Hellfire (MD, 1990)
Graphics-7 Sound-7.5 Control-7 Challenge-9
Level Design-7 Frustration-9.5 Fun-7.5 Originality-6
Overall Score-7
+ Interesting weapons system (front/back/diagonal/vertical targeting which you can switch between by default, stages are designed with it in mind), sometimes intense action, pretty good variation (sometimes scrolls vertically), good bosses overall, the dancing chick, difficulty options (just easy/hard), decent art direction overall, some large sprites, shield power up (one extra hit), dancing girl in stage 1,
+/- Smart bomb is just a forward beam, slow scrolling, forgiving hit detection, need to beat Hard to get the real ending
- Trial & error (boss patterns, attacks from all sides, sudden speed shifts), uneven difficulty (some slow and easy parts here and there, stage 3 mid-boss is very tough, pretty easy final boss), very hard to recover later on (speed isn’t manually adjustable and you need to pick up power ups to upgrade it, resets to slowest speed and default shot power after dying), some dead space, so-so use of colour and generic design at times, very harsh sound design (great tracks though) without DAC or PSG, switching to the right beam is a bit clunky when things get hectic (can only cycle one way and not while pausing), sometimes repeats enemy types in later levels, no alternate weapon types
Level Design-7 Frustration-9.5 Fun-7.5 Originality-6
Overall Score-7
+ Interesting weapons system (front/back/diagonal/vertical targeting which you can switch between by default, stages are designed with it in mind), sometimes intense action, pretty good variation (sometimes scrolls vertically), good bosses overall, the dancing chick, difficulty options (just easy/hard), decent art direction overall, some large sprites, shield power up (one extra hit), dancing girl in stage 1,
+/- Smart bomb is just a forward beam, slow scrolling, forgiving hit detection, need to beat Hard to get the real ending
- Trial & error (boss patterns, attacks from all sides, sudden speed shifts), uneven difficulty (some slow and easy parts here and there, stage 3 mid-boss is very tough, pretty easy final boss), very hard to recover later on (speed isn’t manually adjustable and you need to pick up power ups to upgrade it, resets to slowest speed and default shot power after dying), some dead space, so-so use of colour and generic design at times, very harsh sound design (great tracks though) without DAC or PSG, switching to the right beam is a bit clunky when things get hectic (can only cycle one way and not while pausing), sometimes repeats enemy types in later levels, no alternate weapon types
