Competitive vertically scrolling shoot ’em up featuring world-wide high score tables.

Story

Star Date 2180. Without warning, a band of soulless war drones appeared from the outer reaches of the solar system initiating an attack on mankind. The J.F.E (Joint Forces of Earth) launched a retaliation attack only to find out that the war drones were controlled by a greater evil – the Core Brain. Humanity narrowly escaped annihilation in this battle.
The battle against the Core Brain would demand something extraordinary – so the J.F.E quickly completed the prototype fighter ship CS-00A Caesar and launched it into space.
Core Brain is determined to rid the universe of humanity and a new battle for survival is about to unfold.

The Game

Star Soldier R is the 2008 WiiWare exclusive addition to the Star Soldier series. This isn’t a direct sequel to any specific Star Soldier game, but it does build on the very same mechanics seen in previous games of the series.
You play as the pilot of the Caesar prototype and your goal is basically to destroy everything in sight. This is a vertically scrolling competitive arcade style shoot ’em up. It is only playable in a so-called Caravan Mode. This is a game mode where you play to score as many points as possible in a single stage 2-Minute Mode, or a two stage 5-Minute Mode. As such the game is very limited in scope and instead focuses on the scoring mechanics of these two time based challenges.

Content

During the game you’ll be able to pick up two different kinds of power-ups. There are Energy Units and Force Units – pink and turquoise capsules respectively. The Energy Units will upgrade your weapons one level, up to a maximum of six levels. This upgrades your weapon into a three-way wide shot and eventually back facing fire power.
Force Units grants your Caesar ship a special drone that continuously orbits your ship, protecting it from incoming attacks by absorbing incoming bullets. Your ship can have five Force Units attached to it at one time. Picking up more Energy- or Force Units than your ship can hold will grant you 10,000 bonus points, so they are of great value.
There is also a third type of pick-up and that is the Material Unit. It simply gives you 2,000 points when picked up, and they are plenty. They play a huge role when going for the top scores so you should try to pick them all. In the heat of the action it’s tricky to say the least.

If your ship takes damage you’ll first lose one of your Force Units. If your ship takes damage when you have no Force Units, your weapons will be downgraded by three levels instead. If your weapons are at a low level and you take damage, you die. You are given infinite amount of lives, so all that dying does is that it prevents you from collecting points during the time it takes to spawn a new ship. Because of the strict time limits in this game dying is a no-go if you hope to get to the high score tables.

Force Units can assume an offensive formation to actively help you in your battle. This is controlled by the press of a button. When you release your Force Units from their standard defensive formation, they will spread out and act as stand alone cannon turrets. They’re powerful in their own right, but this will leave your ship vulnerable. Once they’re released they’ll consume energy – and thus turn from red to blue. You can recharge your Force Units whenever you want by pressing the release button again – they will then assume the defensive formation and recharge.

It’s important to balance the offensive formation with the defensive formation. When done right, it will save your life and help you fight the relentless enemy attack waves more efficiently.
This simple mechanic gives the game another layer of depth, because you’ll need to learn how the Force Units behave once they’re released and how you can utilize their powers best.

There are more than 20 different flying enemy types and more than 15 different ground targets. The official website has a strategy guide that has information on how much points they’re worth. This information is very important if you want to start playing for the top scores.

Other than the two main game Caravan Modes in Star Soldier R, there is a bonus game mode called Quick Shot mode in which your goal is simply to press your fire button as quickly as possible during a set time limit of ten seconds. The game will then simply calculate your average shot-per-second rating.

Star Soldier R features online high score tables via the Nintendo Wi-Fi Network. These score tables are divided into domestic and world tables, allowing you to compare your scores on a country basis and on a world wide basis. Both the 2-Minute- and 5-Minute Modes are accounted for, and the score tables are very extensive. Only your best score will be posted on the Wi-Fi rankings.
Because of this feature the game is heavily competitive and can really put any would-be shooter hero in place.

It should also be noted that you can’t adjust the difficulty level of the game, which makes sense due to the competitive aspect that it relies so heavily on. The difficulty in this game lies simply in scoring the big points – you must love playing the same few stages over and over again.

Controls

You can play this game with three different control setups. Simply using the Wii Remote held sideways, the Classic Controller or a combination of the Wii Remote and the Nunchuk. Playing with the Nunchuk would require you to steer with the thumbstick, which I personally find terrible for games like these.
The game has a much-needed built-in auto fire feature, so either way you choose to play you won’t have to manually mash the fire button.
Just like previous Star Soldier games you can freely adjust the speed of your ship with the press of a button. Utilizing this to your advantage is a key aspect of the game as it allows you to make precision movements, which are necessary to pull off some of the more demanding maneuvers.

Graphics

The graphics are very satisfying. It’s blazing fast, smooth and crisp. It’s rendered in 3D but it has a strong resemblance to the old-school 2D shoot ’em ups. Its color scheme is rather dark and thus looks a bit gloomy, but there are plenty of shiny details, explosions and glowing lasers to spice things up.
Even though the screen is swarming with attack drones and you’re blasting the living hell out of a space platform full with A-3 Turrets the game maintains its steady frame rate.
Both the enemies and the backgrounds generally has well thought out designs and it all makes for a believable world with lots of details. More importantly, the game is very easy to read despite all the bullets and explosions going off all the time.

Sound

The music has an epic feel, and it does sound like your typical up-beat Japanese shooter techno. It’s somewhat catchy and goes perfectly with the game. Even the title music sets the mood and quickly becomes iconic to the game.
The sound effects are quite generic but still get the job done. The explosions aren’t quite as massive as one would have wished, but other than that it’s good stuff.

Summary

Star Soldier R stands as a very elitist game. If you aren’t willing to replay the same few stages over and over again, this game really won’t satisfy you. Being limited to the two- and five minute game modes doesn’t really do justice to the legendary and epic Star Soldier games. Instead this game feels like a Star Soldier off shoot.
It’s nice however to see that the shoot ’em up genre can be made very engaging and competitive with world-wide high score tables and well thought out scoring mechanics. It’s sure to attract the hardcore fans. If you’re a fan of the Caravan Mode gameplay this game is definitely for you. Here’s hoping that the future will bring more shooting games like this.

Developed By: Hudson Soft
Published By: Hudson Soft
Version Reviewed: Wii
Genre: Shoot ’em Up
Players: 1
Released: 2008-05-20