天下制覇

The first of many games I’m looking forward to.

I actually haven’t had a chance to play the full version yet, but since they put up a trial on their site covering the intro, Aya, and Patchy’s stages, that works for me. My first thoughts are "Good lord, this is hard." Not so much the game itself, but keeping track of all the buttons. Timestop, jump, and dash (also autocollects), plus you’ll need to be holding attack the whole time and maneuvering right and left. This also isn’t helped by some janky hit detection leading to surprise deaths. Sloped paths are really bad. It’s not strange at all to get stuck in the little valleys in Aya’s stage and pick up surprise deaths while innocently running along. The music could also be… more varied. I’m really really sick of that Flowering Night riff now, and I’ve only played 2.5 stages for around 30 minutes. The bosses are also pretty lame, each having only one attack and most of the time, you can just bull your way through. 

It’s still fun and I do love a challenge. Having the screen occasionally be covered in death beams is also amusing in its own sick little way. Thank god it awards you 4-5 extra lives just for beating a stage. You’ll need them. I can’t even imagine what later/extra stages will be like. These levels weren’t quite to the point where Battletoads would cry, but I can imagine it forcing you to timestop platforms in certain positions to jump off them to airdash through spikes.

You can pick up the trial here.