RefleX (WBW)

Going out with a boing.

We've finally come to the end of the ALLTYNEX trilogy.  And by finally I mean in just over 24 hours.  What a ride it's been.  Unfortunately we're ending things with what is easily the weakest in the trilogy, but fans of the genre will definitely not be disappointed.

All the standard stuff that lets you know this is, indeed, an ALLTYNEX trilogy game is there.  Enemy bullets which are color-coded to let you know how to react to them.  A self-filling special meter.  Dying a lot.  But, once again, RefleX has a few innovations that are unique to it while keeping the same overall "feel" as the other two.

Looks a lot like KAMUI, doesn't it?

The primary difference here is the Shield.  Hold down the special button and your ship is enveloped in a circle of energy.  Red and purple shots are destroyed on contact, while blue shots turn green, reflect off, and hurt your enemies.  It's not a brand new idea, but neither are giant lasers and homing missiles.  It works well enough, requiring you to put up the shields pretty frequently or collapse under a wall of bullets, just like the other two games.  The difference here is that blue bullets are your (potential) friends, and it's a good idea to purposely put yourself in their path so you can greenify them.  Green bullets do a lot more damage than your main weapon, so they're a must for taking down bigger enemies and bosses.

Here I'm converting blue bullets to green bullets with my indomitable clout.

Aside from that, it's basically KAMUI.  Same high resolution pixel graphics, same 16-bit-sounding music.  The assets are all different, but it could easily have been the second half of KAMUI, just slightly prettier.  Instead of being limited to 800x600, which is basically garbage today, the maximum resolution here is 1280x960.  It's still 4:3, yes, but it's big enough that playing it full screen looks just fine.

Here's a laser bird to make up for this short review.

And that takes care of the trilogy.  All in all, three good games.  Or more accurately, one great game, one good game, and one okay game.  I still had fun with RefleX, but I'd much rather be playing Second than the other two.  And lucky for you, the bundle has all three!  The bundle also has other games, though, so look forward to something that isn't a shoot em up in the near future.