If you can look past the game's flaws, you'll find it to be a challenging, visually delicious, musically rich game.
GRAPHICS: 10/10
The graphics are easily the game's strongpoint, or one of them. The backgrounds scroll by extremely fluidly, whether they be shimmering oceans, mystic clouds, or a garden of deadly asteroids. Level 3 even features a neat "night-to-dawn-to-day" lighting effect which makes it feel like you are experiencing morning's bloom as you fight enemy forces. The bosses are huge and the enemies, whether they be missle-launching planes, kamikazes, garbage debris, or invincible lava beasts, are colorful and well-animated. Did I mention that the game has NO SLOWDOWN?!?!?
SOUND: 9/10
The sound is another shining part of the game, mostly due to the fact that the music is near-perfect for this kind of game. The sound effects are okay; you get your standard laser blasts when you fire and "BOOM" sounds when you or your enemies explode. Nothing particularly special in the effects department, but the music is just great. Techno beats and synthesized tunes help to create the mysterious, often dark feeling in the game, while keeping the overall experience enjoyable for the ears.
GAMEPLAY: 6.8/10
To many, this is where the game falls on its face. However, I find the gameplay to be quite fun, even if it's not the most diverse in the world. Simply put, you go through a level, blast different kinds of enemies, and make it to the end boss, where you battle a huge, mechanized monster or machine of some sort. Sound familiar? It's a beaten path, but at least the game offers some variety in gameplay. There are 5 types of basic weapons throughout the game, which can all be upgraded to 3 levels: the red peashooter you start out with, a green weapon that has a slight scatter, a purple shot with a fair amount of power, a golden shot which is very useful, and a blue gun, which is basically the "super" version of the golden shot, but only appears in the last level. Unfortunately, there are no secondary weapons, options to circle around your fighter, or smart bombs to clear the way of an enemy path. This makes the game a bit bland, but it definitely adds to the challenge factor, which we will discuss next.
CHALLENGE: 8.8/ 10 (Hard)
If you've played Star Fox or Space Harrier, two seminal rail-shooter games much like this one, you'd at first expect this to be between moderately easy and moderately tough, right? WRONG. This game is pretty unforgiving, especially for unseasoned or inexperienced players. Heck, I play a lot of Star Fox and this game whooped me on my first few tries!!! There are a number of factors that contribute to this game's unforgiving difficulty, and they are:
1: The game only gives you five lives to start out with, and no continues are given, nor can they be earned.
2: Extra lives are given at 10,000, 20,000, and 40,000 points each, respectively. However, I heard that some passwords let you earn extra lives at 10,000 each every time. Hmmm....
3. Enemy projectiles are EXTREMELY accurate, and some appear farther away than they actually are, sometimes giving you little or no chance of dodging them in time.
4. Some of the bosses' attacks seem IMPOSSIBLE to evade, adding more frustration to the experience.
OVERALL: 7.0/10 (Not an average)
In conclusion, if you can look past the game's flaws, as well as its somewhat unforgiving difficulty, you'll find this game to be innovative, neat, and pleasantly challenging. The visuals are beautiful, the music is catchy, and the starfighting is aplenty. If you can find this somewhere for cheap (I recently got mine at Gamestop for $2.99), I'm sure you'll enjoy it if you meet the previously stated conditions. Good luck, and good shooting!