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   Company Hudson Soft ESRB Rating E for Everyone Release Date US - June 4, 2007 Controllers Wii Remote Classic Controller Gamecube Controller Wii Points 600  Review by: Corbie Dillard ©2008 Virtual-Turbo |
With
the sheer number of shooters that were released for the TurboGrafx-16
system, it's no wonder that Dead Moon was largely ignored the first
time around. Perhaps this is why Hudson has now decided to give the
game a second chance on the Wii Virtual Console. Everything about Dead
Moon is pretty standard and has been done many times before in other
shooters, but there's a certain comfort when playing the game due to
this familiar feeling. The main criticism of Dead Moon has always been
its bland visuals, but if you can look past this shortcoming what
you'll find is a decently enjoyable shooter that sticks to the basics
and doesn't try to do more than it's capable of. So how does a game
that wasn't too well received the first time around hold up on the
Virtual Console that's already seen several spectacular shooters
released for it?
During the early years of space exploration near Pluto, a comet was spotted heading towards Earth. The space center sent a group of probes to study the comet only to find that the comet disintegrated the probes and then took on a course directly towards Earth. Missile were launched at the comet in an attempt to destroy it but the comet managed to evade these missiles and plunged directly into the Earth's moon. Ships were sent from Earth to investigate the damage to the moon only to find that there were alien spacecraft all over the surface of the moon. Now it's up to you to stop this alien plague from carrying out its plan to take over the Earth. The entire plot is pretty much standard shooter storyline. If you've ever played a horizontal shooter, you'll know exactly what to expect from Dead Moon. It doesn't stray far from the tried-and-true game play that's been done many times before. You have a standard cannon fire to begin with, but as you destroy enemy pods, you'll be able to upgrade your firepower depending on which color power-up you grab. If you pick up another power-up of the same color, you can even further enhance your cannon fire that will allow your ship to fire in both directions. This will come in quite handy since you're normally bombarded from both the front and behind. You're also given the token handful of smart bombs that are best saved for use on the game's tough end level boss fights. In each level you'll have to safely navigate through wave after wave of enemy spacecrafts and as an added bonus you'll also get to face off with a mid-level boss as well as an end-of-level boss. These bosses are all pattern-based so it's mainly just a matter of learning their attack patterns and exploiting them. One unique aspect of Dead Moon is the ability to have your ship face both forwards and backwards during boss fights depending on where the boss is located onscreen. It really provides an added dimension to the strategy involved in the boss fights. It's worth noting that the difficulty in Dead Moon is a little on the steep side, which is further enhanced with a lack of any type of difficulty settings option. It's all or nothing with Dead Moon and beating the game will take some serious practice. It doesn't help that many of the Turbografx-16 shooters that have already been released on the Virtual Console have featured some outstanding visuals. Dead Moon has some very nice visual moments, especially the really cool parallax scrolling in each level, but given the lack of detail in the backgrounds to begin with, this cool feature mainly keeps the game afloat visually instead of spicing things up the way it was probably originally intended. Much like the backgrounds in the game, the bosses are another streaky part of the visuals in the way that a few of the bosses look absolutely fantastic yet others look drab and uninspiring. For the most part Dead Moon is well below most of the other Turbografx-16 shooters that have seen release on the Wii Virtual Console, but there are at least a couple of moments in the game where it really shines. Problem is these moments only make you wish that there were more of them. The music in Dead Moon ranges from good to mediocre. There are actually some really good musical tracks that slightly resemble those found in the Star Soldier titles, but sadly you'll get to hear these in the first two levels and then it's all downhill after that. The sound effects in the game are good if you like to hear lots of explosions, but don't expect much variety after that. It's certainly no surprise after seeing the game in action that sound and graphics were not very high on the priority list when it came to this game's development cycle. It's an average musical effort, but certainly nothing to get too excited about. It's worth noting that despite the lack of flashy visuals and catchy musical tracks Dead Moon is still an enjoyable shooter for the most part. Shooter fans will likely enjoy the game, but those looking for something more along the lines of a Soldier Blade or Blazing Lazers might want to look elsewhere. The game just never really reaches the level of looking or feeling like a true 16-bit shooter. Instead it seems more like something you'd be playing on an NES system. Having said all of that, it's hard not to like Dead Moon as it's actually a fun game to play through, it's just not exciting enough to keep you coming back for more very often. If you love a good shooter and can somehow overlook the game's shortcomings, you might want to give Dead Moon a try. It might not be a top shelf shooter, but it does have a very unique charm to it that's at least worth a look. |
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