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<< LEVEL ONE - POLYGON TOWN The first things that really hit you are the sheer colour and obscene brightness of Polystars' world, unless you're unlucky enough to collide with a bullet right away. Which isn't that unlikely actually, considering you will need to get to grips with the viewpoint and the swirling sweeping camera angles. Your path is predetermined, taking you over rooftops, through streets and over parks and gardens, the whole level serving as a fairly simple introduction to the weapons and the kind of enemies you'll meet all through the game - nasty little cute buggers all. |
CENTRAL POLYGON PARK >> Listen, I'm really sorry about some of these shots, they were taken my me with a digital camera whilst actually playing the game too. Luckily, that nice man in Japan, Neogeoman did something techy and fancy and grabbed a lot of decent shots for me too, like the one above. Basically if they are blurry, yucky and bendy, they're mine. Anyway, if you squint closely you can see a Missile and a 3 way powerup - I like the 3 way as it is fairly powerful yet covers a wide spread and with nasties coming at you from all angles you really need it. |
<< POLYGON PARROT THING After a stroll down a street bashing some cute dumptrucks you'll come across Polystar's first proper Boss. The graphics begin to look rather smart here, with some translucent round attacks like you see here. Look how the player has now got a couple of little fishy multiples, beefing up the attack power nicely. All the bosses are pretty fair with their attacks, varied too - and always have a predictable pattern to them. They're lots of fun to suss out! |
POLYGON OCEAN >> Level two now, and the view changes a little, the camera becoming much more fixed and set lower. Quite difficult really as enemy attacks seem to speed up as they become close because of this. Lots of fog evident as well, I suppose if you're going to have fog this is an appropriate level for it. I really really like this level, tons of fishes and submarines jumping in and out the water, ships coasting by with lots of missile and laser attacks. |
<< POLYGON SUBMARINES I thought this was the Boss when I got here, but it's not - just another ship getting in the way. Its about here the first life will be lost if you aren't careful, as the laser streams from some of the ships come thick and fast and require pre-positioning before they come close or consider your dolphin ship skewered. I think it's a dolphin anyway. The polygon count is intentionally low on the graphics, maybe out of necessity, but also because the whole visual style is meant to be angular and boxy. |
POLYGON SQUID BOSS >> Damn this guy - I find him hugely difficult! Mostly because he will wave his arms at you REALLY quickly and spinning round at the same time, leaving you to dodge in and out of them and most likely dying trying. He's a lot of fun to beat though, and I usually giggle with glee at the thought of coming here. If you weren't convinced by this games greatness, get to this boss and you'll understand its something pretty special! |
<< POLYGON PREHISTORIC CENTIPEDE THINGS Could a Playstation do this? Yes, well it probably could - but there's a level of colour, smoothness in textures, and not an awful lot of jagginess - possibly because its softened by an arcade monitor, but it does feel distinctly different from some PS based pcbs I have. Not however the level of graphic whizzery you probably would expect from M2's hype. Anyway this is Level three, and it's beautiful, with lots of little box men running about, little dinosaurs, a volcano, fireballs and these segmented centipede style enemies. Just stunning to play and look at! |
LOVE & PEACE! >> Better stop with the Polygon whatever titles now, annoying aren't they? Tricky boss, a dinosaur made up of boxes, plenty varied attacks including a really unwelcome flame breath, boxing gloves which home in unerringly, and during all this he just loves to roam around the whole screen intent on bashing you in. |
<< TRAINS EVERYWHERE! Yes, Polystars is an on-rails shmup. Sorry. Utterly brilliant level - four - which twists and snakes and zooms along the gulleys following the train tracks at high speed. Completely exhilarating stuff! |
CATCH THE CHOO CHOO!>> It was really hard to take pics here as I was getting dizzy and the sheer speed of movement made capturing screens a nightmare. Here we've escaped a bunch of flying dragon thingies (maybe escaped Pterodactyls from level 3) and are chasing a cute little steam train. Again, I thought he was the boss, but nope, he's just a wee guy again. |
<< NEARING BOSS TERRITORY! A long ride up a canyon with many laser attacks brings on an impending sense of doom as it gets clear that the boss is near! Mind and grab as many weapons as you can here, being fully tooled is an absolutely necessity for this end of level guardian. I prefer to go for full Vulcan Power for him. |
CHANGING TRACKS >> Ahahah I love this guy! He's got 5 rails to ride on, and can switch tracks by stepping on each with his wheeled legs. This is normally about as far as I get on a credit, even with lots of practice. His weapons include a large spread of yellow blasts which always finish me off. |
<< COMING BEHIND YOU! One attack thats great, but easy to out-manoeuvre is when he rushes in from the side, and you have to escape round the top of the screen as he clunks his way over the foreground. Watch out for missiles as he does this though! |
ISLAND HARBOUR >> Probably the most normal level in the game, a very high and fairly fixed viewpoint now. Use your missile attacks to scoot down and blast through the cargo barges. Nice dual level gameplay here, as you take out the flying enemies above. Ok, all levels feature this but some more so than others. |
<< POLYGON PLANE!! This is just wonderful stuff - the sense of scale and depth is outstanding. About the least cute and most realistic you will get in Polystars, a nice change from the sickly cuteness of previous levels. Reminds me a lot of Raystorm this level! |
BACK TO THE CUTENESS >> Fierce and NASTY! This giant attack chopper/plane thing really will test the best - it just comes in so fast and so thickly weaponed that dodging is a matter of luck sometimes. Must master him someday!! |
<< PSYCHEDELIC POLYGONS! Thanks again to Neo for some decent pics of this really dark level - which features some brilliant lighting effects and intense, claustrophobic gameplay. Tight spaces don't help survival! |
POLYGON PORTCULLIS >> Watch out for this barrier appearing because if you don't shoot it early enough, you'll end up bashing right into it. Swarms of insanely cute flying enemies do their utmost to stop you reaching... |
<< ... BLOCK MAN! How basic can we get? Ghostly heads pop up from a circle of blocks, and Block Man (for that is what I call him) throws sparkly fizzing bombs your way. Felt slightly disappointing this, not really a patch on earlier bosses in the fun stakes. |
WHAT LEVEL IS THIS? >> I think I've lost track here - six or seven maybe... Not sure how many levels it has, as I have yet to see the end. Trying not to spoil it you see, so when I got here I stopped throwing in the credits for reviewing purposes and left it at that! Looks to be a cool level, way above the clouds with lots of tiny buildings far far below, and huge hexagonal platforms floating in the air. One thing I did notice is that slowdown isn't very evident even when it gets massively busy. Lovely! |
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