Image Fight & X-Multiply

"Great for R-Type and Irem fans!"

This import retro shooter disk contains arcade perfect ports of two Irem shooters that very few people know about. Many diehard shooter fans know that Irem is best known for their awesome R-Type series, but did you know that they made many other excellent shooters like Image Fight? How about X-Multiply? If not, I don't blame you. From my knowledge, Image Fight was little seen in US arcades, and X-Multiply was only in Japan. These shooters may be unknowns to most of you, but make no mistake that both of these games are as great as the legendary R-Type series. After all, Irem made these games!

Image Fight (1988)

This game is a very difficult vertical-scrolling shooter. It has 8 stages with detailed graphics (for a 1988 game), great music, difficult bosses (one boss shoots several homing lasers that force you to stay in a very small space, ouch!), and a wide assortment of weapons. (9 to be exact) You also collect red and blue pods that act like those bit power ups in R-Type. The red pods allow you to shoot in 16 directions, and the blue pods shoot in a fixed forward direction. Much like R-Type, you can launch these pods into enemies as a powerful attack! Plus, you can control the speed of your ship. Overall, an excellent but difficult shoot-em-up.

X-Multiply (1989)

My personal favorite of the two! It is another difficult side-scrolling 7 stage shooter in the same vein as R-Type, but much more organic! You control a ship with tentacles (yes, tentacles!) that has to destroy every alien parasite inside a dying human body. the neat thing about the gameplay as the fact that you can use those tentacles as flails to piece your enemies or use them as shields to block enemy shots! You have a choice to use three different weapons. The default blue crystal only shoots regular shots and shoots homing missiles when the power-up is obtained the second time. The red crystal allows your ship to shoot plasma beams that pierce though enemies, and the yellow crystal allows your ship to shoot in 16 directions and make your tentacles more harmful to enemies. The graphics are well drawn, especially the bosses (one boss spans about 4 or 5 screens long like that warship in R-Type), and the music is very creepy and alien like which fits in the organic theme easily. This great shooter alone is worth the price of this disk!

In conclusion, you will like this disk if:

1) You like old-school shooters.
2) Like 2D games.
3) Like R-Type.
4) Like classic games.
5) Want to own every Irem game.

You will hate it if you:

1) Hate 2D.
2) Hate shooters.
3) Hate R-Type.

Good luck finding a copy since it is one of the more rare PSone imports. If you manage to find a copy, don't hesitate to buy it!

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 09/29/02, Updated 09/29/02