Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)Overall, a sub-par port of three fantastic shoot-em-ups.
Firstly, understand that by shoot-em-up, I refer to a Galaxian/Space Invaders/etc. style game, featuring a ship that shoots seemingly-endless waves, oriented vertically (good guy on bottom, most bad guys spawning from the top). Understand this going in--this isn't a first-person shooter, a-la Half Life, or a Light-Gun shooter, a-la Virtua Cop.
The three games featured are Chaos Field, Karous, and Radirgy, all vertical shoot-em-ups created by Milestone (of Mushime fame) that originally debuted on Dreamcast and featured arcade-style 2-3 button control. This feel is maintained on the Wii, requiring either use of the Wiimote+Nunchuk, a Classic Controller, or a Gamecube-compatible controller.
Karous and Radirgy are both kind of cut from the same mold--both feature similarly-styled graphics (cel-shaded, anime-ish). Karous, the more "mature" looking and less cartoony of the two, features 3 weapons--a shield, activated on its own when not attacking; a sword, which has a very short range but does very hefty damage, and a projectile, which is your standard shoots-up-and-spreads main weapon. There's also a DFS bomb, accumulated by doing damage to both enemies and bullets. When activated, the player becomes invincible and can "eat" all on-screen bullets, resulting in high-scoring and fast re-acquisition of DFS bomb status. The main goal is to use DFS bombs when the screen is most filled with bombs/enemies, so you re-power your bomb as quickly as possible--this 'bomb chaining' is the only effective way to get through the later levels, as the screen is painted with bullets. Attacking with a given weapon levels it up, which in turn makes it stronger, necessitating use of the shield as a weapon to increase its level--the system is very complimentary and well-balanced, and encourages balanced weapon use and constant bombing.
Radirgy shares a lot in common with Karous' gameplay. The leveling mechanic of the previous game is gone, with the sword maintaining a constant strength, and the main projectile shot (which is selectable at the start of the game) gaining power as pick-ups are obtained. It also employs a similar bombing mechanic as the previous game, allowing for similar bomb-chaining when the screen is loaded with baddies/bullets. In this game, however, bombing levels up a combo-guage at the top of the screen, which in turn multiples your score as you do damage (the more filled, the closer your multiplier gets to 16x). The game also tells you that the shield, when used well, can add to the green combo bar, but I didn't seem to fill it up much unless I was bombing well. The game is significantly more challenging on its hardest difficulty setting than Karous, but is very fun. For whatever reason, I enjoyed Karous slightly better.
Finally, more its own animal is Chaos field, which saw a slightly modified/expanded release on Gamecube in 2006 (2005?) entitled Chaos Field: Expanded. This game has 3 selectable ships, each with different strengths and weaknesses: Mixed Blue is basically the ship from the other two games (upward-blue spread shot, average), while Flawed Red has lock-on laser shot and Fake Yellow shoots a strong, short-range shot. Each has a different shield ability and lock-on laser target area, and the entire game is a boss rush (5 stages, 3 bosses apiece). Almost all bullets can be attacked with the sword, and the gimmick is that by pressing the Switch button, one can heighten both one's own firepower and that of the enemies (you go into the 'Chaos field', hence the title). This Switch clears the screen of bullets for a second, which is vital when the screen is covered. Switching back to the 'order field' similarly clears the screen of bullets, and aside from a few seconds of recharge time, Switch can be used at will. While the Gamecube release was fantastic, this is by far the worst sufferer of the porting job to the Wii--there is slowdown every time the lock-on lasers are used, and the difficulty selection appears broken/ineffective. Overall, this game suffers from slowdown and issues making it less enjoyable than the other two.
Keep in mind, this whole games porting job seems a bit sub-par. The regular screen format is slightly off, releasing in clipping off the top and bottom of the screen and an inability to read the text/lifebars well, or even at all. The game does emlpoy what's referred to in the community as "Tate" mode, or the screen rotated 90 degrees, allowing the vertical-format of the game to take atvantage of a 16:9 screen, which can then itself be set up at 90 degrees so the game plays all hi-res and fantastic. Using this mode doesn't rotate the control, however, so the only use for the mode is to play the game as a horizontal shooter, which seems weird given the shape of the enmies...it just doesn't play right. Apparently there is a code you can enter to rotate the control to compliment the screen, but that shouldn't be hidden. All of the menus are set up badly. The game doesn't even autosave; the only way to maintain the earned number of credits (you gain continues as you play more) is to enter the option menu, reset one of the options (difficulty, number of lives, etc.) and then exit the options menu. The interaction is clumsy, with each game having a Quit option that simply backs the screen up, and a Return to Title option above it which lets you return to the Game-selection tool.
The games themselves are a lot of fun, with Radirgy and Karous alone warranting the purchase price (especially on Amazon--it's cheaper than retail, and is the only place where this is so) and Chaos Field still being fun despite its graphical shortcomings. Any fan of classic-style arcade shooters would do well to pick this up, if for nothing else, to support this gaming preference's future on this side of the Ocean.
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