Rhaaaaaaaa!! I need to share some of my frustration here about that T&E soft shooter... I'll try to stay polite and not go AVGN style, but... that game sucks.
For some reasons, I never really played that game too long before, even if I'm a big shmup fan and have both a Sony MSX2+ and a turboR machine (that game is one of the rare MSX2+ exclusive software).
As I recently got a nice MSX2+ expanded VG-8235, I decided it was time to repair that and go seriously on Laydock 2. I really enjoyed the first Laydock, with amazing graphics and smooth scroll at the time, same goes for Super Laydock, and finished both of them.
So, I've been playing that game for about 3 hours now... and have not even managed to pass level 2! And the more I play the game, the more frustrated get. I've identified several causes:
- The enemy moves are quite random and hard to predict.
- The player's bullets speed is rather slow, quite frustrating when combined with the randomness of the enemies.
- The sprites are moving with the camera! That makes no sense! If you aim a ground ennemy and that screen starts to move horizontally, your shoot will move horizontally and miss its target...
- There are no Shield bonus anywhere! In the previous Laydocks you were able to gain some HP (or Shield here), by shooting some capsules or ennemies, here there's nothing.
- The Shield / HP system is quite frustrating. If you take too much damage in stage 1, there's no hope passing stage 2. You better suicide yourself running into ennemies or walls!
- The "Mine" weapon is blocked until both mines have disappeared from the screen. If only 1 mine remains, you can't shoot a new one. Again, that's quite frustrating and random!
- The boss from stage 2 (that "blob" creature held in ice) moves randomly and squeezes you on the borders of the screen (sometimes without visually touching you). Also, there's no feedback on it of the damages you inflict.
On the positive side, that's one of the rare MSX2+ game, it has a smooth multi-directionnal scrolling, and graphics are OK (I would not say great, at least for the 1st 2 levels as that's all I've seen from the game so far). But that's all. Well, I might not be very objective right now because I'm so frustrated :)
So I'm done with that game for now, will play Bastard instead (which also sucks, but not that much).
Maybe I missed something? Maybe my reflexesand patience went down with age? I don't know, but I'd be curious to know if some of you have tested that game and maybe managed to enjoy it?
EDIT: If you also think that this game deeply sucks, you can also share it here, that will make me feel better :)
