(Banpresto / Psikyo 1993)
Psikyo's debut
game Sengoku Ace (aka Samurai Aces) is a weird shooter that takes place
in Japan's ancient mythologies and features many strange vehicles, weapons
and enemies. Wooden tanks and shooting moths are here as real a fighting
spider-house. Technically Sengoku Ace begins, where the games of the
former company Video System ended. To be correct, I'm not entirely sure
if the whole Psikyo team came out of that company, but the similarities
between early Psikyo Shooters and the Aero Fighters / Sonic Wings series
are that close, that a coincidence is hardly possible.
The game starts with a selection screen, where the player choses from
six vehicles of a wide variety: Bird-like things, that well known WWII
prototype with it's tail rotor, ancient flying machines or even a modern
Jet-fighter are ready for taking off.
Each plane has it's individual weapons; upgradable in size and strength
by collecting power-ups. Like in Aero Fighters, the final weapon upgrade
lasts only for a short time, until it has to be reconfirmed by collecting
another power-up item. Repetetive tapping the [A] button makes the main
weapon shooting, while holding the same, turns it into a slower but
more powerful charge shot. With the second button you can drop a limited
number of smartbombs. To refill the bomber stock, you should collect
the B-symbols.
In order to finish Sengoku Ace, you have to play each stage twice. The
second round features minor color palette changes and harder gameplay.
The different color palette btw. is another feature we already know
from Aero Fighters.
Sengoku Ace has not much of a scoring system. No multipliers or any
other upgradable score systems spotted. Shoot enemies and collect coins
for points. It's mainly "Old-skool" classic with a touch of
modern gameplay.
1993 was also
the year of Mahou Daisakusen (Raizing's debut shooter), and Batsugun,
the last shooter of old-skool godfather 'Toaplan'. I would call that
age a bridge between old-skool and the mothern shmup.
-
[the sheep] in 2002
