Shoot em ups are becoming more popular nowadays, and I couldn’t be happier. Now, we have with us Super Hydorah, a new game by Locomalito and Gryzor87. Thanks to publisher Abylight, we are able to enjoy their games on Nintendo Switch. One thing I like about Locomalito and Gryzor87 is that they make the games that they want to play, and that says a lot about their development culture. As someone who wants to learn to code to make games (yep, it’s one of my dreams by the way), they inspire me. Having played Maldita Castilla on the PS Vita a while ago, I could see the level of polish and how fun the game was. Now, having the opportunity to play Super Hydorah, I see that it’s a game that they had so much fun developing and that they were inspired by classics like Gradius or R-Type. However, they’ve added their personal touch, making Super Hydorah an experience so rich, fun and challenging.
One of the things I liked the most about Super Hydorah is that unlike other shmups, SH lets you play at your own pace with a nonlinear speed. After beating the first stage, you can choose which area to play next kind of like Starfox. After completing a stage, you can go back in the map and play the one you left behind. It is a really good thing because that way you can experience everything the game has to offer in a single playthrough. For completionists, it is a welcome feature.
Another cool thing in SH is that after beating each boss, you can get a new weapon. This is really awesome because, unlike other games where you need to sacrifice some power-ups to get the weapon you want, you can choose which weapons to bring to the next stage. In some areas, the spread shot is better for crow control, but in others, standard fire is better. There are three weapons categories: main, sub and power weapon. In each stage, you can find orbs that power up your weapons. Green powers up the main weapon and red the sub weapon. Also, you can find special capsules that give you three possible upgrades. Blue upgrades your ship’s speed (one of the most important aspect for me since the movement speed of your ship is slow). Purple gives you a shield. Yellow gives you a power weapon stock (with a max of three). Personally, I prefer to upgrade speed and then a shield, since your main weapon powered up deals good damage (but a power weapon makes bosses easier, by the way). With enough speed, I can dodge enemy bullets. In a game in which one hit kills you, speed is as important as weapons.
Speaking of difficulty, SH has the settings Rookie and Pilot. In Rookie mode, you start each area with a shield that takes three hits before disappearing but with the catch that you only earn half of the score (best mode to start the game, by the way). In Pilot, you play the game as it was meant to be without any shield but earning full high score. It’s the game for veteran pilots that want to earn a spot on high score results. However, if you think the game is too hard, SH allows co-op game play, so you can bring another pilot to help you save the universe from the alien menace. While the difficulty is out there, playing with a buddy is the way to go. It makes me remember those afternoons playing Gradius with a friend of mine in highest difficulty and yelling and crying for each death. Good times, indeed!
Graphically, the game looks great (I’m a sucker for 16 bit-style graphics). Each enemy is well-detailed, and there animations and even unpredictability of some kept me in the edge of my seat while playing.
Gryzor87 delivers again with great chiptune music, and with each boss fight, I was sweating while carefully avoiding bullets–all while listening to the pumped up music. It is everything I could ask for in a shmup. I personally like the voice acting in some of the scenes. It’s a great throwback to the glorious SNES-era.
Besides the main game, there is also a mini game called Robot Chase. The objective of this game is to destroy robots and collect points. The catch is that the points are not accumulated. It’s kind of a co-op/competitive game, so its a good way to just kick back and defeat your buddy who was helping you defeat the aliens.
Bottom Line: Super Hydorah is super indeed, bringing a modern but nostalgia filled shmup that really deserves a place in every fan of the genre’s library. I definitely enjoyed my time with it, and I could not recommend it enough.
A Review code was provided for this review.