Power Strike Master System
Everything you need to know about Power Strike
Power Strike is a vertical scrolling shooter by Compile, published by Sega for their Master System home console. An adaptation of the original MSX version of the game known as Aleste (????) and the spiritual successor to Compile's previous hit Zanac, Power Strike uses a similar weapon system, fast pacing, and adaptive enemy AI while changing a bit of the setup: you must now prevent the destruction of the planet at the hands (tentacles?) of aggressive, highly mutated, plant-like biological entities.
Power Strike Gameplay
The main reason to play Power Strike is the robust weapon system and progressive enemy AI. See, you start with a very basic forward throw complemented by a stronger special throw that can be aimed - that's Arm 1. Throughout the levels, you will have the opportunity to collect a series of small P icons (which will improve your basic blueprint up to four times if you collect enough) as well as numbered icons, some of which will fly by on ships, others of which are rooted in the background.
Each number from 1 to 8 represents a specific alternate special weapon: Arm 2 is a charge shot, Arm 8 is a swinging wave, Arm 3 is a solid forward beam, etc. Each of these power-ups (excluding the default Arm 1) are only usable for a limited time, but they come in such large quantities that you'll usually have plenty of opportunities to replenish your supply.
In fact, part of the fun here, just like in Zanac, is trying out each of the different weapons and seeing how you like to use them and what the enemy forces will throw at you. Unlike most other shooting games, where the waves are predetermined, Power Strike will constantly change the enemy opposition based on your weapons.
This makes it impossible to memorize your way through the game and will ensure that only attentive players will completely eliminate it, as well as compensating for the fact that many enemies are reused throughout the stages. Each round is a long vertical corridor filled with hundreds of flying enemies mixed with ground turrets, not to mention a series of stops to fight bosses and mini-bosses made up of dense turret arrays (not unlike, say, Exed Exes). It's not a particularly long or short game, but it's still exciting throughout its duration.
Despite this, there are some detriments to Power Strike. Firstly, there's a bit of slowdown when the going gets tough, which might bother some purists; However, given how much the game throws at you, this usually ends up being a blessing in disguise and gives you a few more moments to consider your routes.
The other problem is that the game's difficulty works like Gradius: once you're fully powered up, the game becomes much easier, but dying and having to restart from scratch can be a test to overcome. However, it's not as big a problem as with other games in the style: picking up any P item or number gives you a brief moment of invulnerability to help you navigate through the dense opposition.
Graphics
Wow. Seriously, wow. The limited color palette and black background for boss fights are the only giveaways that you're playing an 8-bit game. This game looks great and is incredibly similar to the arcade original, albeit with smaller sprites due to condensing three screens into one. The bosses are particularly incredible: in many cases they equal or surpass the Mega Drive version. Despite being a complete wimp, the first Hyper Sting boss looks even better than the arcade-perfect Saturn version.
Now there is a surge in books! But there is a drawback. And tragically it's a massive, massive disadvantage. This game suffers greatly from not only horrible slowdown, but some of the worst stuttering ever encountered in a video game. Many of the boss battles are monumentally easy thanks to the slowdown, particularly Alloy Lantern, Drio Sawn, Leadain, and Grand Octopus, which is a real shame because they look identical to the arcade version.
The huge drawbacks of flickering and slowdown can be overcome with repeated play: you get used to where it happens and when to move to reduce the risk of getting hit by bullets you can't see. But it's certainly not ideal and you can't help but feel that, given the quality of Power Strike II, if Sega had waited almost as long for this conversion as they did with the Saturn version, then they would have gotten a far superior product.
Music and Sound
The laser and explosion effects are pretty standard shmup fare, so they're nothing special, but they're not annoying either. However, the music is a triumph. Getting the SMS to produce decent music is a big challenge in itself and while 1988's Power Strike set the bar high, Sagaia packs a pretty good punch. The tunes, if played alongside the better-than-arcade Saturn versions, are instantly recognizable and very close to the original; It's mainly just missing some fancy effects, which is a great achievement.
Final reflection
The fact that it took Sega and Taito until 1996 to create a perfect arcade version of Darius 2/Sagaia speaks volumes and also excuses some of the shortcomings of this 8-bit version, but while the graphics and sound are very close to arcade it falls over with flickering and slowing when moving, which is a serious flaw that restricts it a bit to only shmup and Darius fans.
Given that few Mega Drive side-scrolling games feature two-player modes, it's no surprise that this arcade game feature was dropped for the Master System port, and one can't help but feel the same way about the reduced level count. SMS shmups typically have 5 or 6 levels, so expecting the full 28 would be wishful thinking, so while the number is reduced, the spirit of branching paths remains.
Overall, shmup fans will want to grab this because they can get around the glitches in the game - losing all weapons upon death is common in the genre, while slowdown and stuttering will seriously put casual players off - but experienced shmup You will easily be able to solve it. Ultimately, this is a monumental achievement despite its flaws. If only it were left until the programmers could fully exploit the machine's capabilities, as it stands it's essential for shmup fans, but so-so for the casual player.
Game technical sheet
Genders)
Action
game modes
1 Player
Cooperative
Nope
Format(s)
Cartridge
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