Like Whoa, Totally Boss!

So like wow, I'm impressed. I've just returned to Mimiga Village after the Waterway. I have no idea how many hours in. The combat in this game is just great. The game gloriously embraces a time in 16-bit gaming where gameplay was king, and graphics secondary by default. The game is from the same vein as classics like Wonderboy in Monsterland, Wonderboy III: The Dragon's Trap, Ys III: Wanderer's From Ys, Super Metroid, and Castlevania II. It's a little of all of those in fact, with some boss battles that would impress Treasure. You have the basic attack and jump with automatic story event item usage. You'll find items to increase your maximum health and missiles. The hero can collect various weapons along the way. Most of the weapons are a projectile of some sort. The laser pistol, the bubble weapon, fire, rockets and so forth. The game features far more advanced play mechanics than I was expecting from something home-brewed. The machine gun for instance allows you to access higher platforms previously unavailable by pointing the weapon at the ground and firing mid jump. Another thing I wasn't expecting was the sophistication of the boss battles, which are wonderfully frequent given their impressiveness. Maybe it's the home-brewed thing, but with each boss, I'm being further wowed. Don't get me wrong, none of them will make the top fifty greatest boss battles in the history of video games or anything, but they are amazingly fun and varied. The bulk of the game is running to and fro collecting this or doing that for some quirky story reasoning while the action stays fast and furious. The overall small size of the areas makes this fun instead of anything remotely close to a chore or even an inconvenience. The level design is also rather impressive and varied in that it often employs a trick here or there to keep you on your toes. Again, I just wasn't expecting it from something fan made. The game controls wonderfully, even with a keyboard. I would imagine it to control perfectly with a PC controller. I am thoroughly enjoying this game...

Next time I'll cover a story of robots and rabbits.