Horizon Shift '81 Reviews

Looks nice and classy, but hadn't fugure out yet, how to find the shooting button. :(

Disclaimer: My scores/reviews are almost always based on having bought the game at close to the "lowest historical price" on steam at time of purchase. Quick score: 3/5 Things I disliked: Forced to hold fire button, even though there is seemingly no reason to ever not fire due to a lack of ammo conservation or accuracy mechanics. Would like to see an auto fire.

Fun arcade shmup inspired by Atari games/ 80s arcade games. If you're wanting to pick up a high-score grindy game, this one's for you. Online leaderboards and everything. But not much else. Wait till it's on sale

Horizon Shift '81 is a little retro themed shmup surprisingly well made despite a few little bugs. [b]Ship[/b] Your basic ship can shoot, move horizontally, flip vertically, jump, dash and release a bomb when your power meter is full. With a dash you move quickly left or right and knock out any small enemies, bullets and hit bigger enemies standing on or moving through your horizon line. If you fall through a hole in your horizon line a flip will let you fall in the opposite direction allowing you to save your ship. [b]Levels[/b] The levels, 36 in total, are very well balanced with increasing difficulty, they start out easy and short and before any wave can become too repetitive a new wave sets in. Every 6th level is a boss level. Even though most enemy waves are scripted there are random elements like weapon upgrades and where the aliens drop you need to save. This keeps the game fun while playing levels over and over trying to progress or improve your scores. [b]Bonus level[/b] When you've saved 5 aliens you get a bonus level at the end of your current level. You need to clear a field of blocks arkanoid style which unlocks an enemy you then need to hit a couple times. It's pretty hard compared to the game itself but when you succeed you get an extra life. [b]Modes[/b] There are six modes to play the game in. Arcade Start the game with 3 lives. Checkpoints on and after the boss levels. Arrange Start the game with 1 life. Checkpoints on every level. Boss Boss levels only. Free Unlimited lives but score halves when you die. Hyper Start the game with 1 life on 150% game speed. Speed up Start the game with 3 lives with increasing game speed. [b]Bugs[/b] Pausing will sometimes crash the game. It's showing 'trial version' in the right bottom corner. Triggers don't work but you can assign keys to it. See the relevant thread at the forum. Complete Boss mode and your score won't go on the leaderboard. I don't know if it's the same for the other modes. [b]Afterthought[/b] I find it odd both easy and normal mode share the same leaderboards with no score advantage for playing in a higher difficulty or with a higher game speed afaik, I may be wrong. The bonus levels seem a bit hard in comparison to the main game and since it's a matter of luck completing one getting an extra life for it seems unbalanced. Mostly so in Arrange mode since you start with just the one life. [b]Conclusion[/b] It took me quite some hours to complete the game in arcade and arrange mode. Getting all the remaining achievements took a few more hours, especially the hyper mode achievement is pretty challenging. Afterwards I still enjoyed playing the game for high scores in the different modes. It won't keep me entertained for much longer but I may come back to it later. Definitely worth the money I paid for it on sale. Here are two recordings of runs I had in arcade and arrange mode: https://youtu.be/VfFf4oa-N7Y https://youtu.be/XbkQZlf1bsA

[b] Target Audience: [/b] [I] SHMUP fans wanting a little bit of a twist[/i] [b] Summary: [/b] Horizon Shift 81 follows in the footsteps of the original Horizon Shift, and that's a good thing. It's not going to be a game that's going to blow anyone out of the water: a lot of the components work well in conjuctions and are smartly designed, but nothing that you'd write to home about. With that said, what the game does well is twist the formula of standard SHMUP gameplay with the middle of the screen presentation, along with interesting gameplay mechanics with the dash and having to balance the sides of the screen and your movement area. This leads to interesting challenges and point-gaining opportunities that's fun at a good difficulty, even if the levels aren't random or procedurally generated. The fact of the matter is, this is a good change of pace compared to most games in the genre and will get you several hours of entertainment, which is good for the cheap price of the game. [b]Video Stream/Gameplay Footage: [/b] https://youtu.be/zsE11hB0kxk [u] Lists: [/u] [b]Positives:[/b] [list] [*] All components work well together in a great synergy, each complementing the next. [*] Unique “gameplay” area with the middle bar adds new challenges while still feeling familiar in the genre. [*] Dash feature in conjuction with jumps allows for some good variation in dodging. [*] Reasonable enemy variety that pose new problems. [*] Good pacing in levels to help keep that variety up. [*] Nice selection of weapons and powerups. [*] Good accessibility with checkpoints/difficulty WITHOUT skipping the challenge portion. [/list] [b]Negatives:[/b] [list] [*] Keyboard/Mouse controls seems to be present, but no bindable keys nor description of what keys do what. Don't know what the dash keys are. Bindable keys would go a long way here. [*] Sound Design for the most part is underwhelming. [*] Not a game that will have enough variety over 10+ hours, more like 3-6. [*] While usually something I overlook, the pixel graphics presentation at times is very underwhelming, especially with some weaponry and it blending into the screen. [*] Missing options regarding flashing/etc that can help those with flash-sensitivity. I know this sounds like a nitpick, but it is a big option now a days. [/list]

1981 indeed. As someone old enough to remember well both the year and the games of the time, Horizon Shift '81 has the feel and cleverness of early '80s arcade shooters down pat. Except, oddly, for the music. Not only doesn't it sound like it they tried to emulate vintage equipment, the music itself isn't even fitting of the time. Quite jarring, so off it goes. Otherwise it's a really solid arcade shooter, using a center line and an up/down mechanic where your ship either shoots up or down from that center line depending on where the enemies are coming from. There are boss battles, bonus stages, power ups, bombs, the ability to jump and slide -- maybe a bit too much, honestly. Still, it gets an eager "next quarter up" from someone who's been playing games of this type since Space Invaders. 8/10