Einhander

"Kurz gesagt ein schönes Meisterwerk gebildet von Squaresoft!"

Well, my first review. Please, excuse the poor German for my title; I used a translator for it, so it probably didn't come out all that well. But, enough idle chat, onto the review.

STORY: 9
Over 100 years ago, a colony on the South Pole of the moon was set up, called Selene. It was a prosperous city. Earth’s forces later challenged the colony’s independence, and an interplanetary war, later called the “First Moon War”, erupted.

It was a very bloody war, which resulted in high casulties and scarred both the Moon and the Earth. Unable to fight any longer, the war came to a halt, without a formal treaty. The nations of the Earth banded together in one nation and called themselves the “empire”.

50 years later, in the year of 2422, Selene, in need of agricultural resources found only on Earth, rekindled the war. With superior weaponry, the Selene troops won many battles in what was now called the “Second Moon War”. Earth’s resources, however, slowly changed the tides of the war, and Selene was forced to retreat.

However, not to give up so easily, Selene sent in highly advanced, prototype fighters to Earth on one-man suicide missions. Surprisingly, these missions went well, and on December 12th, 2245, Selene sent out three more suicide fighters on a final mission. And that is to recon. an enemy capital.
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Finally! A game where were not trying to save the Earth. Instead, you’re an extremely brave pilot sent to Earth on a suicide mission.

Original (AFAIK), futuristic setting with some futuristic weapons, and you come from the Moon too! The story part of this review is taken from the prologue, which I have put into my own words, so it may not be as perfect as the prologue write-up, but it’s close.

GAMEPLAY: 10
The gameplay is excellent. There are three fighters to choose from (Each having their own different advantages), as well as numerous gunpods (More on those later), 12 or 14, I think (Not sure). The three fighters have their own style, such as the Endymion FRS Mk. II which, has one machine gun, but is highly flexible. Or the Endymion FRS Mk. III, which, while it can hold only one gunpod, makes up for it in having two machine guns. Or the Astraea FGA Mk. I even, which holds and can fire two gunpods at once!

Now, you’re probably asking, what are “gunpods”? Well, gunpods are secondary weapons, if you will. Held and fired by your manipulator arm (Which is a gunpod itself, you can attack with it, but it’s of short range and really doesn’t do much damage), they do more damage than your standard weapon, the machine gun. And have their own uses. An example being the vulcan, which has about the same power (or less, maybe, not really sure) as the machine gun, however, fires faster and thus is more effective against light armored enemies (Not to say that the standard weapon that you have is ineffective, it just fires slower). Or the cannon, which will obliterate (and keep going, allowing to hit more than one target at once) any light armored target, will rip the armor off of a heavier enemy (Like a cruiser) and will do some good damage to a boss. These are only a few of the weapons in the game, for there are many more. You will first start the game off with nothing but your manipulator arm, but as you pick up gunpods, you can select that gunpod (That you picked up) to start out with when you start another game. Or, obtained rather, because if you ditch, say the vulcan after picking it up to get a WASP, you’ll still be able to start out with the vulcan if you play another game).

Scoring is neat, too. On the lower right part of your screen, there is a small counter that can go up from 1 to 16 (The number, I think, is called a “multiplier”). Each enemy that you destroy, the multiplier will go up by 1, and you’ll receive double the normal points for that enemy (The multiplier will slowly go down. The speed at which it goes down is dependent on how high the multiplier is. Unless it reaches 16, then it will stay up for a little while to allow you to gain a massive amount of points), or whatever number it is at, it will multiply the points the enemy you destroyed gives you by that number. This can be a factor depending on if you get a high score or a low score.

This game, as well, is super hard. I, for the life of me, wonder why they named the difficulties “Easy”, “Medium”, and “Hard”. They could be much better classified as “Impossible”, “Impossible”, and, you guessed it, “Impossible”. I don’t know how many times I tried beating this game alone on easy. I was able to beat it after a lot of practice, and that is a feat in itself.

Don’t be detoured from the challenge, however, what made this game so much fun is the challenge itself. You will get frustrated, you will come into spots where the enemy throws so much stuff at you that there would be no way to dodge, your ship’s wings will detach and your ship will disintegrate. You’ll throw your controller in anger, you’ll turn off the game all ticked that you can’t get through this part. After a few hours of cooling off, though, you’ll come back to try again, and then you’ll be back right where you started… To cut the drama, this is a very hard, very challenging game, but that’s what makes it so fun!

There is, however, one other thing other than bragging rights to beating this game, and that is a gallery. Numerous pictures, some of which (The gunpod pictures) can be unlocked by acquiring that gunpod. However, to open up the rest of the gallery, you’ll have to beat the game on a certain difficulty (Easy, medium, hard). So, to complete the gallery, you’ll have to beat the game on all modes, easy, medium, and hard. Should give you plenty of incentive to try to beat this game, as some of the pictures are cool.

If you do certain things (Kill certain mid bosses or bosses certain ways, destroy certain enemies or destroy certain stuff) you’ll get bonuses. There are three per level, and supposedly, you’ll get something if you get enough. Not that I’ve been able to do that yet, and I’m not telling what it is (if what I’ve seen on the FAQs for the game are true).

GRAPHICS: 9
The backgrounds are good and fitting. The high-rise buildings in the first level are detailed, with lights on and off, simulating a city in early nighttime. The clouds, when able to be seen, are also a shade of different colors, from a sunset orange to a gray. Even better, the spacing of the clouds is almost perfect, and looks very real. The sprites are nicely done too. The textures and designs that were used came out pretty well, and the ships have a futuristic look to them.

This game, while 2D, has depth. Enemies coming to oppose you can be either in the foreground (Closer to the screen than you are) or in the background, and you can’t kill them (Unless you use the homing missiles on the WASP), nor can they kill you, until they line up with you. Despite the 2D looks, the 2D gameplay and whatnot, the graphics are still pretty good, especially being 2D.

The explosions weren’t really all that good, except for some of the boss explosions, which die in varying ways. Whether an explosion is good or not though really is not all that detrimental to whether a game is good or not, so it doesn’t matter that much.

There’s even a few small things like empty cannon, spreader (Another gunpod), or vulcan shells will fall after being used. It is neat to see the empty shells fall as you fire that particular weapon. You can even see a little bit of fire coming out of the back-end of the WASP when it is fired. The vulcan, cannon, and numerous other weapons have a little bit of fire coming out of the muzzle when you fire them. Small, subtle details like this, while nothing on the scale of the backgrounds or the enemies you go up against, do spice up the graphics a good bit.

MUSIC: 9
The music was pretty good. Not sure what it is exactly, some of it sounds like techno, and some of it sounds different. I’ve heard it called techno before (By another reviewer, I think), but I’m honestly, not sure. Either way, it’s pretty good. Not much I can really say for the music other than that.

SOUND: 7
The sound didn’t impress me much; it just didn’t sound real. The vulcan, the cannon, the WASP, the spreader (and most of the other weapons), the sounds for firing them, just, well, didn’t sound that great. Nor did the sounds for the explosions. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying they’re bad or anything, as they have a distinctive sound to them, and do come out pretty well. They just didn’t appeal to me that much.

REPLAYABILITY: 8
Well, there’s a gallery you can try to unlock, high scores you can try to achieve, and gunpods to gather. Plus trying to beat the game on all difficulty settings. Not a lot, but not too few, either. Should be fun though, trying to unlock the gallery or trying to beat your old scores.

OVERALL: 9
Great graphics, great gameplay, excellent music, good sound, great game. Thank you, Squaresoft.
Buy or rent? Definitely buy. If you can find a copy, buy. You definitely won’t go wrong with this great side-scrolling shooter.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 05/10/01, Updated 05/10/01