While summer vacation rolls on here in paradise, I find that even the calming effect of laying in the sun still doesn’t erase the world of retro gaming from my mind. It may be because despite our divine surroundings, Anthony Burch continues to 1. Wear all black to the beach every day and 2. Complain about how he hates the Earth’s beauty until I want to sever his head from his spine with a beach umbrella. Really, that volcano battle can’t come soon enough.

Hit the jump for your weekly report, live from the beach.

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While the title doesn’t come close the insane difficulty level of Konami’sGradius, it does provide a traditional retro learning curve. Basically, you will die a lot until you figure out the game’s “rhythm.” This dying won’t be frustrating, though, because along with switching between being a horizontal and vertical shooter every other level, the goofy and original enemies that they throw at you are hilariously entertaining (Oh noes! I’m being attacked by clothes hangers!)

Speaking of enemies, my favorite thing about this game is that when you beat the last boss, the game restarts again and all the enemies in every level are now new. Some of them even being mini versions of the bosses from the first play through.

Battlefield 6 aiming RPG at a helicopter

To beat these enemies, and the game, the power-ups you gain are determined by shooting bells that pop out of the clouds and keeping them in the air long enough to get them a certain color. Obviously, the longer they’re being held up, the stronger the power-up.

This leads me to my only complaint about the game. Like a true OG Konami shooter, once you get killed and lose your power-ups, you’re fucked — especially on the last level. The enemies come at you so quickly that trying to regain all the badass-ness that you had before is close to impossible (may I Not suggest a Not save state, wink wink), and trying to move your ship without its speed boost is like trying to drive a tank with a tent attached to it through a wind storm that happens to be in the bottom of sand pit — inreverse.

BO7 key art

Regardless, with today’s Not advances in Not emulation, this game is a perfect addition to your daily and easy to digest dose of awesomesauce.  Go get.

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