Sukhāvatī
a.k.a. Mañjuśṛī
Decent side scrolling freebie.
New release.
Nice review man. In my radar to playSo yeah, got tucked into Ex-Zodiac this week. Pretty cool, but definitely needs more work to fulfil it's potential. I enjoyed my time with it for sure...all 82 minutes of it lol. It does a lot right, is a lot of fun and was worth paying out for, but it also drops the ball a fair bit too.
On the plus side this game looks amazing. Some of the stages ooze creativity and lushness, not just with their visual elements, but also with how they play out too. The devs have studied their inspirations a lot here, and boy does it show, top work.
It plays fairly well in general too, with a mix of Starfox (the primary inspiration), being backed up with a smattering of stages from Space Harrier and Burning Force. The Starfox stages also extend to full 360-field layouts too, which is excellent. It comes at the right time and works a treat.
In fact, this game is also seriously SUPERBLY paced in general, with the right amount of change-up in dynamics occurring at exactly the right time. This is a dying art in game-craft, and the devs have a 10/10 score for me in this area, it constantly keeps the game feeling fresh. That said, I hope that the finished product has a bit more focus on the Space Harrier sections though, as they are fast and fun, and I wanted more of them. I'm not sure they should be secrets tbh, I feel they should just appear as part of the standard run.
But a few things do hold the game back. Firstly, it's piss-easy. As I've mentioned, 82 minutes to burn through, most stages & bosses beat on my 1st or 2nd attempt (one boss took me 3 attempts). I'm sure this is on the devs radar and that additional stages will be tougher, but be mindful that what you get here is essentially Easy mode.
There's also a fair bit of drift to the controls. In the Starfox & Burning Force sections this occurs with the aiming, in the Space Harrier sections with the movement. That desperately needs tightening up for this to fulfil it's potential.
And the chatter here is lame. Not only does it feel very stale, but it also comes at very inconvenient times when you are more focused on the action. It doesn't work here, because Starfox's chatter built a sense of camaraderie, and was well placed. Neither is the case here, and it definitely feels as if the devs have just not understood this element from their inspirations. This element needs a total rework.
More tweaks and more meat need to be added to the bone for this to reach it's potential, but the potential is there and for a very brief time I had some fun with it.
Takayuki "Jemini" Hirono is Estique's programmer, famous for creating Zanac, the Aleste series, The Guardian Legend on NES, and GunHed / Blazing Lazers on PC Engine. We've had interviews with him before and by all accounts, he is a genius programmer.
Apparently helicopter shmups like the old "Strike" games are making a comeback.