It seems that shmups are en vogue in 2021 as yet another shooter from the 90’s has been pulled out of the retro vault to get a second chance at life. This time we are looking at Gleylancer, a shmup that first saw a Japan only release on the Sega Mega Drive (Sega Genesis for us Americans), then later ported to the Wii Virtual Console and now a new release for the Nintendo Switch.
As I’ve mentioned many times when reviewing shmups, most games in the genre don’t really have a story to speak of and if they do it’s briefly touched on. In Gleylancer’s case, while the story might be a bit basic, it’s none the less pretty fun and enjoyable. The game stars Lucia, a 16 year old star fighter pilot in the Earth Federation. War has broken out between humanity and an unknown alien race in 2025. During a battle with the alien race, her father’s ship was captured and warped deep into enemy territory. Saddened by the news and the Navy’s course of action would take too long Lucia, with the encouragement of her friend Teim and their commanding officer, decided to hijack the experimental fighter CSH-01-XA “Gleylancer” and go rescue her father herself. While the story may look simple to those who just want to play a shmup, fans of 90’s space/mecha anime like Robotech, Macross, Gundam etc, will really enjoy it for two reasons: 1). The story shares the same energy and tropes that the aforementioned anime have and 2). The art style of the cutscenes as they look like there were pulled out of 80’s/90’s anime.
This iteration of Gleylancer has a few new mechanics and features that have been added in. One of these features is the ability to play the game three different ways: modern, vintage and cheater. Now all of these modes do share the same basic core mechanics such as the ability to switch how your options/satellites work and the speed of the Gleylancer. However they do have their differences. Let’s start with vintage mode. Vintage mode is basically the original version of the game. There are no fancy features, you can only cycle forward through what formations your options/satellites can go through before starting over on the first formation and can only shift up in speed before it goes back in reverse (ie 1-2-3-4-3-2-1). Modern mode plays exactly the same as vintage mode however it adds in modern quality of life mechanics, such as being able to toggle speeds back and forth without having to cycle forward then backwards, being able to cycle through the options/satellites back and forth and the newest feature rewind. As for cheater, this modes is similar to modern mode with the added benefit of being able to change parameters of the game, such as increases starting lives, setting the type of formations the options/satellites from the start, enabling invincibility and various other options. Other than that Gleylancer is short on extras.
While the SNES is known to have some of the very best video game soundtracks on the system, the Sega Genesis was no slouch on the music front either. Sonic, Streets of Rage and many others had really awesome sounding music that utilized the hardware to the fullest. You can add Gleylancer to that list as the music in the game is awesome. Each stage has its own unique theme which really helps enhance the atmosphere of that stage. For example in one of the later stages you finally catch up to your father as his ship is being chased down by one of the enemy battleships. The stage has you speeding to catch up and give him covering fire all the while avoiding being shot down. That sense of speed is matched with that stage’s theme track. This goes for the rest of the other stages and again it sounds awesome.
The developer that brought Gleylancer back into the spotlight, Ratalaika Games, have decided to retain the original sprite art style of the game. While it would have been nice to see what the game would look like using either HD sprites or some sort of HD remaster, the 16-bit graphics hold up very well and still look great. Gleylancer has some of the most interesting stage layouts that I have seen in a shmup. For example after moving forward for a bit in the stage, midway into the stage the screen starts to reverse and you are force to fly backwards. And by backwards I mean the nose of the ship is still facing forward as it moves in reverse. I really liked this design element as it forced me to pay extra attention to my surroundings. I do have a slight issue though that is sometimes it is hard to see what is shooting at you or what things are avoidable. Though after about a minuet or so my eyes were able to adjust and everything just came down to having good reflexes.
Out of all of the shmups that I have played this year so far, Gleylancer is probably one of my favorites. It’s fast paced, the music is awesome and the sprites hold up still to this day. There are various ways to enjoy Gleylancer with its three modes and the anime space opera story is pretty good. There isn’t really much to complain about the game other than at times its kind of hard to see what is being shot when everything is going pretty fast around you, but you get used to that after a minuet or so. If you are looking for a classic Genesis era shmup to add to your shmup library, then Gleylancer is a great pick up.
