Shooting Love: Trizeal Playstation 2

Triangle Service has teamed up with Datam Polystar to release Trizeal for the Playstation 2 this week. Trizeal appeared originally on the Dreamcast and was met with mixed reviews. While having solid, old-school shooter gameplay, most people complained about the dated graphics and lack of polygon textures. I really enjoyed the game, since I tend to focus more on gameplay than the "wow" factor of a game. Let's see how the PS2 version holds up:

Now called "Shooting Love", the PS2 version of Trizeal is basically a direct port of the DC version. The only noticable difference in the main game? More slowdown, and lots of it. After playing on my Playstation, I busted out the DC version to confirm it, and sure enough, my initial reaction was right....slowdown abounds. Where the DC only hit the breaks for boss explosions and tons of bullets on the screen, the ps2 slows in many more places, the most obvious being the battleship boss of level three. Sure slowdown helps a bit in shmups, but I feel it gets annoying jumping framerates several times a level and having to constantly adjust.

Along with Trizeal, the PS2 port includes an omake game, which is basically a gauntlet of 5 different shooting scenerios. The longer you last, the higher the game level and your score increases, and a password allows you to compete with other players on the internet. Your ship is smaller than the one in Trizeal, and only has a rapid fire gun equipped for offence. The first game is a bunch of balloons conisiting of red and grey, you only need to pick off the grey ones. Next up is a dodging game filled with red orbs (think Gradius 5), which gets brutal when they speed up and start moving in circles. The third section looks like a tribute to Xevious in which you need to shoot down rotating walls on a green field. Next is bullet hell dodging (a la final boss in Ikaruga - wow, these are tributes....), and finally shoot down a large circular device that drops eggs when defeated, and tally the destruction totals for the final score.
Update - ranking link: http://www.triangleservice.co.jp/html/tzps2ranking/index.html

While I'm very glad that shooters are getting more exposure by being ported to other systems, I'm disappointed in the effort put into this project. Why does a ps2 game have more slowdown than a Dreamcast game? I can understand R-Type final, which has crazy lighting effects, lots of textures, and tons of particles on the screen, but Trizeal? And the omake game is interesting in that it lets the player compete by surviving levels and not just via score, however it's way too short....you can get through the 5 sections in ten mintues. It's not enough to entice someone to buy this port.....my vote goes for the Dreamcast version.