RaidenX Classic 2D action! Yay!
I was expecting to be disapointed, because most of the time on newgrounds 2D shooters end up being a ship on a boring star background while random enemies appear, and remakes of sprite games usually end up with borked control or leave out crucial elements. Not so with your game! :D You did in the loading screen what most flash authors barely do in an actual game, and I was delighted to discover a REAL 2D shoot 'em up here. YAY! Do Layer Section next! XD No, fuck that, DO GUNSTAR HEROES!
Graphics: A little lackluster, but they get the job done. Player ship looks nice. Backgrounds are kinda cheesey, but they load better I guess than if they'ed been sprite graphics. The visuals don't seem as refined as in the sprite game it's based off of, but they get the job done with vectors. Animated sequences look kinda cheesey. Explosions are the best I've ever seen using only gradient balls. Enemy shots are very nicely differentiated from other types of graphics, which was a problem I always had with the sprite games. Well, that and the flickery giant fireball explosions. You will never see a more awe-inspiring sight than the fully charged purple laser ricoheting between three targets while a small star shimmers at the nose of your ship.
Style: Full points. Everything design decision in this game tickles my fancy... Well, except for that tree on the title screen. If you're flying a plane that close to a tree, I'm sorry, you're already dead. But you've sucessfully captured everything that mad the 2D shooters of the 80's great. fleets of enemy ships, streams of enemy shots (thank God Flash slows down instead of skipping frames!) Shiny, happy anime music, clunky mechanical bosses and lots of meaty explosions. Again, props to the purple laser. There is nothing more stylish than the purple laser. :P
Sound: Perky 80's j-pop tunage, nice explosions. Were they ripped from the coin-op? Music cuts out halfway through the first level in space... is tyhat a bug? Incidental sound effects (player shots, enemy shots, explosions) are PERFECT, everything is nice and subtle except for an explosion. I wish more modern game designer could figure out that we don't want a loud BE-DOOW! BE-DOOW! playign throughout 90% of our game just because it happens to be the noise our phasers make.
Violence: Big go boom. Many, many big go boom. Happy.
Interactivity: 10 out of 10. Perfect, crisp, precise movement. Enemy shots travel slow enough that you actually feel like you have a fighting chance of weaving between them. This is something so many flash game authors scew up when making a top-down shooter, and I know you were imitating an old arcade game but still, good job pulling off the imitation. This is control that WORKS, plain and simple. Pure 2D gaming. Gotta love it.
Humor: None. It's a serious, if upbeat, 80's 2D shoot 'em up. Now go blow up some planes, dammit.
Overall: 10. This is not an objective rating. This is not a sum of its parts. This is Good gameplay + stuff I miss most in modern games = TEH PWNZED. Yes, it's a copy. No, there's no real innovation here. I'm not complaining. Seriously.
Do gunstar Heroes next!!! XD
Family Guy test1 
