SHMUPS!

STARSOLDIER
HUDSONSOFT - NES
Reviewed by Roger

Um....well.....if this isn't the first shooter ever made, it sure fooled me. While the graphics aren't good, and the music is soooo repetitive that you have to turn the sound down, Star Soldier has one lasting quality: FUN! Though this game may be a stinker, it is fun to play.

This is your most basic, low level shooter, literally just shoot the enemies until you reach the boss, the star brain, which you have to kill within a limited amount of time, or else do the level over! (!) Along the way, you can uncover hidden "Z"s for bonus points. The bosses are the same up to level four, where you face a super star brain....Star Soldier is basically the same level and boss over and over (like a cheap Twilight Zone episode...), but is a very nice trainer for newbie shooters, or people who like to say "Back in my day, we didn't have fancy 3-D polygon games....."

So what's an old, and to be honest, pretty poor effort like this doing here? Star Soldier is Hudson's early historical starting point for a whole slew of much better shooters which followed, including Super Star Soldier, Final Soldier, Star Parodier, and Soldier Blade - all of them excellent vertical blasters. Sadly though, Hudson's latest shootemup in the series, the Nintendo 64 Star Soldier Vanishing Earth, reverts back to the standard of this game, offering poor graphics and sound, and desperately contrived gameplay, and lacking any moments of brilliance whatsoever.

SCORE: 4/10


A shot of level one, which could be level two, or three..........I don't know if this is emulation's fault or the game's, but your ship passes behind some backgrounds and your shots get blocked, which is very annoying.	Here's the boss for this and the next two rounds. Remember: you're timed.


Level three looks a little different.....those circle things heat seek you, then after being shot turn into red-centered jellyfish that sway back and forth....they also appear in later Star Soldier games.	Not the sort of thing that happens to you every day: "Sorry, boss, I couldn't come into work today, my brain escaped"


Finally something new... Can't fault the programmer's imagination here. Ooh, what'll we call this boss then? How about Grazrork Pulstar Annihilator? Destroyer Mothership Molzzrig ?? Nah, let's call it Big Star Brain...	Sadly, I have yet to beat the big star brain in the allotted time limit......that just says how bad this game really is...but remember, if not for this, we wouldn't have learned enough for the sequels!

TOP | HOME