SHMUPS





Rezon - Allumer









Rezon

Reviewed by Postman

I can think of a “Rezon” why R-Type fans should play this game! It’s almost a duplicate. I mean, talk about Dolly the sheep being the first thing cloned - that’s dead wrong, Rezon the shooter is the first clone. But a clone of R-Type can be a good thing, if you like insanely hard gameplay and memorization style levels. I have to admit that once I saw this game on the MAME work-in-progress page, I could not wait to see how closely this long lost brother would resemble the original version. Is it worth your time? Does it measure up? Let’s take a closer look at what should be a given hit (anything that follows the R-Type formula).

I’m basing this review on the fact that you are familiar with R-Type. Let’s face it, if you are reading this, you’re a shooter fan, and if you’re a shooter fan, you know R-Type. So that’s a safe assumption. Two ways Rezon differs from the Type are - first of all, no power shot. Just plain old regular weapons. Which brings me to complain about lack of firepower. No charge, and three different weapon powerups: the yellow rings, red lasers, and blue bouncing orbs, NONE of which offer substantial firepower at the bosses. This actually increases the difficulty, because there are no quick ways to out blast a boss. “Skillz” are a requirement! Second, the detachable defense pod is replaced by two rods at the top and bottom of the ship. Some weapons allow them to be flipped around, but others only allow a top/bottom orientation. These act as shields, and just like in R-Type, you must master the use of them in order to beat the game. Only problem is, holding the shot button locks them in place, but you can’t fire the weapon and lock at the same time. This makes moving around and working the shields very difficult.

So how’s the gameplay? Well, as I got further into this game, it just kept losing me. First level is great, almost mirroring the Irem classic. Second level changes a bit, which is good, but still lots of fun. From the third level on, the game gets more and more dull. Level five is that evil pattern based block junk, and level six is kinda empty, with lots of screen space and dull enemies. And the final boss is a letdown. So why does this game still have high ratings? It’s still an above average shooter…..just needs to be polished a bit. And should I mention the difficulty? It took me a whole day, plugging away at this one to beat it. Perseverance is a MUST to finish this one. Is it worth playing? Yes, just to compare it to R-Type.



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< Yep, even the title screen is a rip from R-Type. It’s funny how Allumer “creates” a game shortly after Irem...kinda like how you never see Clark Kent and Superman in the same place at the same time...



When I first saw this game on the MAME beta report, all I thought was 'ripoff'! It is so like R-Type that I think it crosses the borderline quite a lot of times, being a complete and dastard ripoff in many sections, like the title screen, or the big ship section. The design of the ship is just _equal_!

I still think it is worth a play, since even while lacking concept originality, it packs a nice challenge, that should appeal to most shmup fans, specially the ones keen to horizontal, pattern-learning, extremely mean R-Type-like games.

- Akira



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