Hey dtoid, I haven't posted a blog for a good while since they've been made of fail but I am a forgiving soul and since the blogs over the last couple days haven't been too horrible... I'll make a new one for you.

alright, this is a new segment I'll be doing about once a week about games that the
average gamer has probably never heard about but were damn good nonetheless.



for the first game of the series I'm going to talk about WarTech: Senko no Ronde


the game is best described as a fighter shmupp, and while that may sound very odd, its quite well executed... you have long range shmupp battles, hurling tons of bullets at your enemy, and you've got close range fights where knowing your combo's will help... alot.

what kind of bullets may you ask? metal ones?


the game was made by the same people who worked on ikaruga and gradius 5, so if you've played either of those right there I probably just sold you.

if you haven't played at least one of those games, shame on you.

the game's storyline is a confusing fuckmash of various cutscenes and voice overs that serve to confuse you more than anything, in order to begin to understand the storyline its best to beat the game with every character and even then... its confusing. basically its the future and people have powered robotic exoskeletons called rounders, which can be modified for combat and space flight. some guy gets kidnapped and everyone is looking for him and the kidnapped guy is put into some super exoskeleton robot that you fight as the end boss depending on the character you choose.

there are nine characters in total, each controlling fairly differently from each other, with a slew of various freeze moves, flood the screen with bullet moves, and theres even a character who can teleport behind you then stab you.

now, the game isn't very long, it can be beaten with a single character in under an hour, so about nine hours total for the full game, there are some alternate modes and what not, mostly just modes that are remade from the Japanese arcade game its based on. there are unlockable bios for the characters and rounders and other things to help you understand the storyline and give some more background information. but most of it is just gravy on an otherwise good game.

alright, even if you're still skeptical at this point, this game does something I have always wanted in games... you can become a boss. you know the epic shmupp bosses that are the epitome of the genre? yeah, you get to become one. even though its only for a small period of time, its quite epic. with a pull of the triggers you'll receive your boss add on to your rounder and will take up anywhere from a 1/4th to 1/2 of the screen. your enemy must hang on for dear life while you pummel them with gigantic missiles and various kinds of lasers.

there is one last thing I need to say about this game...


but get it fast since the game is no longer being made.

overall the gameplay is great, the story is crap and the multiplayer is epic
8/10

I wish more unusual Japanese titles got released over here...

and if you didn't like my review... aaron talks about it here