Friday, May 9, 2008

Review 001 - May 09, 2008 - Sega Genesis - M.U.S.H.A.

Now that the introduction to my living room is complete, I'll get to the real meat: my first review!

Today's review will be of a top-down shooter (shmup) that I just purchased this week!

  • Game: M.U.S.H.A. (a.k.a. Musha Aleste: Full Metal Fighter Ellinor in Japan)
  • Console: Sega Genesis
  • Developer: Compile
  • Publisher: Seismic
  • Release Year: 1990
  • Region/Language: NTSC-U/English
  • Genre: Vertically Scrolling Shooter
  • Purchase Location: Pink Godzilla - Seattle, WA
  • Purchase Price: $34.99
  • Purchase Year: 2008
  • Review Platform: LaserActive with Mega Drive module

M.U.S.H.A., or "Musha" for ease of my shift-fingers, is a shmup released in the early 90's. Being a huge fan of shmups the last few years, I am fairly picky when it comes to comparing new games to my favorites. I'm pleased to say that Musha doesn't disappoint in the least. This game was recommended to us several times by a buddy of ours at the PG, but we kept turning it down... well, Mr. Bush's Economic Fuckup--erm... *Stimulus check came in and we went to go get Musha!

Graphics: The graphics of Musha are very aesthetically pleasing. The game features full parallax scrolling, and extremely large sprites on-screen at one time with little to no slowdown at all - a thanks goes to the speedy Genesis CPU there. The intro features full-screen animated scenes and dialog. The entire game handles all of this with zero sprite flicker. Most impressive. I also like the detail of the sprites quite a bit. There's something to be said for having 12 floating, flaming zombie skulls on screen
at one time being bombarded by your lasers and missiles. (Again, with no flicker! Yay!)

Sound: The music is run-of-the-mill, but suffices in that it adequately fits the environment and pace of the game. The music doesn't get too tedious, which was an achievement in and of itself in the 8/16-bit console days. The sound effects fit the action just fine. As with most Genesis games, the sound isn't quite up to par with the SNES' audio capabilities, but it works well enough.

Controls: The controls in this game are tight! I'm talking "tighter than a 12 year old" tight. This makes a huge difference in 99% of games, and Musha doesn't fail. The only uncomfortable aspect is the Genesis controller itself, which I've never been a huge fan of.

Gameplay: You fly forward endlessly, shooting the hell out of whatever diabolical shit comes your way... collect a weapons upgrade or a shield pack along the way, and then shoot some more shit... Oh, no! What's this? A giant, screen-encompassing boss that takes 45 minutes of straight shooting to kill? That's right, this is a classic shmup from Japan which, while a little easy at first, is insanely fun throughout.

Verdict: I love it. If you like shumps, give Musha a try. If you don't, at least try it on an emulator to see what you'd be missing. (Not that I advocate piracy. Please ensure to follow all applicable local, state and federal laws pertaining to copyright before downloading ROM images. We don't need video game fans getting tossed into the klink now, do we? :))

I'll be back tomorrow with my second review!

P.S. In case you were wondering,
M.U.S.H.A. is an acronym for "Metallic Uniframe Super Hybrid Armor". Now you know.

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