I know I’ve said this many times but shoot em’ ups, or shmups for short, are one of my favorite pick up and play games. There’s little build up to story, no complicated controls, just you, your eye/hand coordination and a ton of enemies raining down fire on you. My experience with the genre goes back to the days of the arcade. My go to games were the Raiden series and Strikers 1945, with Strikers being my favorite as I love military planes and jets. With arcades here in the US almost gone, it’s hard to find a decent working cabinet. The only other option to play these games is through emulation and even then that has its own set of hurdles to go through. Which is why I was surprised that Nippon Ichi Software America (NISA) announced that they were bringing over to the West a collection of shmups that were made by the same developer of Strikers 1945 to the Nintendo Switch. Do the games still hold up in the age of 3D graphics or are they just relics of the past? Let’s find out in Psikyo Shooting Stars Alpha for the Nintendo Switch.
Arcade perfect
Six games in one- When bundling games together in a compilation release, it can get a bit tricky to pick which games to include. Do you include nothing but games that people already heard of and have been in other different compilations? Or do you fill it with obscure and rare games that no one, not even hardcore fans, have heard of? NISA decided to a bit of both for Psikyo Shooting Stars Alpha. In it are six games, three of which are from the Striker 1945 series. The other three are games that I have never seen or played before: Sol Divide, Dragon Blaze and Zero Gunner 2. Now the three Strikers 1945 games (Strikers 1945, Strikers 1945 II and Strikers 1945 III) I have played in the arcades and home console versions before. In fact its one of the most cloned games that you can find on the Google and Apple App stores. As for Sol Divide, Dragon Blaze and Zero Gunner 2, I have never seen or heard of these games before. Sol Divide is a horizontal shooter with branching paths and its “cast” can use melee attacks as well as shooting projectiles and casting AOE magic. Dragon Blaze has a similar set up to Strikers 1945 but swap out military planes/jets with dragon riders and a fantasy setting. Zero Gunner 2 is a top down shooter with 3D graphics, attack helicopters and a pretty weird control scheme (more on that in a bit). Trying to get a hold of these games, even the Striker 1945 ones, is starting to getting harder and more expensive as time goes on. I think its pretty cool to have this collection of shmups in one place and in a convenient package.
Customization options- Most shmup compilations/re-releases that I’ve played just give you the basics. You can’t really can’t change things like screen rotation, the number of beginning lives, credits and several different other things. Psikyo Shooting Stars Alpha let’s you change the “dip switches”. For those who don’t know what dip switches are, they are switches in the arcade machine that let’s the operator change the settings of the game. In Psikyo Shooting Stars Alpha you’re able to change staring number of lives, credits, screen positioning, remap the controls, extra live score, and much more. This give players more control on how they play, while still keeping the feel of playing with arcade settings.
Music still rocking- One of the many things that I love about shmups is the music. The music adds to the intensity of the action on screen when brightly colored bullets and enemies are flying at you. The music for each of the games in the Psikyo Shooting Stars Alpha collection are from their respective original arcade versions and they still manage to sound just as good as when they were in the arcades. I just wish there was a jukebox option in the main menu so that I can browse each track outside of the game.
Sprite work holds up (for the most part)- Designing and creating sprite work can be very tedious, especially during the early days of the arcades. Sometimes the designs can stand the test of time and still look good even decades later. Sometimes they might look cool at first and then not really years later. The sprite work for Psikyo Shooting Stars Alpha still holds up decades later. The military air crafts in the Striker 1945 games looks just as vibrant and detailed. The dragons and their riders in Dragon Blaze look really cool. Zero Gunner 2 looks cool but its 3D and not sprite based. And then there’s Sol Divide. It hasn’t aged too well it seems. More on that in a bit.
Poorly emulated
Sol Divide not the prettiest of the bunch- One of the more interesting looking games in Psikyo Shooting Stars Alpha is Sol Divide. In addition of it being the only horizontal shooter of the group, its also the only one with branching paths and melee attacks. It plays pretty good but my one complaint with it is that its graphics haven’t aged well. I’m not sure if they were trying to go for digitized actors (a la Mortal Kombat) but the graphics look a bit muddy, especially on a screen as small as the Switch.
Zero Gunner 2 has weird controls- Zero Gunner 2 has some weird controls. Instead of the ship (attack helicopter in this case) being on a focal point and moving around, you’re able to move the ship 360 degrees around. Sounds pretty simple. But it’s mapped out in a way that one of the face buttons turns it 45 degrees to the left and the other face button to the right. Now I’ve never seen the arcade version of this game before, but I’m assuming that this was suppose to be a twin stick shooter. It just feels so weird to have to be rotating each time I want to shoot in a certain direction.
No online leader boards- This is more of a small nit pick, but it would have been nice if global leader boards were programmed into the game. Showing off your hi-score to others was one a common thing back when these games were in the arcade and now with the power of the internet it would have been cool to brag and show off to others around the world.
No LAN multiplayer- While I do appreciate that games like Psikyo Shooting Stars Alpha is keeping couch co-op alive, the Switch mostly used as a portable console. So it would make sense for games that have some sort of multiplayer to also include LAN multiplayer so that two players can play on their own Switch screens. This isn’t a deal breaker, just more of a wishful addition.
While arcades are starting to become harder to come by, its great to see compilation games such as Psikyo Shooting Stars Alpha getting released. There’s plenty of shmups to play as there are six games in one cart, with three of them that I personally never have seen or played before. The music and sprite work still holds up even after decades after their arcade releases. Then there’s the option to mess with the “dip switches” and customize game options such as how many lives you start with, remapping buttons and so on.
There are a few minor things I either didn’t really like or found weird about the Psikyo Shooting Stars Alpha collection. There’s the weird controls of Zero Gunner 2, Sol Divide’s sprite work not aging well, no online leader boards, and no LAN. Again this is all minor stuff that I think that should of been added in.
Regardless, if you love the heart racing, eye-hand coordination of shmups and long for the days of the arcade, then think of picking up the Psikyo Shooting Stars Alpha collection.
8/10
