51. Star Soldier (Hudson Soft, Famicom, 1986)

Star Soldier is one of the classic space shooters on the Famicom (there have been 7 sequels since, though many were Japan-only), and while a lot of the early popular Famicom games have more of a "I can see why people liked this back then" quality (like Bokosuka Wars), Star Soldier manages to be straight up fun in 2020.

The game definitely suffers from the same issue as many scrolling shooters of the time: after you collect a bunch of powerups and die, you start over from square one. What was previously a ship with a rotating shield that could fire in 8 directions and cross the screen in half a second becomes a piddly little baby that feels so much worse to control.

Thankfully, I was playing Star Soldier on the Nintendo Switch Online service, so I had access to save states, making the game fell a little more modern. And with the annoyance of being stripped of my upgrades upon death, I was able to take in what made Star Soldier a classic. With a few speed and shot upgrades, I was briefly able to get the same flow state feeling like I was playing one of my favorite scrolling shooters. Star Soldier clips along at a relentless pace, constantly throwing new enemy types at you. While other Famicom shooters are content to have maybe 3-4 enemies in a stage, Star Solider must have had at least 15, plus many of the background tiles can be shot for bonus points, so the stages themselves are interactive.

If I had one gripe (is it too late to name this blog "The Gripe Escape"?), it would be the bosses. At least the first 3 levels all have the exact same boss. I suppose enemy variety is a little more important, but I really like a good shooter boss too, and this one is pretty simple.

4/5, a fast and varied scrolling shooter is always a good time