"A good portrait of what a primitive Star Fox could've been"

Despite being relatively unknown, Cosmic Epsilon is such a fun, unorthodox scrolling shooter released by Asmik. Common shooters tend to scroll either horizontally, such as Zanac and 1943, or vertically, such as Abadox and Gradius. Cosmic Epsilon, however, brings a new twist to the genre making the action scroll towards the player; I know there are other games like this, so I can't say if this was the first one to take up on this style, but it likely was one of the first to make it good.

Gameplay: 7/10 - A game with Star Fox style for NES!

As said, in this shooter the action scrolls towards the player, whose view is positioned just behind the ship/robot to be piloted. Yes, your ship can morph into a robot, or perhaps the other way around, since you start the game as the robot, but this is not controllable - each level you'll guide one of them. The only difference between them is that the ship is slightly faster and easier to aim, because its shots are more narrow.

Despite the different point of view, it still plays like a normal shooter. As you fly towards the horizon, hordes of enemies will come shooting at you, and you can take them down either with a twin laser (the default, infinite weapon, which can be charged into a powerful but hard-to-aim energy ball) or homing shots, which never seem to work properly and are limited.

This game delivers a lot on gameplay, as each level is packed with action. There are many different sorts of enemies, and as expected from any good shooter each has its own AI and patterns to be learnt. The level designs themselves are really nice and, along with the bosses, the main strength of the game. Sometimes Cosmic Epsilon feels like a NES version of Star Fox, specially on some levels which seem to have shared the same magical creativity spring. Namely, in one level you'll be avoiding a field of asteroids, and in another one you're inside an enemy ship trying to make your way into the core while avoiding shutting passages. I mean, these ideas are really good for the time, and gives new life to the experience just when you thought you have seen all of it! Our fellow ship goes through three different planets, and each has its own hazards to be faced such as volcanoes or tornadoes.

The boss battles also stand out on this game. Bosses are faced from the same viewpoint, and each of them has its own weak spot which must be found (sort of a downside to the battles, since it's hard to stay still for aiming in this game). Their patterns of action tend to be short and quick to grasp, but they offer great challenge and are always an entertaining part of any level. They are pretty varied too - in one level you'll be facing a tortoise-submarine with homing missiles, and then a giant eye whose shots rain from above the screen.

Power-ups are something missing here, sadly. In this kinda game, they always add up a lot to gameplay. The only thing you can get on the levels are small M-marked containers which account for a lot of extra points (usually enough to be worth an extra try).

Challenge: 6/10 - Lack of extra tries make this a tad too hard

I guess the developers had to go wrong at some point, huh? The levels themselves aren't downright impossible, but the main complaint about this game is that you have only three lives for the whole of it (plus some extras gained by scoring, but those are far between). In this game, though, the enemies don't appear randomly, so you can actually master it by shooting the enemies as soon as they appear by knowing where that'll be. But memorizing every level isn't a really nice way to master a game... some password system would be enough to make this a great fun.

Now about the playing itself. The fact you actually fly towards the screen gives us one main issue here which is not present in other sorts of shooters: sometimes the sprite of your ship shades off incoming bullets. Dying from a shot you couldn't see isn't frequent, but happens. Most often, though, you'll die because you can't tell exactly when a shot is actually near you. They start to grow bigger, but when is it big enough to mean proximity? Training leads to knowing it by sixth sense, but when the screen is filled with shots (boss combats mainly) you sometimes get lost.

I can't complain about this though, it makes the game interesting for me. Dodging is actually easy because most shots are slow, so if you keep moving to a different corner of the screen you'll rarely get shot, save for some few enemies who'll spread random bullets instead of targeted ones. It only gets nasty when you must stay in a single place, say, to aim for a boss's weak spot. You either learn to dodge real quickly or spare a few shots a time, a tedious process. I wish they had made it easier to take down some of the bosses, whose weak spots tend to appear very briefly or are hard to aim because of incoming shots.

Graphics : 7/10 - A good attempt at pseudo 3D

Given the NES capabilities, I'd say they did a pretty good job of giving a pseudo 3D-feel to this game. Specially in the "Star Fox"-esque levels, like when you get to dodge shutting doorways, it really feels like you're in a true 3D-tunnel. The animations between levels are nice, if not weird (at some point you land in what appears to be a flat road floating in outer space?). There are nice details added, like fire spurting from the lava pools, or your laser gun gagging with useless bursts due to overheat (yes, that happens when you give it no break).

The enemy sprites though could use a little more creativity, since most of them look alike or have uninteresting appearance. Well, guess they're to be shot up anyway, but still I'd like to know I'm actually breaking down to debris a masterpiece of design than a boring alien ship - would look more like a loss to them. The bosses in the other hand are really cool, not as much for the work put into design but rather by their very nice animations.

Sound & Music: 7/10 - Music is great for setting the pace of action

The sound effects are nothing to write home about, your usual set of lasers and explosions. The music, however, is quite good! Nothing that got stuck in my mind or got me humming afterwards, but any time the level got swarmed by enemies I could feel the tension building up from the background music, and that's a really nice touch for a game. The music helps in keeping the pace of action, and gets specially somber when the bosses are approaching (even the background gets gloomy). Really a plus.

Lasting Appeal : 5/10 - Nothing much to come back for

Hmm, unfortunately, this game doesn't seem to attract me enough to keep me coming for it. It was great the first time through, but it can get quite boring, specially after you've mastered the levels and the first ones start getting tedious. It's also a downside that it's so hard to get to the final level, because you know you can't just get the cartridge for an effortless, quick and fun play or you'll be facing the first level only. The later levels are the better ones, but you don't get to see them often, so it gets old.

It can still be fun though, but even so I guess other shooters are a lot more so, specially because they have lots of power-ups and/or different ships, like Parodius, and that's usually the stuff that keeps such games interesting. Most old shooters are as well composed of few levels and no extras, but they have on their side such fun customization possibilities.

Still, I'd recommend a play through this forgotten shooter, at least to check the later levels and some cool boss battles - it's a good one-time playing! Of course, if you feel this game is a bit too aged you may rather try Star Fox, which is a lot better and still unaged.

Rundown:
Pros:
+ some well-thought levels and bosses
+ suitable music
Cons:
- hard to advance to later levels, which are the best
- absence of power-ups

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 11/29/05