Oath, The

STORY / GAMEPLAY
I will not go through its storyline as the plot is quite confusing and has a lot of things to describe (via the manual). This game is a classic Sci-Fi shoot 'em up in which you scroll through several landscapes and shoot everything that moves until you reach the end.There's the usual plethora of power ups and the enemies vary a lot, based on the stage's scenario. Losing a life, all your extra weapons will be taken way, leaving you with the default laser cannon that's quite weak to help you progress. You must beware not to collide with the landscapes otherwise this will cause immediate destruction of your ship. When flying through the parallax backdrops and especially when the ship is heavily armed (something that expands your ship's size) you may easily lose lives as a result of confusing the first lethal level of parallax, with the second harmless level(!!) Well, that is surely too frustrating! On the other hand, at the end of each stage there is an end level guardian and although their usually big sizes and loaded firepower, they are a bit tame compared to the rest of the level! So, with a powerful weapon mounted on your ship they're easy to destroy! Apart from weaponry, there are other power ups around that will increase your energy level and make you more tolerant against the enemy fire.

GRAPHICS / SOUND
The game looks and sounds quite good and it's quite addictive to a point, but the action is rather slow and, most of the times, frustrating when trying to avoid enemy projectiles or foreground hazards. Your ship is flying from left to right and there some pretty good (but also deadly most of the times) parallax backdrops. The graphics are as good as they need to be, with nice colors (around 100 on each screen!), wonderful at times details and really nicely designed and animated sprites. The action is rather slow paced, almost like Psygnosis' Blood Money! Much like its visuals, the sound is great, with a variety of nicely composed tunes and many sampled sound effects that add a lot to the overall presentation of this shooter!

GAMEPLAY SAMPLE VIDEO
On our shoot 'em up compilation video below you may watch The Oath at 04:02.