When Star Soldier came out for the NES back in 1988, it was held by many to be a cutting-edge, challenging entry in the vertical space-shooter genre. However, now that it's available for the Wii's Virtual Console, it's hard to fathom how anyone could enjoy this game. The visuals and audio are good compared to other NES games, but the action and design really aren't all that special. Furthermore, the intense difficulty stems just as much from poor programming as it does from intentionally coded challenges.
You know the drill. You have to pilot a spacecraft through 16 vertically scrolling levels, dodge and shoot the tiny enemies that appear, and destroy the boss at the end of each level. Every power-up you collect adds another laser to your ship, which is the long and the short of the weapon upgrades that are available to you. There's nothing amazing about the graphics or audio, but they were considered cutting-edge in the NES days. The black star fields and modestly detailed space station structures look nice, the screen is often loaded with alien ships without any hint of flicker or slowdown, and the single, looping music track has a motivating beat.
The one interesting wrinkle is that you can avoid enemy fire by passing under certain structures, at the cost of not being able to shoot back while obscured. Unfortunately, that ability isn't as useful as you'd think it would be, because it's impossible to tell whether or not a structure is actually above or below your ship. The top-down view doesn't show depth and there's no shading whatsoever. They didn't even attempt to color higher altitude structures differently than lower ones. The only way to know if you can hide under something is to fly towards it and hope for the best. More often than not, you'll find yourself avoiding the foreground scenery entirely, in order to avoid the frustrating situation of having your firepower interrupted while you're dealing with a flurry of enemy ships.
As it is, Star Soldier is sadistically difficult. Alien ships are constantly swarming into view, deaths knock you back to a point much earlier in the level, and the bosses actually make you start the entire level over again if you don't destroy them in a short period of time. Besides the scenery constantly getting in your way, other programming flaws contribute to transform this already challenging game into an unfair one. Your own ship's hitbox is too large, the collision detection is unreliable, and enemies turn invisible when they're near the edges of the screen. All told, you never know if your bullets are going to hit anything or when the scenery is going to render you impotent.
Unless you're a masochist who gets off on frustration, don't waste 500 Wii points on Star Soldier. If you're looking for a vertical shoot-'em-up to play, spend an additional 100 points and purchase the TurboGrafx-16 renditions of Blazing Lasers or Soldier Blade instead.
