Arkagis Revolution, err… Ark haggis? Are Cages? Arc Hedges? Well this video is out
to a fine start, I can’t even say the name of the
game. Arpegio Revolution is a new game for
the Sega Genesis or Mega Drive which was originally
set to launch in May 2020, but due to the
recent Covid-19 virus its physical release has been delayed
I’ve been following this game on Twitter
for a while now, so I got in touch with the developers
and asked them for a review copy of the game, but sadly, due to the whole Covid-19
business, they couldn't really send me a physical copy of the game
So instead, I was sent a rom file which is how I'm playing this game
The game is an impressive looking mode-7 like
overhead shooter for the Mega Drive which
is an awesome technical marvel for the system,
but it doesn’t stop there. It's got Impressive looking
cutscenes and even full voice acting. Now, this was supposed to be the part where I’d talk about the game's
physical packaging, but yeah, that’s not gonna happen.
I will say I’m not a big fan of the cover
art though. I don’t know if this is just
a place-holder or the real thing, but I’m
not really feeling what they went with here.
The website also lists the full packaging will include
the cartridge, clamshell box and full color manual. I should point out that because I don't
have a physical cartridge, I’m playing my
copy of the game on the Fusion emulator and
I’m using the Mega Drive mini’s 3-button
controller. While playing it, I didn’t run into any weird
bugs or emulation issues, but I have no way
to tell if any do exist when playing the game
on the actual console. But sadly, that's about
as far as I can take this segment, so let’s
get to the game.
Arthritis Revolution begins with a really
impressive looking intro. You’ve got smooth
animations and everything is drawn in perspective
to give it a polygonal look, it kind of reminds
me of Flashback or Another World in this regard
and it’s really well done.
There’s just one thing that ruins it, the
faces.
I’m sorry but just look at their faces.
Why do they look so goofy? Even the bad dictator
guy looks like that goofy science teacher
you had back in highschool. I’m sorry, I
just can’t get over how goofy their faces
look.
I think they were going for an anime style,
something which I’m all for, but clearly something
did not translate as well as they’d hoped.
Anyway, the intro tells the story of how your
planet was living under a dictatorship and
then a second force invaded aiming to overthrow
them, only to install their own rule. So now
it’s your job to overthrow them and actually
free your planet for once.
As you start the game, you’re prompted to
what is probably a Mega Drive first, full
voice acting for every dialog line.
*awesome crackly 16-bit voice acting on a great game*
This is honestly really impressive. You have different
characters, different actors and it doesn’t
seem like they use re-use any lines either.
The only other game I can think of that does
something like this is Strider Returns for the mega drive, but the less said about that game the better.
Not to mention, Amstrad Revolution has way more lines of dialog than that game.
Sure, they may not sound as clear as Strider Returns
*more awesome crackly 16-bit voice acting*
*awesome reverb-filled 16-bit voice acting*
but from a technical standpoint, it's still impressive. And at least, the
character’s faces look a LOT better on this
small window screen.
Equally impressive from a technical standpoint,
is the game itself. I mean, look at this!
How many games on the Mega Drive can you think of
of that have complete sprite and background
rotation? I can think of Redzone and that’s
pretty much it.
The game also runs very smoothly, I tried
testing its limits to see if there were any
framerate drops and save one or two spots
in the final level, this was a completely
smooth experience. Even when the frame rate
drops, it was barely noticeable during gameplay
and probably won’t be noticeable at all
on YouTube.
Now, this does come with a few caveats. As
you’ve no doubt noticed, two thirds of the
screen are covered by your HUD and boy does
this make the game feel claustrophobic. Yes,
you do get used to it, but that lingering
feeling of Claustrophobia never fully goes
away. This means I often found myself running
into enemies or dangers or not knowing how
close they were to me, because of my limited
view area.
It also doesn’t help that many levels are
pretty claustrophobic themselves, with small
rooms, narrow passages, long corridors, that
sort of thing.
Despite this, Aspargus Revolution is super
easy. I was able to complete the game in one
hour on my first playthrough. This is helped
by some really tight and responsive controls.
You move your ship with the D-pad, shoot with
the B button and use the A and C buttons to
turn and this works surprisingly well.
You turn fast and on a dime and your enemies
are so large that it makes it easy to hit
them so long as you shoot in their general
vicinity. This was an issue I had with Xenocrisis
as I was never sure which button turned me
into which direction.
But here? It works flawlessly. You also have
a few weapon pick-ups to help you along the
way, you start with your normal pea shooter,
which is also the only weapon that can be
upgraded to fire stronger shots. It’s just
your regular, standard weapon, no real frills
here.
Then you get the homing weapon and by God,
this weapon is SO good. It lets you shoot
from corners and it targets enemies before
they even appear on the screen, so I was just
kept using it as makeshift radar to know how
which direction my enemies were coming from.
And often I was taking them out before I ever
even saw them. This is definitely my favorite
weapon in the game.
And then you get a charge shot which can shoot
doors or destroy multiple enemies at once.
At first, I didn’t really care for this
one due to its slow re-fire rate, but I did
find some use for it, more on that later.
And, that’s it, 3 weapons. Yeah, I was a
little disappointed, but at least switching
between them is quick and easy. You either
press the XYZ buttons on the 6-button controller
to instantly select that weapon or you can
pause Arkanoid Revolution and select your
weapon in an instant, so it never brings down
the pacing of the game and what a pacing it
is.
I just kept charging in and shooting everything
in my path, it was incredibly satisfying mowing
down everything in my path and the smooth
controls also helped when I ran into some
environmental challenges.
The levels are all fairly large too and you
can even access a map to help you guide your
way. To be fair, I never really needed the
map though as it doesn’t let you scroll
where you want it to, nor does it highlight
any points of interest like enemies, doors
or weapon and health pick-ups.
Not that you really need a map as the levels
are all fairly straightforward. Sure, they
have side rooms for the aforementioned weapon
and health pick-ups and some levels are larger
than others either with wide areas to explore
or several interconnected rooms, but they’re
all fairly easy to navigate.
As long as you maintain some basic sense of
direction you’ll always know where you’ve
been and where you’re going. One thing that
did bother me is how every time you leave
an area, the game resets your weapons and
health. This means that if you go out of your
way to find all the weapon pick-ups in a stage,
you’ll lose them once you complete that
area and move on to either the next area or
the end-level boss. It kind of made me question
what’s the point in collecting the weapons
if I can’t use them against bosses.
With that said, the game is pretty short with
only 5 levels. Not only that, but you also
have three tutorial segments which are sadly
unskippable.
but at least, at the start of every level,
boss fight and upon completing each level you get some voiced dialog. I'm sorry but that that is just so
impressive to me.
One thing I did notice is that the enemy AI
doesn’t really know what to do when you
start strafing and shooting. So it’s really
easy to dodge their shots and mow them down.
This includes bosses too, so long as you keep
strafing and shooting you’ll have no issue
dealing with any of them, including the final
boss.
One way the game seems to get around this
is by littering the levels and boss fights
with barrels and other destructible environments.
But if you take the time to clear the area
first, then you can take out the bosses without
any major hassles.
In fact, the game was so easy that I was so
easy that I was able to beat it on my first
try without losing any lives.
At least you do get a difficulty slider. I
decided to crank it way up, not that I had
any issues, I mean I’m already a pro at
this game. There’s nothing it can throw
at me that would make me-
so yeah it’s harder now.
I don’t know if it adds more enemies or
if they’re just more aggressive, but I suddenly
found myself having trouble dodging their
bullets and was the edge of my seat the entire
time. Not only that, but suddenly, I started
using my weapons much more strategically.
I was still using the homing weapon to attack
enemies from corners and using it as an early
warning system, but suddenly, I also found
myself baiting enemies towards those long
corridors I mentioned and taking out multiple
foes at once with the charge shot.
In fact, I found myself using the charge shot
A LOT more often now. Heck, I’ve even started
using the backwards boost you get from firing
it to my advantage so that I could take down
multiple enemies at once while putting some
distance between me and their bullets. Even
the bosses were much more difficult this time
as they’d change up their patterns or go
into erratic behavior so that you couldn’t
hit them by just strafing in the same direction
over and over again while shooting. So yeah, I was now playing Arkansas Revolution much more strategically
and the game was better for it.
The game also has a speedrun mode, which basically
gives you a counter on the upper right corner
to let you know how long you’re taking to
beat the game. It doesn’t let you skip the
tutorial segments though.
Graphically, I generally enjoyed the game
for its sprite and background rotation, but
I thought the colors were kind dull and the
levels also seemed pretty featureless. Like
here, this stage where you’re supposed to
be inside a research facility.
Does any of this scream research facility
or laboratory to you? Give me giant test-tubes
with humans in it, give me prototype machines
still in construction, just… anything.
The music is also fairly good, but nothing
I’d say spectacular. Still, it does a good
job and sounds way better than many officially
released games.
Overall, I REALLY enjoyed my time with Arkagis
Revolution. This game is a technical marvel
on the console, but more than that, it’s
also a REALLY fun game. Sure, I had some problems
with the low difficulty at first, but once
I raised the settings to my liking, suddenly
I got the challenge I was looking for while
using each weapon and my tank’s mobility
to its fullest.
I have little doubt in my mind that if Arkagis
Revolution had launched back in the day, it
would have been show stopper and out of every
modern Mega Drive games released, as of now,
this one is definitely on my top 5 and I highly
recommend it.
If you want to buy a copy of the game, you
can go to Arkagis.com which then has links
to a European and Japanese stores. As of yet,
there doesn’t seem to be any US online stores
for the game. And though I can’t give an
opinion on the physical packaging, I can say
the game itself is definitely worth it. Just
be sure to remember to temper your expectations
and keep in mind you can easily finish this game
in about an hour.
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