Einhander

Here's another one of Square's attempts at another genre besides RPGs. So what is it? Well, you remember those great 2D shoot'em ups of old. Where you pilot a space ship & blast horde after horde of oncoming aliens & robots. Then you know what Einhander is all about. It's just that this classic formula has been updated for the 32-bit monster. And the translation is taken well, despite the tremendous difficulty that plaques all of these types of games. The graphics are totally amazing. Boasting a marvelous & highly technological backdrop which spits out as many mechas & robots at you as your favorite anime. Nearly all the enemies & bosses go through several transformations & have multiple layers of parts for you blast off. Definitely a plus in a shooting game like this. The futuristic theme is kept up with a techno soundtrack that inspires the heat of the battles. Gameplay remains much the same to previous incarnations. But Square went & added an in-depth secondary weapon which gets the player thinking. From the wreckage of fallen foes you can usually pick up a second weapon. Which can range from lasers to machine guns. The trick comes in where do you place them on your ship. You can switch from the top to the back or just plunk it on the bottom. The way a weapon is attached creates a different attack styles & usually depicts how effective it will be in certain situations. Such as the grenade launcher. When on the top of your ship will launch a striaght shooting bomb great for offensive attacks. Whereas attached to the bottom it becomes a drop bomb that wipes out lurking enemies below you. Very cool. The thing that tends to kill this title is the extreme difficulty. There's so much stuff to destroy & so much action on the screen you often find yourself lost. Only to fall victim to a stray bullet that you never saw coming in the first place. And the lives are few & far between. So you can imagine how hard & how incredibly frustrating this game can get. Sadly that's the only real flaw in this game & it's a hurtful one at that too. If you're big on shoot em' ups then Einhander is for you. Otherwise you might want to find something a little more relaxing.

Overall 8.8