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This game is part of the popular "Aleste" series, and while it is said that the SNES has no awesome shooters, that's completely bogus. There are plenty of good shooters for SNES...it's just that people don't mention them as much as they should. Being a shooter, Space Megaforce doesn't really have a strong story behind it...actually, it doesn't have much of a plot at all, but SM DOES have superb high speed action!
The visuals of the game are pure 2D shooting goodness. Clean color usage, excellent backdrops, tons of on-screen action, great special effects, cool enemy animation, and little to no slowdown. I don't even remember seeing any slowdown in all truth, but since the SNES is such a "slow" machine, I'll throw in the benefit of the doubt. As far as sound goes in this game, I love it! Excellent stage music accompanied with some hectic explosion sounds and other sounds that really enhance the arcade feel this game gives me. They tried to use some vocal audio clips as well, but they don't really enhance the game or anything. I've heard better spoken dialogue on the SNES. Still, I can make out what they are saying, and the spoken dialogue is few and in-between.
The gameplay would be standard shooting game fare...if the game creators didn't take extraordinary measures to boggle my mind. You have eight different weapons in this game and they can all power up by six levels. Around level 4 or so, weapons get truly nasty! When you are hit, you don't automatically die, but you will lose some weapon levels. I find that to be more than fair in my opinion. You can grab other little goodies typical to shooters of this kind, but what shooter would this be if it didn't have one of those destroy-everything-in-its-path super bombs? Do bombs make shooters groovy? Nope, but they sure as heck make things pretty. Yes friends, I will bring you satisfaction by letting you know that such a bomb does exist in SM. Finally, you can play the whole game, or a "short" game which basically acts as a warm-up for the real deal. There aren't many options, but then again, many shooters don't have many options. All in all, Space Megaforce is one of those beautiful games on SNES that hide behind the lack of advertising and the not too inviting box art. However, the game is a success in my eyes.- Written by Vyse the determined - |
