Wii owners will soon come to realize what fans of the space shoot-'em-up genre have known for years: NEC's TurboGrafx-16 was home to a slew of enjoyable shoot-'em-ups. The second TurboGrafx-16 shooter to become available on the Virtual Console is Hudson's Soldier Blade, a vertical-scrolling gem known for its friendly difficulty curve, lengthy levels, and a constant stream of giant enemy ships and their accompanying gunfire.
Soldier Blade follows the standard shoot-'em-up formula. The object is to make it through all seven stages without running out of ships. To get through each stage, you need to dodge bullets, shoot down enemy ships, and vanquish the various sub-bosses and main bosses the game throws at you. Multiple power-up items let you upgrade your ship's weapons and act as armor that allows you to absorb damage. If something smacks into your ship while you're powered up, your weapons will go down a step but your ship won't explode. When you lose a ship, a new one appears right where the old one was lost. In general, the difficulty curve is friendly. The last three levels are tough, but the first four are very forgiving.
One of the sweetest things about the game is how much it throws at you. Flying enemies are always coming from all directions, ships frequently fly up from the ground to intercept you, and large ships often unleash smaller fighters and missiles. Each stage has multiple sub-bosses, as well as a final boss, all of which are large and have numerous attacks. In most cases, you have to blast off their parts gradually to defeat them.
Another nice aspect is the power-up system, which is straightforward and flexible. Supply ships and certain enemies leave behind colored pods that correspond to the three different weapons. When you fly over a pod, you'll pick up the associated weapon and add an extra bomb to your reserve in the form of a kamikaze wingman who will seek out enemies whenever you push the bomb button. As you collect additional pods, your weapons will increase in strength and visual intensity. The blue laser is particularly impressive, especially when you press the bomb button and activate its temporary fatty beam. Best of all, the game does a good job of keeping those supply ships coming, so you can feel free to cut loose with your bombs.
While the visuals and audio are outdated by today's standards, they're sharp by 1992's standards. Enemy ships come in all sizes, and the scrolling backdrops vary between land- and space-based locations. There's rarely a moment when the screen isn't teeming with lasers and missiles. While there isn't a whole lot of variety to the accompanying sound effects, they're appropriately high-tech. The music is catchy and elaborate, once you crank the speakers so that you can hear it. Overall, the emulation is spot-on. The colors in the original game were rich and the screen never slowed down even when packed with enemies. The same is true here. The graphics are mildly blurry when the Wii is running in progressive scan, but the blur isn't as obvious as it is in other TurboGrafx-16 games on the Virtual Console. Also, because the game only uses two buttons, it controls very well with the Wii Remote.
For 600 Wii points ($6), you can't go wrong with Soldier Blade. The main game is a blast and it will take quite some time to finish. But once you've mastered that mode, you can tackle the two-minute and five-minute score attack modes, which feature mashed-up levels from the main game.
