Radilgy Impressions

Finally the weekend hits - time to relax, forget about work, and get into some serious gaming. I got my hands on Radilgy today, the latest from Milestone (makers of the mediocre Chaos Field), and here's what I thought -

What hits you first is the graphical style of the game. It almost feels like it was done in Macromedia Flash: very cartoony, bright colors, and large sprites. This is not often seen in a shmup, and I think it worked quite well. Cell shading seems to make the bullets easier to see also - there is such a contrast around the edge of objects your eye can make out all the details.

On to the meat and potatoes - the gameplay. You start out by picking from three ships (leftover from Chaos Field it seems), and also choosing your movement speed. Radilgy uses three buttons - normal attack, sword attack, and bomb (which is a proximity type attack), but when your character is standing still it goes into a defensive mode, and can reflect bullets. The bomb is very useful and plays like Mars Matrix or GigaWing - charge it by defeating enemies and then set it off mostly in a defensive position to cover your butt. In fact, this game almost plays like a cross between Chaos Field (the sword mechanics) and Mars Matrix (the constant reflex barrier).

So does this work? I find the game fun and a nice change of pace. It's no masterpiece by far though. The sword arc is very small, and forces you to get close up on enemies (collisions don't kill you, another stray from traditional shooters) which puts you in the way of newly generated shots. There is also an in-game email system, which interrupts gameplay before boss fights. And every enemy killed produces crystals, which float to one of your two charge bars. This movement draws your eye away from some of the more important things going on in the game, like staying alive. (Why do current shmups try to throw as many items on the screen at once that they possible can?) Bullets are very high in number, but slow moving, which is to the player's advantage. Add this to the small hit box and it's easy to dance around firestorms. The various attack methods and power up items make for an interesting scoring system, but to be honest I haven't investigated that much yet - I initially play shmups to beat them.

Radilgy is a step in the right direction for Milestone. Certainly not a "must have" title, but nothing to ignore either. You have to admire a developer that not only takes a new graphical direction in a genre, but also does it on the Sega Dreamcast.