"The best beat'em up to come out in a lot time."

Summary :

The Red Star is based on a graphic novel by Christian Gosset about a Soviet Russia that is wrapped in mythic and sci fi elements. Picture Russia with some mixture of technology and sorcery. I've never read this graphic novel but you don't have to if you want to enjoy an awesome beat'em up.

With developers starting to move over to the next generation consoles, it's nice to see that XS Games took a chance and published a gem such as this one on the PS2. Archangel Studios and Union did a fantastic job of putting this game together.

Presentation/Graphics :

The hud and menus have a slick and polished look to them. All the character models and enemies have good animations and the guns. Even the upgrades have a visual change to them. It shows that there was a lot of care put into this game. Many of the visual effects are reminiscent of Ikaruga as you'll see barrage after barrage of enemy fire flying at you as go through each level.

Whenever new enemies are introduced, you can hit select to see a small description of the enemy next to the model. It highlights the weaknesses for each enemy and tips on how to defeat them. This keeps the player well informed and allows players who don't want to read the descriptions to just not hit select. Pretty cool feature.

Gameplay/Controls :

Simply put, this game is hard. But it's just hard enough to keep you coming back for more and not complete deter you from ever coming back. You have one of 2 selectable characters to choose from with one unlockable character when you actually manage to beat the game.

Mikita is the speedster with long melee combo chains. Kyuzo is the slow hulkish brute of a character with powerful melee attacks and heavy fire weapons. The unlockable character, Maya, is a sorcery type.

The combat is broken up into melee and gunplay. Each level comes with your standard waves of enemies with mid bosses and end-level bosses. At the end of each level, you're graded on your performance and accumulate points with which you can buy new weapons, upgrade weapons, armor, and protocol (super move) upgrades.

Gun play is handled with a lock on button. Once you lock on you can circle strafe around your enemy. Unfortunately, you can't switch targets without reactivating the lock on and it only locks on to the nearest enemy. This can be frustrating at times but it's forgivable because you can still get through most situations without too much trouble. Overall, the control is still really tight and responsive so you're able to do what you need to do without too much problems. There's also a heat gauge that keeps you from just constantly firing your weapons.

The melee combat system has several different elements that keep the gameplay from being repetitious. First of all, there's a block button with a meter. You can only block up til your gauge fills up. You can also use alternate and more devastating moves by holding down the R1 button and using the analog stick in different directions. The recovery time from these moves coupled with the block button create a really good balance for your characters. You don't feel overpowered but you can still deal a great amount of damage.

There is one obligatory vehicle level that is a side scrolling flight shooter like Gradius. It's fun for the most part and it does give you a break from the action. It almost seems like a tribute to the old arcade shooter days of Raiden.

Co-op is another great feature that is a no brainer for a title such as this one. You can choose to use the same characters or different characters. You won't get one player getting screwed from the point distribution at the end of the level because each player gets graded on his/her own merits. If your partner does as well as you do, you both get the same grade and the same amount of points.

Story :

The one unfortunate thing about the Red Star is the how little the backstory was utilized. There's an entire graphic novel on this world but the developers chose to leave most of it out. Perhaps they didn't have a good way to present it, but I could have seen them make use of comic book pages straight out of the comic to highlight some of the big plot elements. Perhaps it didn't figure well into the game's level designs but it seems like something that could have at least been highlighted a bit.

Overall:

Aside from the weakness in story, everything about this game is a tribute to the old school beat-em up days of Final Fight and Streets of Rage. There's plenty of action and lots of fun through the game. So grab a buddy and play through some old school beat-em up goodness. The fun factor along with tight controls and a good layer of polish make this a near perfect game.

Score : 9/10

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 12/07/07

Game Release: The Red Star (US, 04/23/07)