LogFAQs > #949438050

#75. Thunder Force V (PS1, 1998)



I feel like my list has a lot of shoot em ups on it already, but it's been a genre I thought was cool 30 years ago, and still enjoy today, and played off and on the whole time between, so uh here's another one.

Thunder Force is a shoot em up series that had a good run in the '90s, but I only ever played this one game. The previous few games were on the Genesis, but then Technosoft tried to really dial it up when they jumped to the Saturn/Playstation. At the time, I remember just feeling that this game oozed style. It has a futuristc cyber-techno aesthetic, which was the coolest thing then, of course. Working Designs also localized the game for the US, a company that put a lot of care into their games (sometimes too much), and as a result they tried to fancy things up, including a shiny reflective boxart, It just felt cool to play this game.

Behind all the appearance actually is a very cool game too. The music rocks hard and with lots of energy. All the bosses have multiple parts to attack and destroy, along with multiple phases. You can get up to three orbs rotating around you, which can absorb enemy bullets. You can also use the orbs to fire a super powered version of your weapon, but then the orbs are drained and disappear when hit by a bullet. You get five different weapons to use, which you can rotate between freely at any time. The coolest of these is the Free Range gun, which takes a lot of work to control, but can fire in any direction and does more damage the closer you are to an enemy. TFV can be pretty tough, generally fair but with a few gotcha moments. And then there's a final boss that has some severe final boss syndrome of being way harder than everything. But once you get used to the five different weapons and swapping as needed, it becomes a lot more manageable and fun.

---

ONLY FIVE CAN LADDER.
Sushi, kamikaze, fujiyama, nippon-ichi...