Infinos Gaiden

Эталонный пример классического аркадного скролл-шутера. Такую игру можно легко представить на старой консоли вроде Sega Saturn. Горизонталка, без буллет хелла и нестандартных механик, несколько видов оружия, кнопка управления опшнами, уровни с разнообразными ландшафтами, круто анимированные и уничтожаемые по частям боссы, крутейший саундтрек. Что-то в этой игре придётся позаучивать, но без перебора. Годнота!

While it's mostly a good shooter, it has that stupid backwards shmup mentality that you need a ton of power-ups to even fly at a decent speed and do any damage, so dying once completely screws your entire run and you're left dying 25 times in a row within seconds of each other since you don't have enough power to kill enemies before the screen is full of shots and you don't have the speed to dodge anything. What is even the point of giving you all these extra lives and credits if you're practically forced to beat the game on one life?

Picorinne (a developer that is mostly a single person) already showed a lot of promise with Battle Crust, but this far surpasses it while staying true to the principle of maintaining old shoot-em-up design. Right from the 4:3 aspect ratio and the intro, Infinos Gaiden looks like something you'd see run on MAME, precisely from the 1993–95 timeframe. Compared to Battle Crust, which could be even a little drab at times, this game is much more colorful and sports some top-notch spaceship and mecha designs. Even better than the graphics is the amazing soundtrack, once again a collaboration with composer Hyakutaro Tsukumo; I especially love the tracks of levels 3 and 6, but also the tense boss theme. Don't go in expecting your ship to become some death machine: the power-ups are in fact quite "modest", as they consist of two small pods for additional fire, with extra colored pickups for some more "specialized" shots. The only function of the second button is to move the pods so as to get a wider (or rear, in the case of one of those shots) or more concentrated fire. It may feel too "essential", even if you are a fan of the genre, but on the other hand this sensation of never being powered enough helps with the vibe of being an ace pilot in a desperate struggle against a whole army. Although I have cursed a lot for the rare sections where the scrolling becomes vertical, as they seem especially designed to hopelessly take as many lives and credits from you as they can, I appreciated the design of obstacles and enemy waves. It definitely requires quite a bit of memorization. Levels feature several classic "biomes" but are no less pleasant to look at. For example, level 3 is a desert with even a sandstorm blowing for a while, while level 6 starts above Earth’s surface and then takes you to space, with even a dramatic shot of the light of the Sun before the boss battle. Bosses range from good to great, and a few also feature nice entries before the battle; for example, after the first level is spent flying over a city under an orbital attack, the satellite responsible for it descends from the clouds. It says a lot about Infinos Gaiden's quality that an improved arcade version for the eXA-Arcadia platform was made in 2020 (unfortunately there are no signs we'll ever get it "backported"). It's a true gem that can sit proudly beside the games it took lots of inspiration from.