Of course this, blazing lasers and gun nac share similarities, they were all developed by the great company Compile! Hands down my favorite SNES/SF shump and I played them all, this was the shooter that showed it was not the SNES's slow processor that was to blame for slow down and flicker that plagued other SNES shumps but lazy or inexperienced programmers. Crazy action, tons of sprites, scaling and rotating backgrounds and not a hint of frame break up, bravo Compile, bravo!
I noticed how those lasers looked just like Blazing Lazers(GunHed in Japan)... I still need to get a real copy of that game (and Space Megaforce/ Super Aleste as well... as a big fan of Gun Nac... I need both. But I'll have to go the repro route for both as I did for Gun Nac.
The 68000 CPU is known to be easy to program for as well as being quite forgiving. The 65C816 is not. How ever, the 68000 is also known for being highly inefficient while the 65C816 is efficient. What this means among other things is that at 7.6Mhz (Megadrive/Genesis speed) the 68000 processor achieves 1.25MIPS of processing power. Compare that to the 65C816 running at only 3.58Mhz (SNES speed) while never the less achieving 1.5MIPS. But in the case of the 65C816 it's harder to get there. As you kind of pointed out a game can't run better than the processors allow for and Space Megaforce is a testament to how fast the SNES can be if done right. Space Megaforce also contains no extra processing chip on the cartridge so what you see is all done by the SNES's internals.
hell ya - one of my favorites up there w mega man & castlevania! and I def wouldn't say off the shelf - there is a lot of really bad music out there & this music is very very good & complements the graphics & the excellent game play.
I bought Space Megaforce used for under $10 about 15 years ago, and it quickly became one of my favorite SNES Shumps. It's hard to believe it wasn't a huge hit when it was new, but I guess there was a huge glut of great games out at the same time. I'm glad its getting its due now.
I don't even remember how I got this game, random buy or gift, but I enjoyed the hell out of it. It was not one of the well known games, none of my friends have never heard of it and we were not into shout'em ups anyway. So I thought it was just me who liked it so much! In fact, it was this game and SFalpha2 that I kept playing long after the SNES era
recently got Super Aleste and damn! The amount of power ups and ways to change them is insane. Really can't believe it doesn't slow to a crawl with as much shit as there is on screen. Definitely in my top 10 shmups maybe top 5.
Definetly my favorite SNES shmup if not my favorite of all time. It's not as challenging as many others but that's a good thing as I really get sick of the unforgiving nature prevalent in the genre. The visual & music are blissful. I never made the Gun Nac connection so I'm gonna check that out now.
Such a great chanel.. I can find evey game on snes on here. Whenever I'm going to purchase a game I always watch your videos to be sure I want it. Great content man. I appreciate what you do!
Great video! This is easily my number one most wanted SNES game and to be honest I have never seen a physical cart in real life and I have been looking for over a year and a half! One day.
Easily one of, if not the best shmups on the SNES purely for the technical achievement of playing as smooth as it does without any slowdown aside from some boss explosions and when you use a Bomb. Compile's crew were known as code wizards for a reason
I tried playing this game for the first time a little while ago. My only problem with it is that sometimes I can't figure out what and what not i can fly through or what to shoot and what not , can be confusing and frustrating . I might give it another shot though.
The other amazing thing about this game is that along with the aforementioned mechanic where instead of dying instantly you get powered down, you also don't get bounced back to the checkpoint and respawn immediately if your stock lives are orange so the game strikes a perfect balance where you can make slight mistakes and press on, literally giving you a third chance while also being punishing enough if you keep making mistakes over and over. This feature along with the game's amazing difficulty level progression makes it so the endgame is very challenging while also giving you a fair chance to play through said hardships and you'd feel the rewards of getting the secrets scattered accross levels (yes the game has secrets! Compile went hard on this game) that allow you to stock up on bombs, extra lives and get the green eggs that instantly level your power up in a pinch and you can feel equally strong as the stuff the game will throw you around stage 8 where the game really spikes in difficulty.
I remember renting this one several times because it was so good. Love the 6 levels of power ups for each of the 8 weapons. Love the music as well. Never knew about Blazing Lasers and Gun Nac similarities... cool. One of the most fun shooters I’ve played. Don’t think i ever beat it though.
Also worth mentioning are the overall great sound design, from the satisfying explosion sound to the voice when you collect a weapon. And the music, man the music: So well composed with an almost jazzy and adult vibe and great choice of instruments. Even if the gameplay wasn't that great, i would have kept playing just to hear every song in the game! Btw. i love your videos especially for you voice over, it has an kinda tranquilizing effect on me! Keep up your great work!
Thanks for the review man, I don't hear people mention this game too often. Kinda hard to find many reviews on it even on youtube. Hidden Gem ?? Well I just bought it (Super Aleste) for a great price so I'm super happy
I like shmups but I really got some reason loved a ship on the sega master system 2 it was called asteroid warrior or astro warrior something like that it was cool
No mention about the fact that weapons have different fire modes? Like the spread laser for example, allows you to go between "Blazing Lazers, but balanced," and "Single tracking laser"? Ah well, only so much you can expect from three minutes. Would be neat to see if this gets a re-visit at some point
I don't want to get slammed for this but I didn't really enjoy this game much, played until about level 5 and got bored. For me it plays extremely slow and the constant power ups become quite annoying especially the gold eggs which wave from side to side, I also find the levels scroll way too slowly and the art style is a bit off, it's as if they had a limited colour palette to choose from, I find the music very 'cordial'. Now I remember being very impressed with power strike on the master system as a kid which felt fast and exciting. I much prefer Darius twin over this,it's just fun and screams 90's and Axelay is in a whole different league. *edit I've actually come to enjoy this game, it's finally gelled with me*
Favourite weapon? Mines is 100% “MULTIDIRECTIONALSHOT.” It absolutely smashed everything at level 6. Also, what game did you say this game is like? I heard Gunmach, but I can’t find a game with that name online but was keen to check it out as I’ve loved Super Aleste since I was a kid.
Hah while critiquing this excellent game you're citing other favorites of mine along the way. :) All these with excellent music, great form & replay value
Some people are wrong. SNES weak processor *is* to blame as developers shouldn't be forced to do crazy codings to achieve what others systems achieve normally. Most dev didn't bother which is somehow understable & as a result TONS of SNES games are plagued with slowdowns/frame rate issues/etc: Mickey Mania; Super R-Type; WWF Wrestlemania the Arcade Game; James Pond II; Race Drivin'; Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts & many others... Also it must be precised that Compile used a special trick when developing Super Aleste: they seek help from the sound chip CPU in order to diminish slowdowns (there are still few instances of slowdowns when the game is played on higher difficulty settings but it's minor deal compared to most others SNES shooters). It's a nice achievement & IMO it's the best 16-bit vertical shooter.
Eh, I know this is an old comment, but really, who cares how they did it, but that they did it! I wouldn't downplay it, really since ALL systems need programming tricks to get the most out of them. I mean lets be honest, by that logic the Genesis/Mega Drive is in the same boat having to use all sorts of programming tricks to get the neat sprite scaling and background tricks you saw in later games, to say nothing of the limited color pallet... Also a lot of SNES games had little to no issue with slowdown. A lot did, sure, especially at the beginning, but many did an amazing job toward then end of the system's life cycle. Same as with any system, really. Finally, as much as people dont want to admit it, the Genesis CAN have slowdown, it's very rare, but it does exist in very short bursts even in games like Gunstar Heroes and Thunderforce IV. Its so brief it's not really worth mentioning- same as with the higher difficulties in Space Megaforce, but it DOES exist. So it's all give and take. 🙂
Whats the name of the song playing @ 0:55, its awesome sounding. Also great speed too, looks like something SEGAs blast processing could tip its hat too!
Since I was a TurboGrafx & Genesis owner but never got a Super Nintendo, I had to rent out a SNES in order to try this out, and I was eager to try it given my fondness for other Compile games like Zanac and Blazing Lazers. Unfortunately, Space Megaforce really didn't scratch my shmup itch back then. The game world scrolled by at a slower pace than Zanac, and the music was certainly less engrossing & didn't match the mood IMHO. Sure it had graphics, but I never cared for them much, because they were executed like special effects demos to show off Mode 7 rotation or wavy background effects. It didn't feel like it existed as a natural part of the game's diegetic story world. To be fair, I also rented out Gradius III, Axelay, and Castlevania IV for the SNES at the same time, and it was daunting for any publisher of that age to compete with Konami.
While the game is not bad, it sure does have a few game breaking flaws for me, like: 1. Most of the powerups suck, and you have to focus on evading the ones that suck in addition to dodging enemie fire. 2. Instead of continuing to play the level even if you lose a ship like MUSHA or Thunder Force 3, you get sent back to a checkpoint, that for me ruins the pace of the game. 3. The game has so many enemies on screen, all firing at once, that if your weapon is at a low level, your ass is done for even with the use of bomb capsules, since you'll eventually run out of those.
I guess I'm used to a solid narrative about a lone pilot vs an evil armada, but it doesn't look like there's a story or point to all of it, and the whole game feels like a really long bonus stage. It's fun but it never held my interest for that reason, even from a gameplay perspective
it does have a story, but only in the japanese version. For some reason they cut the story in western releases. There is a fan translation, but only in spanish
Admittedly, it's... not stuff fans of shoot 'em up and other action game music in general would enjoy, but it's quite enjoyable if you're into slow jazzy music. Even if you don't like the music that's by far this game's biggest flaw.
@@KTJohnsonkidThunder I agree, Compile made both Blazing Lasers and Space Megaforce. That's like saying Zelda copied Mario because of jumping into paintings, when they are both Nintendo series.
@@Peter_1986 its named after zanac, its on nes, weapons all are one mode dead simple, it is definitely a zanac not a super aleste, though super aleste did use some enemy patterns etc and there are a couple boss similarities. Overall id say super aleste is basically a remake of zanac (look at the final levels - boss rush and then biohorror as you destroy what is obviously the AI from zanac) and gunnac is just a jokey remake of zanac a la parodius.
