82. Assault Suit Leynos (Dracue, Playstation 4, 2016)

Assault Suit Leynos is a remake of a Sega Genesis game about earth repelling an invasion with giant robot suits (released in North America as Target Earth). This was the first game in the Assault Suits series, which also included Assault Suits Valken (aka Cybernator) on the Super Nintendo. I haven't played the original Genesis game, but I did play Cybernator, which I remember to be cool but also very difficult.

This remake sticks with 2D graphics, and while they are not pixel art, they look fine and the animations are not bad. There is the addition of lengthy voice acting before each stage, and the voice acting really slows it down. There's like a solid 2-3 minutes of voice acting with anime talking heads on black backgrounds before each stage and it's really boring when you want to get in on the action.

Thankfully, the action is very good. The flying around and shooting feels good & heavy and as each level progresses, you get more options to customize your mech. This is a blessing and a curse, as you may want to try a new weapon only for it not to be particularly viable on a certain mission.

Each level feels very distinct in terms of your objective and even the mechanics. The third level has you freely flying around, and here the jump button is used for boosting. You still have a weight to your ship and dodging enemy projectiles feels reminiscent of Luftrausers at its best points.

4/5, Solid mech action with a lot of variety