Choujikuu Yousai Macross: Scrambled Valkyrie

"An Average Shooter"

Macross: Scrambled Valkyrie is a 1 player horizontal scrolling shooter for the Super Famicom, its very similar to games like Gradius, you choose a pilot and fly a ship called the Valkyrie that can transform between 3 different modes, the Valkyrie has a different weapon and speed in each mode and the weapons are different for each pilot, you can power up your weapons 2 times and you can pick up certain enemies to help you when you're not shooting and the Valkyrie starts glowing, Macross is an anime and is known to most people in the US as Robotech

Gameplay - this is one of those shooters that revolves around memorizing enemy locations, you will get hit alot of times from enemies that just pop out from the top or bottom of the screen and sometimes even behind you, its a little frustrating and its cheap but this game is very easy once you memorize the enemy locations and figure out the patterns of the bosses and sub-bosses, the controls are excellent, you can configure them any way you want, they're very responsive and the shots fire automatically when you leave your finger on the fire button

Story - there's no story and there are no cutscenes, I was really surprised and disappointed by this because this game is based on an Anime

Audio/Video - the graphics and sound are average, there's nothing here that's too terrible but there's nothing that will blow you away either, the enemies and bosses only have about one or two frames of animation

Replayability - there are 7 levels in the game and 3 difficulty settings, this game can be beaten in about 2-3 hours the first time around and alot less if you replay it, you can try out the game again with each of the 3 characters but I had no urge to play the game again after beating it

To buy or to rent? - I've seen Macross selling for upwards of $60 - $70, I don't think its worth it because there's nothing about this game that stands out other than having the Macross license, the developers didn't seem to put much effort into this game, I'm also not a big fan of trial and error gameplay, particularly for shooters because I think games like this should rely on reflexes rather than memorizing the layout of the game, if you're a fan of the anime, you're probably going to want to buy this game regardless of a review and that's probably what the developers were banking on

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 03/25/02, Updated 03/25/02