Aldynes

STORY / GAMEPLAY
Nearing the year 2020 the aliens suddenly attack the Earth without reason or any sign of previous communication. With all their defenses annihilated, the League of Nations corresponds with NASA to create a powerful space fighter known as "The Ortega", under the project name of "Aldynes". During that time, a particular space fighter pilot -known only by his call sign Fox A- was killed in action; his bereaved girlfriend Hiroko soon discovered Project Aldynes and its near complete fighter. As the invaders attack the air force base housing the Project Aldynes, she hijacks one of the ships and throws herself into battle in hopes of avenging her boyfriend's death. The game offers great shooting gameplay (which is its best feature). You pick up weapons, speed and a variety of other upgrades (like in the R-Type or the Amiga's Project X), but the game puts a heavy emphasis on the player's reflexes. Well, this emphasis makes this shooter quite difficult to progress but it's still fun and great to play. The enemy patterns are nicely done and even a seasonal shoot 'em up fan will find a tough challenge here.

GRAPHICS / SOUND
Aldynes uses nice colors and detailed backgrounds with an impressive multi-layer parallax scrolling! The sprites are large and move smoothly while the end-level bosses are absolutely huge (showcasing the sprite handling capability of the PC Engine's GPUs!) Sonically, the game uses a few in-game catchy tunes and some typical, shooter sound FX.