Alien Soldier

As I've mentioned in the Mega Drive Introduction, the system is 

home for a large amount of action-packed games, across all the

several genres and sub-genres such experiences usually fall into.

Looking around for a good example to show the point I made,

I've gone through a few of the outstanding yet less well 

known gems that the system's library can offer.

I'm glad to say that I found a pretty good candidate.

It's fast. It's complex. It holds no punches.

And it will kick your ass.

It's Alien Soldier.

Developed by Treasure and published by Sega in 1995, Alien Soldier is a Run 'n Gun structured as a Boss Rush type of game.

Treasure is a beloved studio by fans of old school / retro games; and also fans of fast action, and let me tell you, that appreciation, they deserve. Also, they work in a rather different way compared to most other studios.

Beginning as an internal studio for Konami back in 1988 formed by seven people named Star Team, they developed Beat'em Up games for the company up until 1992, when they left Konami and formed their own studio, Treasure.

During their first years, they focused almost exclusively on Sega's hardware at the time, the Mega Drive, as their first Treasure-era released game, Gunstar Heroes (another gem of a game), was a rather big hit that let a fanbase to be formed, giving them a good number of customers in that single platform. But they have been making games in many different systems, and collaborated with many other companies, both to create games, like with Nintendo, or to make games out of licensed franchises, like Astro Boy, or even McDonalds.

And the thing is, this studio is quite a shiny example of excellence. Treasure games are, for the most part, really well made, making fantastic use of any system's hardware, doing all types of tricks and effects that makes you wonder how can get away with some of the things you can see in their games, something that almost became a tradition for me; while also providing challenging games that keep you in your toes.

The most interesting bit is, all that is achieved by a studio with no real hierarchy. The way they work usually involves all people in a project working in any aspect it needs at that moment; meaning you may have the director of a project getting their hands dirty and hepling with coding, or doing graphical stuff alongside the rest of the team, or even working as a programmer in another project. That gives the studio a lot of fluidity in how they approach projects and advance them, a way to do things that seems to work with the small amount of people that actually forms Treasure.

It is a really awesome studio to read about, and if you stick with this blog, you'll see that Treasure will appear often, because at the end of the day, they put out a lot of neat games, like the one I'll talk today.

So, let's get to it, shall we?

Oh, nice background! You almost not notice them, with moving around constantly to stay alive and all that...

The story of Alien Soldier is quite... Let's say complex, but I'll try to simplify it a bit:

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The game's story talks about a universe where a planet named Sierra, where the (obviously named) Sierrans live. These people have made all sort of experiments and managed to create genetically engineered living beings with incredible intelligence and powers, alongside the ability to become a parasite-like entity and mix that can coexist with humans, animals and plants.

Seeing these scientific advancements, a terrorist group by the name of Scarlet rose up with the intention of dominating the planet, by locking the Sierran civilization inside the planet, and blocking anyone outside to try to get in. In retaliation, a special group of Sierrans carried a mission to assassinate the leader of the terrorist organization, someone named Epsilon-Eagle. There was a huge confrontation were the very own space-time continuum breached and the leader of Scarlet was sucked into it, unsure of what would happen to him.

Without a leader, a member of the terrorist group named Xi-Tiger jumped at the opportunity to become the new boss of Scarlet. After becoming the head, the terrorists started to become much more aggressive and ruthless, even for Scarlet. A sentiment of uneasiness started to appear in some of the members of the terrorist group, who started to look for their old leader, and Xi-Tiger, having isolated himself from the rest of the organization, decided to look for his old boss and kill him before.

During the search of Eagle-Epsilon, Xi-Tiger organized an assault on a research laboratory, where young sierrans that showed strange abilities were kept and experimented on. During the attack, Xi-Tiger sensed something familiar in one of the boys. Thinking it could, somehow, be Epsilon-Eagle, Xi-Tiger hold hostage one of the girls and forced that boy to show his true self.

The boy entered a state of rage and his body morphed, becoming a humanoid bird. Xi-Tiger, in fear, killed the girl and ran away, recognizing his old leader... Up to some extent. 

For some reason, when Epsilon-Eagle was thrown in the space-time continuum breach, he was separated into two different living entities, one good, and one evil. The good half was somehow reborn and brought to the research lab, and was what made Xi-Tiger fearful; while the dark half was nowhere to be seen.

This good half, going by the name Epsilon, decides to chase Xi-Tiger... And terminate the entire Scarlet terrorist group.

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...Get a good load of that. It's quite the backstory, huh?

Sadly is mostly pointless, because the intro's scrolling text is the only bit of story in the entire game, and the plot never comes back. Something sad is that the game couldn't be completed in the way the producer, Hideyuki Suganami, wanted.  That man had huge dreams to make this game as incredible as he could, but deadlines made most of the story to not being presented in the game. Quite disappointing, if you ask me. Thankfully the rest of the game is there, and is pretty great!

Alien Soldier, as mentioned above, side-scrolling Run 'n Gun type of game, but it's way different to most of the games in such genre, like your Contras. Not only because the structure the game follows, being centred around Boss Fights, but also because Epsilon, our protagonist, is far more complex in his actions and abilities than your usual Run 'n Gun madman.

Because of this, take this entry more as a tutorial, a small guide on "how not to be completely overwhelmed by Alien Soldier". And that's because the game has one hell of a challenge to offer, one hell of a difficulty rise, and you need to bring your A game to not get your behind destroyed, alongside your ego, too.

In fact, look:

I'm sure they are just making fun of us!

This game has two difficulty settings: Super Easy, and Super Hard. Although I'd swear that their real names are "You're gonna die" and "Hahaha, you poor fool".

I mean, I've already mentioned it, but Treasure games usually have "above average" difficulty, getting quite intense and tough, and demanding complete focus to the player.

Alien Soldier says "screw that" and starts balls-to-the-wall crazy and goes up from there. Even the developers joke about it in interviews!






But going back to Epsilon. This birdman comes prepared with all sorts of cool stuff he can do, and are quite important to know to even survive past the first minute of gameplay, so I'll go in detail and explain the basics.

This bird comes armed to the teeth.. Erh, I mean... Beak?

Jumping straight into the game brings you into the Configuration Screen. Here you'll be asked to choose what type of Forces, the powers of Epsilon, you want to bring with you. Forces are simply put your weapons in any other Run 'n Gun, but instead of having one at a time, you can select four and rotate between them whenever you want, or when you empty your Force Energy, which works just like ammo in any other game.

You can select repeated Forces if you want to (and you will in quite a few occasions), and here's a nice summary of all of them:

• Buster Force: As Classic as you can get. Bullets of energy will be shot rapidly in a straight line, doing decent damage and is overall, reliable in most situations. It's good to remove normal enemies out of your way, and while it can bounce on some bosses parts, other times is the easiest power to deal with them.

• Flame Force: This is your "High Power, Low Range" type of weapon. It does cause very serious damage, and very fast too; but its short range make it so you need to get very close to enemies which can be dangerous if you're not experienced. If you are, you can take bosses in seconds with it, though! It has the disadvantage of being affected by wind and water (this last makes the weapon unusable), so be careful!

• Sword Force: Very interesting attack. Holding the Attack Button creates a laser from Epsilon's hands with a fix length, and will damage anything that touches it, dealing more damage the closer the enemy is to Epsilon. Thus, getting up close and personal with the enemy will cause very serious damage, while attacking from afar will cause less severe damage. It can be useful, but you need to know how to use it properly to make the most out of it!

• Ranger Force: This is your typical "Spread-Shot" type of weapon, shooting three spheres of energy in different directions. This is probably, at least in my humble opinion, the least useful weapon. It can be rather handy dealing with normal enemies, but its slow cadence of fire and not too surprising damage makes this power not good against bosses in a game featuring bosses as the majority of the content of the game.

• Homing Force: The best friend of most people that play this game. This weapon shoots a flame that seeks enemies, so you need to relay less on aiming and you can focus more on evading attacks, which is essential to progress. Its damage is just okay, but on the other hand it aims for weak points and can go through some of the bosses' fortified parts. A really good weapon you should bring with you almost always, but it's affected by wind and water, just like Flame Force, so have that in mind!

• Lance Force:  Now this is quite the "Risk vs Reward" type of weapon you'd expect for a last spot! This force shoots a concentrated ray of energy causing massive damage to anyone who is unfortunate enough to get a direct hit with it. The problem is that it takes way too much Force Energy, so you only have a few shots, it's the slowest weapon, and it can be hard to aim, but if you're good, this thing can take out bosses incredibly fast.

The best advice I can give you is to experiment with these powers. I find Homing to be the most reliable in the long run for new players, but if you're good without the added aiming that Force provides, knock yourself out and try Flame Force or Lance Force for Extra-Fast Boss-Killing-Action!
Really, besides Ranger Force, any of the other is a great power and useful in different situations.

Next, after choosing your powers, you can change the HUD and customize it to your liking!

If it wasn't challenging enough by itself, you can make you unable to see
how much health and power you have and life the enemy too...

There's more than twenty options, that mix bars, numbers, and even the option to cover it with "?????" for added challenge.

If you ask me, I personally find the Type-4 HUD to be the best, simply because HP bars for you and your enemy are much easier to see amidst the crazy, crazy action, but Energy Force shown as numbers can give you a much clear image of how many shots you can get from it, if its not full, which is quite important with Lance Force.

In any case its great to see this option even present in a game of this era. Thanks, Treasure!

Seriously, Treasure, this is pretty sweet of you.

Lastly, before dropping you into the game proper, Treasure saw fit to let you play around with the controls and even show you a list of all the things Epsilon can do. You can move freely and try everything, until you press start.

This is really, really nice, because yo don't need an instruction booklet to know it, and you don't need to go to the internet either!

...Buuut, this would mean two thirds of my "tutorial" would go to waste, so if you don't mind, let's ignore it for now!





Anyway, let's jump into the actual game!
And by the way, you can click on the images to make them bigger!

Wait, I push right to select the right one, or to move the ring in that direction
and bring the left icon up, selecting it...?

First of all, you use the D-Pad to move Espilon just like in any other 2D game. The A Button brings up the Force menu, and you can scroll left or right and press A again to choose the type of shot you want. Now, the action does not stop whenever you're selecting a different type of attack, so you're leaving you exposed to enemies, meaning that you need to think about when to change and into what before you open the menu if you want to play smart!

Here's a tip: When changing weapons, don't look at the ring of icons that appear around Epsilon, and instead, pay attention at the Upper-right part of the screen. This will make much less confusing to know if you need to push right or left to select a specific Force (ring-based menus can be a bit counter-intuitive). Not only that it is also easier to see what you're selecting without backgrounds moving rapidly or sprites in the way.

Changing Forces will be something you need to adapt, and fast, as your Forces will be out of Energy at some point, and you'll need to swap it. It's best to fully empty your Energy before swapping so it recharges while a Force is not being used!

Always think what type of Forces you select, as a bad choice can
spell doom for you rather easily.

With the B Button, you'll shoot your selected Force. It's a rapid-shot style of attack, so you won't get your thumb destroyed by constant smashing, thank goodness!

Now, the way it works is that once you press B, Espilon will stop in his tracks and shoot, and then you can move the D-Pad to aim in the 8 directions you usually can shoot in these games. Because you stop to shoot in this mode (more on this later), you'll need to position yourself accordingly to the enemies weakness and also the type of Force you're using.

You can also shoot while jumping, again, aiming in any direction you want, but just like the prior paragraph, there's more to it that I'll comment later.

A good Defense will let you use your best Offense, just wait and see!

Pressing B twice in rapid succession will make Epsilon create a blinking fast shield named Counter Force. This right here is one of the most ignored techniques our protagonist can do, and that's is surely a shame because it is really, really useful once you know how to use it.

When done, it will block most of the enemies' projectiles, which is as useful in a Run 'n Gun game as you might think, but it is even better, because it transforms those projectiles into HP recovery pick ups.

In a game where you can lose a third of your HP in one single attack, it truly helps to know about Counter Force. You can spam it by constantly pushing B, which is good for bigger amounts of projectiles flying towards you, although it uses a bit of Force Energy to do so each time, and spamming it on a corner is not going to solve anything, really. It's also useful in combination with another technique you can pull-off, but more on that later. Oh, and it can hurt a bit if enemies touch it!

This guy has about everything you can ask for, damn.

With the C Button, Epsilon will Jump. As previously mentioned, you can shoot while jumping and aim freely, which is great.

That's just the basic stuff, though, because pushing C in mid-air will make the jet-packs in Epsilon's armour kick in and let you float in indefinitely in that spot. This gives a lot of possibilities and makes positioning yourself in safer spots if there are pits or you're in a weird battlefield, or pinpoint enemy weak spots easier, although with the downside of being standing still, although there's ways to work around that.

Really neat ability whenever you're in unstable places, or you face serpent-like bosses, as you can get much better aim being airborne.

Always look at the colour of Epsilon's armor to be sure what Shoot Mode
you're in, and learn to change depending on the situation!

Now let's get with more advanced stuff. If you care to look at the image on the left, you'll see that the armour of Epsilon has a different colour. This means he has changed his Shoot Mode.

You see, I said before that Epsilon stops still to shoot, and let you aim freely in any direction, right?

Well, that's just one of the two modes he can behave. Generally speaking, Epsilon starts with Mode 1. Pushing Down + A will change your Shoot Mode, and you'll change how Epsilon controls entering Mode 2.

Mode 2 is your "Contra-like" mode, as Epsilon will be able to move and jump while shooting by locking his aim to the direction you were pressing before shooting! Meaning you can lock shooting up, down, left, right or diagonally and move Epsilon freely. It's really useful to being able to shoot in one direction while walking backwards, or aim in certain direction and being able to position yourself just right to damage a boss as it moves.


Learning how and which Shoot Mode to use is an important part of the game, as sometimes the movement provided by Mode 2 is the way to go, but other times better aiming will make you mow down bosses' HP faster which is exactly what Mode 1 offers. Always pay attention to the colour of Epsilon's suit so you know in which mode you're at that moment, with grey being Mode 1, and yellow being Mode 2.

That thing is the first boss of the game, and it moves like absolute crazy.
Rather ruthless and chaotic for beginners.

Now on to the coolest stuff: The Zero Teleport!

Pushing Down + C will make Epsilon to zip from one side of the screen to the other, with his super-speed abilities.  The Zero Teleport can be used freely, so you can move around the battlefield super quick both while on the ground or in the air.

This is THE best way to maintain yourself alive. You can pass through enemies without being hurt, and pull yourself out of danger whenever you get cornered by one of the many big bad guys you'll fight.

If knowing how to work with the Shoot Mode was important to the experience, getting used to the Zero Teleport is plainly integral to Alien Soldier. You won't get anywhere without it. Best thing is, it not just a evasive move.

I mean, you could do a Falcon Punch...
But Epsilon is such a badass that he becomes one.

If you do a Zero Teleport  when your HP is full, instead of the normal move, Epsilon will ignite and transform into what it seems to be a fiery bird and move across the screen, dealing incredible damage to anything it touches, specially if hitting a weak spot at the cost of a bit of his own HP.

And when I mean "incredible damage" I do not exaggerate, as you can sometimes shave off around half the life of a boss, making it by far the most powerful attack of our protagonist. Of course, you can only use when you have full HP, which is easier said than done. That's when the Force Shield comes into play, as sometimes you can transform enemy projectiles into enough health crystals to go back at full life and get a second chance to do this technique... But that also requires you to bee pretty damn good at the game, too.

Landing this attack is as satisfying as you may imagine, and personally I can't get tired of seeing the bosses HP bar dwindle as I go throw them. It's just great.

A lot of things to have in mind, right?
That's the Treasure way!

Lastly, you can also stick to ceilings, a mechanic that will come into play from time to time.

Yo should always keep track of the scenario as much as you focus on bosses, because sometimes, ceilings are there for a reason; and forgetting about them can make your life harder than it needs to be.

In fact, it's more than just sticking to ceilings, you kinda revert your gravity, as you can reverse jump and go back to the ceiling too.

And that's what I would call the basics. You got it all?

Mid-Age Alien Shogun Tortoise, Mid-Age Alien Shogun Tortoise, Mid-Age Alien Shogun Tortoise
Villain with multi-joint parts, Tortoise Strength!

Okay then! Let's talk about the structure of the game itself. That's usually important, right?

The game puts Epsilon in stages being, for the most part, long side-scrolling hallways. These hallways are cut in different sections, with each one being referred as a "Level". These Levels usually alternate between short sections with normal enemies that will try to stop you, and Boss Fights; which are the bigger source of challenge, and the real meat of the game.

Pay attention to these items, specially the HP Enhancer!

The small sections where you fight with normal enemies are, usually, a way for the player to recover HP and Force Energy spent on your battle against the big guys, you can be a bit fresh for the next one. Enemies drop HP recovery items (looking like yellow and blue crystals) when they're defeated, and you can also transform their shots to extra HP with your shield ability.

The other reason they exist is to provide a few Power-Ups, like the yellow looking thing that expands Epsilon's life bar throughout the game, and Force Power-Ups that can change your selected Force for another, or, if you shoot the Power-Up itself, it will change into the same type as your attack. If picked up right after you do this, these things actually enhance your Force Energy for that selected Force!

This sections are extremely short, and these Power-Ups are often times hidden (specially the HP Enhancer). Just small breather rooms for the main course!

WHAT THE HELL IS THAT?! AND WHY IT IS SO ... HAPPY?!

Now, bosses themselves are a real treat. Each single one is a different and unique spectacle all by itself, with wildly different designs, animations, abilities, and strategies to deal with them. And I really mean it. Bosses come in all shapes, colours, sizes, and even gimmicks. Every new boss feels like a completely different challenge from the last one, and its a feeling that lasts the entire game. This is a trait that some Treasure games share and oh boy, it shows in Alien Soldier.

I'm finding kinda hard to really put into words how much variety is here without spoiling the game, as I believe discovering these big bad guys and learning how to overcome them is the best part of the game, like spoiling the plot of an RPG.

I guess I'll talk about a couple of them so I can somewhat show it.

For example, that giant turtle-looking thing with samurai decoration you saw in a screenshot above, is one of the first bosses in the game. It's not too tough and gives you some leeway, at least compared to later foes.

This giant creature will use his long sword (that's no katana!) in a variety of ways, with several slashes and thrusts, even slamming it to the ground; and also doing silly looking Jedi Jumps ™ and will charge energy to strike bigger blows. Its weak point being its head will tempt you to jump and shoot at it, but it will make you be in the right place to get hurt by its blade.

Each attack has its own animation wind-up, giving away what attack it will do, so you can retaliate accordingly, by Zero Teleporting to its back and get some damage done to it.

Radically different, is this rad meme brought directly from 2006!

So, here is this Giant Enemy Crab... What I would do, is to use Flame Force here,
to battle this flipped up crab...

And attack its weak point for MASSIVE DAMAGE!
After all: Massive Crab, Massive Damage!

This creature fights you in what seems to be an airport, and will run around the ceiling trying to get you with its big pincers, which do very nasty damage. It is armoured by the sides, so you need to get under it and fire upwards to damage it, teleporting out of the way once it starts to prepare to attack.

To aid itself for this cause, it will spawn little crabs that will run around both floor and ceiling, and if they touch you they'll grab you and start spinning you around trying to make time for its progenitor to catch up and attack you. So the best you can do is eliminate all the small crabs to get a good opportunity to blast it with your most powerful weapon. and keep moving to avoid being cornered or trapped.

They really wanted to write down all the ways you fail. Very nice of you, Treasure...

Those are just two early examples of the many bosses present in the game. Things get sometimes insane, like a Boss Fight on a speedboat, or chasing a mounted sharpshooter with Maximum Blast Processing.

The most likely scenario, even more if it's your first time playing is that you will die. A lot. I mean, in this game you only have one life before you see the Game Over screen!

And each time you die, you'll get a summary of how you've been doing, showing different things, like what stages you've beaten, how much time you've been playing, hoy many continues you used, and also the names of the bosses you've defeated by scrolling to the right. Thankfully, there are infinite Continues, so you can go back to where you died with no real setbacks, you even keep the HP Enhancements you collected.

Infinite Continues with checkpoints at every single stage not only make the game far less punishing, but also makes it so it's much more inviting to try and experiment with the different weapons on bosses.

But I'll not beat it around the bush: There are games that have difficulty spikes, and then there are Treasure games, in which the difficulty already sky-rocketed when you turned on the game and the "spike" is a long, flat line of constant challenge called "the rest of the game after you pressed Start". So, like with other examples in the medium, how much you end up enjoying most of their games depend on your skill, your patience, and your ability to learn.

I personally love to be challenged (as long as the challenge is well designed). I get super happy when after struggling I manage to beat a boss. I find it a great sensation to be had.

Now, thankfully, the difficulty mode you chose before starting the game makes enough changes to the overall experience, so I'll go back to it for a moment:

In comparison with Super Hard, the Super Easy setting makes Epsilon a bit more resistant to attacks, which is as useful as it sounds, and at the same time, lowers the bosses defenses, making battles shorter as you drain their life bars far quicker.

Thus, Super Easy is still plenty challenging, but offers more leniency and, personally, after trying both difficulties, I find it really noticeable.

Not only that, Super Easy has a rather curious mechanic added. When you pause the game, the letters "SPD" will appear on the lower part of the screen. This slows down the game at will. Pushing lef and right will lower or rise the speed of the game (but you can't make it faster than it already is, though).

This is a fantastic addition for whoever wants to learn bosses' patterns, or just mess with the game, as lowering the speed of the game will let you look with more detail at what's happening on the screen. You could play at lower speed, if you desire it too, but I personally found it more interesting as a "research" tool.

Lastly, there's yet another little mechanic that will be quite useful. You see, when Epsilon has low HP, and receives a strike that would kill him, he will take the hit and survive with a single point of life. This will not only give you an extra chance to end a boss, but you can exploit this to take some risk if you need to!

As you can see, while the game can kick your ass, it more than generous, giving you constant check points, infinite continues, the speed functionality and the "last chance" mechanic.

This guy will be the best test of your abilities up to that point in the game;
you NEED to master the Zero Teleport!

But I'll leave it at that, because I really do not want to kill the many surprises the game holds in the way of memorable fights. Changing subject, by now you'll have seen enough of captures to catch on the graphical aspect of the game. Let me tell you one thing:

Screenshots make no justice to the game. It's amazing to see this moving on real hardware. The game moves at a really high speed, with Epsilon and bosses sporting great animations and effects, backgrounds having nice amounts of detail, and the typical Treasure seal of Tech Wizardry, doing all sort of special effects that makes you wonder how they did it.

Bosses in particular, are often formed by multi-jointed sprites, to make these massive creations with limbs or body parts that move smoothly, stretch or change. Some of the battles are quite eye-catching for the fast scrolling, or the constant effects popping, alongside Epsilon moving all the time across the screen surrounding these huge creatures. Developers where quite proud of them, and I can see why.

Sorry if it sounds exaggerated, but I swear I find it simply mesmerizing at times, to the point of getting killed by the pure spectacle it manages to be from time to time compared with the vast majority of Mega Drive games. The action is so smooth that it takes me some effort to focus on playing and not just watching.

That said, there's a bit of sprite flickering when there are big explosions, which is understandable, and a bit of that typical Mega Drive Dithering that wouldn't be visible back then, but with modern displays it's a way different matter.

Soundwise, the game is also rather interesting.

Sound effects are, for the most part, your typical Run 'n Gun affair, with explosions, lasers,  shooting sounds, and monster roars a plenty, and all of them sound pretty good, but the game also holds a few digitized voices here and there. with what I think it's Epsilon saying things like "Let's go!", "Ready? Fight!", "Power-Up!", and a female voice warning when bosses are coming for you.

They offer a bit of flavour.

On the other hand, the music is far more unique. For one, the man who did this is a bit mysterious; as his real name is not quite clear. Under the credits for this game, it is named Norio Hanzawa, but in other games he appears as Kazuo Hanzawa, or even with an alias, Playback Hanzawa or even NON. In any case, Hanzawa worked on other Treasure games, like Gunstar Heroes, Dynamite Headdy, Advance Guardian Heroes, and some Konami properties.

The man knows how to make the Mega Drive sound nice, no doubt about it. Although I wouldn't call this soundtrack "nice", per se.

You see, the game's music is there, for one part, to create this ambience of tension, to make the player feel a bit unsettled, like you're getting yourself into something you don't fully understand... But it's going to be trouble. Themes like "Sidelimits", "Lurk!!!" or "Perfect-Thing" really make it out to feel like that way, and it sort of sounds like a bit of a horror game, even!

But then, we have the other part, with super loud and pumping action pieces with loads of percussion, rocking through your Mega Drive at full force, making the action in the game feel even more hardcore. Some of them are more melodic, while others are super strident and more focused on bringing intensity for the incoming Boss Fight.

It makes you wonder how some developers made the console sound so poor. Pretty cool stuff overall, and while I don't know if it makes for a good "working / doing chores / relaxing soundtrack", it really makes the game experience better.

You can take listen to the soundtrack by clicking on DK here!

And well, I think I'll finish this already. I've written way too much more than it was necessary, but I felt the need, as a good introduction can make people easy themselves into games much better.

Alien Soldier, is one heck of a game. Fast, challenging, a constant "in crescendo" experience, impressive technically... I will always wonder what could have been if Treasure had more time to complete their vision. But as it stands out, it's a rush of adrenaline in a way I think very few games managed to be during the fourth generation.

As a last comment, I'd like to go back to the Title Screen for a small wink Treasure did to Sega.

Visualshock! Speedshock! Soudshock!

Now is time to the 68000 heart on fire!

These delightfully engrishy lines are part of the japanese slogans used by Sega to market the Mega Drive.

What a cheesy, lovable commercial.

"For Megadrivers custom" was a phrase Suganami thought of and loved so much that he put it into the game. It originated from the idea of making the game for the Mega Drive fans that wanted "hardcore" experiences.

I don't know why; but seeing these lines on the Title Screen just make me smile and remember simpler, more lighthearted days.

And that's all there is for this entry. Alien Soldier is a blast, and I kind of wish a full-blown remake happens one day, and see Suganami's dream come to full realization. Wich reminds me...

Suganami, you crazy man, you made a really tough but rewarding game, and I love it!