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 variety (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)
The 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)
Switching to the right beam is a bit clunky when things get hectic (can only cycle one way and not while pausing)
Some dead space
Sometimes repeats enemy types in later levels
No alternate weapon types
Very harsh sound design (great tracks though) without DAC or PSG
So-so use of colour and generic design at times
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 variety (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)
The 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)
Switching to the right beam is a bit clunky when things get hectic (can only cycle one way and not while pausing)
Some dead space
Sometimes repeats enemy types in later levels
No alternate weapon types
Very harsh sound design (great tracks though) without DAC or PSG
So-so use of colour and generic design at times