEY MOMENTS

Most of the bosses.

WORD TO THE WISE

Never be afraid to use an Arrow Flash- you're better off wasting one than losing everything because you think ''oh, I can handle that!''.

SAY WHAT?

Renovation made almost ten shooters in two years. I see that it's up to me to review probably ALL of them!

OVERALL: 7+

This isn't a bad game at all. It has some pretty good ideas that were never used again. Although a better selection of enemies would've made this a much better game, I still recommend this game to any shooter fans. Besides, it's only 1.99 :)

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 12/01/00, Updated 12/01/00