This game's perfect.
This is not nostalgia kicking in, this game is arcade shooter perfection and if you wanna compare to the SNES original you can and you probably should.
They took advantage of the new specs to make the sprite work on this game shine, the stages are beautiful and the characters have flair and personality to them, don't even get me started on the soundtrack - It's one of the best by Hiroyuki Iwatsuki who actually went through the trouble of making "Reloaded" and "Retro" versions of the music, the new tracks in retro mode sound just like they would be in a actual SNES and it's just amazing.
The original game holds a very special place in my heart, i only cleared it once, using Annie and it was a herculean task, with Reloaded things are looking up to be just like it, but hey at least this time they're allowing you to continue and redo the stages where you failed!
Now Let's get down to some specifics:
There's a lot more on the screen this time, so you gotta pay double focus on whats going on, the stages are larger and the sceneries, wider, while it means there's more room to move also means theres more enemies on the screen at once, the animations will help a bit , cluing you when bullets are about to hit you, when you can hit someone in melee and even telling outright what some enemies will do, and it pays to pay attention.
This game is not just a shooting gallery where you can destroy everything, but also plays as a "survival" shooter, you have infinite ammo for your standard gun, some screen clearer bombs to use when the situation calls and the ability to roll/dodge projectiles which makes you invincible during those frames, (Press JUMP while holding down the FIRE button) you can also get power up weapons such as a laser gun, or a full auto combat rifle and as you mow down enemies and avoid getting shot you'll notice a timer going down, that's good because after the timer gets to zero a boss shows up, defeat it and proceeds to the next phase or it clears the stage.
There's also a very interesting mechanic that rewards skilled players - neutralizing enemy projectiles by firing at them will raise a spacial bar next to your portrait on the hud, once filled your character gets on a super mode where he's allowed to fire very powerful shots and is invincible while the bar quickly depletes, this allow for some game-changing moments and i managed to turn the tables on the final boss this way.
Game Over here doesn't mean you gotta start from the very beginning, if you wish to continue you'll be able to retry the stages again and again until you get it right, All you're gonna be giving away when retrying after a game over is your score.
Scores kind of matter on this game, it's a arcade shooter after all, you get rewarded for destroying things, there will be plenty of enemies whose defeat is not actually necessary, but doing so will reward you with more items and more points, and if you get tired of shooting criminals and droids its ok cause you can shoot the backgrounds full of wonderful holes.
Your character can double jump and move around from left to right as they please as you control the aim but there's a catch: you can't 100% control your aim cursor as you move it because it is kind of binded by your character movement: Annie , Clint and Doris have total control of the aim while shooting and depending of the level of difficulty the number of lives you have before getting a game over changes.
But thats not the only thing that changes, the stages available are also different. veterans of SNES will only be able to play all the classic stages on the Easy difficulty, while going for Normal or Hard will give players the chance to go for Underground and The Flying Ship, two completely new levels for this game, bringing new enemies and challenges to overcome.
The First stage is Carson City, and after clearing it you'll be presented to a screen where you can choose your next destination : Desolation Canyon,Ammo Depot, Armored Train, Golden Mine, Underground and Flying Ship. Tackle the available stages in the order you see fit and once you clear them all, you're presented to the final level of the game.
Many people dislike the fact that choosing a different difficulty level nets you different stages but let me put it this way: It's for a good reason cause those stages are HARDER than usual,one of them featuring limited visibility and the other a very complicated boss that can puzzle many beginners.
The multiplayer also insta-locks the difficulty level of the play session, 2 players play on the easy route, 3 players on the normal and 4 on the harder one, for some reason which i cannot fully understand since such "feature" wasn't present on the SNES release : You share lives with your friends, the only thing that i dislike about the whole ordeal.
Unfortunately the game does not support online co-op, only a very beefy leaderboard where you can put your nifty scores, you wanna play with friends? Couch co-op only. Since the game has just been released on Steam, future updates might change that, and i'm looking forward to it.
About the new characters:
Doris brings a high damage output being able to chuck up to 7 grenades at the same time, but moves rather slowly and requires practice to actually be effective,
although she is slow, her dodges are fast but they lack the invicibility benefit that the others characters have. She also cannot use any power-ups, she can "get" them but all it does is adding more points on the score.
She's a very high skill, high reward character, winning stages with her feels very satisfying.
Bullet is a dog whose flying sentry drone does most of the fighting, its kind like a "beginner's choice" being allowed to move while firing, double jumping followed by gliding and having auto-aim but isn't without it's own shortcomings:
Since he's free to walk around while the drone fires at his enemies he can easily be caught by a stray projectile or other enemy and there will be nothing the drone can do to defend him.
Be sure to not stay too far from the drone as he's easy prey to melee enemies and you need the bot close by to kill them.
His aim will also autolock on the closest enemy around as long he's on the crosshairs, this can be bothersome when you need some precision shooting done quickly.
The "vanilla" characters are Clint and Annie, whose differences between them besides gender and clothing i'm not actually sure if exist, they can only fire stationary, can double jump and their roll/dodge grants them a invulnerability of some frames, can get powerups and easily control their aim while firing.
Only one thing actually aggravates me on this game and it's called the PEA SHOOTER (P.Shooter in game) a very annoying "power up": Unlike games like Contra or Metal Slug power ups here are totally random when they appear, you can go through the same stage twice and get different power ups.
Usually you can see by their icon what you're going to be getting, but other times, specially when you need them the most the game sends a mystery power-up where you have no idea on what you're going to get, until you actually do.
That's where the infamous P.Shooter comes in: a joke gun, who cannot do damage or kill anything and makes a toy sound, completely inultilizes your firepower while you're firing it away waiting for the ammo to run dry, It's extremely annoying and can ruin perfect runs and boss fights. While i can understand the idea of "risk getting a lame power up or use your stock weapon to beat the level", it's still a stupid mechanic and i wish i could punch the person who implemented it right on the face.
This game is a masterpiece by Natsume, it was great then and it's great now, sadly i kind of suck at it so i probably wont be unlocking everything the game has to offer but don't let the difficulty keep you from playing this gem.
