Made a run through
Flashgal for this month's Together Retro. Given the game's vintage, I can forgive a lot of flaws. It takes the form of an auto-scroller, where you progressively move right and punch and kick enemies as what would have ostensibly been Wonder Woman in a licensed game. You start with a power gauge that continually counts down, but you replenish it by defeating enemies. Think
Adventure Island, except instead of fruit, you deal death instead.
There are also some rough shooting segments as well. You get to ride a jet ski, which I might add can only fire upwards. You can jump, but once you commit, that's it, you're not doing anything else. You don't get a power gauge this time, one hit and you're toast. Thankfully, the game is nice enough to let you keep continuing until you beat it, unlike a lot of
other games that would shut you off after a while (coughRygarcough). There's a similar motorcycle stage, and a jet stage as well that takes the form of a standard shooter.
Oh, I forgot to mention that occasionally, you can pick up a gun in the brawling stages. Unlimited ammo, crazy powerful... if you get it, try to stay alive! Another quirk is that if you knock an enemy off the screen, they apparently die immediately. This can be useful against the multi-hit bosses, shortening the battle quickly if you can pop them as soon as they spawn in.
For the time... I dunno. 1985 also saw stuff like
Gradius and
Ghosts 'N Goblins released. This doesn't compare well at all, feeling a lot like a much earlier project. And for all we know, it was, and it just didn't find release until it was repurposed without a Wonder Woman license or something. Or, you know, just Sega pulling a Sega like they did with
Revenge of the Shinobi appropriating both Spider-Man and Batman. At least they
tried to change things this time!
Anyway, I played until it looped twice, and decided there wasn't going to be a kill screen forthcoming. The longplay seems to confirm that there's not much else to it. I'd give it... 4/10? I mean, it's no great shakes, but I'm not offended playing it, either. A little below average seems fair.
EDIT: Also, Ex, good job finishing
Alien Syndrome. I tried to give it a go, and got my head handed to me. I think I just need to understand the boss patterns a bit better. I don't have any real experience with the ports, either. Did they help when you played through, or is the arcade version a different beast?
Time for Ex to play other things now. So for the rest of March, I'll be taking a more passive stance, reading up on other TR members' experiences. I'm looking forward to seeing what the next two weeks brings this thread in that regard. There's still lots of qualifying games that fit the theme, which no one has discussed yet. 
). 
