Review #210 - Einhander

 Killer AIs are so 80s.

 Remember the 90s? Remember when Squaresoft would go outsider its comfort zone and create some great titles that weren't RPGs? I remember.  Einhander is a vertical shoot'em up that brings its own unique spin on the genre, and it's pretty dang good.

 Should I bother with the story? Who plays shoot'em ups for the story? There actually is an story to Einhander, it's pretty dark and grim, and even holds some twists if you manage to make it far enough. I didn't care for it, and neither should you, but it's amusing that Square went out of its way to give it such an involved plot. It's not bad, it's actually fairly interesting, but me, personally, didn't care for it. The game can be played on Easy, Normal or Hard, it's a seven stage romp that can be finished in under an hour if you know what you are doing. I'm terrible at these games, so I had a hard time finishing it in Easy, but the game is far from a bullet curtain, if you've the skill, it's probably quite manageable. That said, if you lose a life, you are sent back to a checkpoint, so you can't just force your way through. One thing to keep in mind is that you can't save your progress, so when you start the game, you better commit to it. Initially there's 3 ships, but you can unlock another 2, one by finishing the game on Hard while using less than two continues(Evidently, this is far beyond my skills) and another one by achieving 15 bonuses, which is easy if you know how to attain these bonuses.

 The game offers some very interesting mechanics, and they change a little depending on which ship you pick. The game is named after the Arm your ship possesses, which you can use to punch the enemies behind or below you, or to hold the various weapon pods. There's a wide variety of weapons, some stronger than others, and each weapon can be used in two different positions, above or below you, which you can be changed at will, some just change if they fire below or above your machine gun rounds, but others may shoot behind you, depending on where you equip them, While you can't save the game midway through your run, the game is saved after you win or run out of continues, and every pod that you grabbed gets 'saved', this way you can choose to start with that weapon equipped the next time you play, which also means you are re-equipped with it every time you respawn. These weapons have a secondary function... you can use them as shields. While your ship dies in one shot, if you time it, or reposition yourself so that a bullet hits a pod, it will tank the shot for you! Pods have limited 'endurance', so they aren't such a commodity.

Every ship comes outfitted with a standard machine gun, the only weapon that houses unlimited ammo, but they use the pods in different ways. One Ship has an enhanced Machine Gun, but can only wield one weapon at a time. Another one allows you to use two pods at a time, but having two pods means that you can't use the machine gun, so you will have to consume ammo, plus, depending on the pods, you may get one of those that shoots behind you if equipped in a certain position, so double fire may be an impossibility. The third one can only equip one pod at a time, but allows you to store up to three different pods. As for the unlockable ships, one can't equip pods(But has a waaay better normal gun) and the other one is an enhanced version of the third ship, that can store almost infinite ammo of each pod(You have to collect the ammo though!).

 As far as looks go... it's alright, I guess. Bullets are clearly defined, and I didn't have trouble spotting them, most of the time, if I got shot down, either I knew why or I got distracted. Something I liked is how the game becomes clearer as you go along, at the start you are in a city, at night, but by stage 4 it's already morning and you are raiding a base! The music is incredible, it's really, really good, it gets you pumped for what's coming, I don't think there was a single track I disliked

 I'm not fond of shoot'em ups, and I'm not good at them, but I liked this one, and I kept coming back to it until I eventually finished it(On easy) which speaks volumes of the game's quality. The entry barrier is a bit higher than other shoot'em ups, which means I'm not sure if anybody else who isn't fond of the genre will like it though.
 8.0 out of 10