Developer: Astro Port
Publisher: Nyu Media
Platforms: PC
Armed Seven – Review
Armed Seven is a 2D arcade mecha shooter developed by Astro Port, who are best known for their title Satazius. There are titles who were inspired by classics but could use some modern elements. Armed Seven is not one of those titles. The game features the mecha shooting action in such a way that the outdated graphics simply do not require a modern touch. It is simply a brilliant, nostalgic game that anyone needs to play.
Story
The game itself does not have an actual storyline but it is inspired by a certain story. The game is set in the year 1989, twelve years after the Gogoh Army invaded Earth. As humankind was exposed to the alien technology this army brought with them, Earth’s technology took huge steps forward.
For a while it seemed peaceful on planet Earth but this peace was abruptly broken when an underground militant organization who dubbed themselves the Neo Loran Order, came to life utilizing weaponry stolen from the Earth Federation. The Earth Federation, a unified government created to establish peace, find themselves in a predicament. To maintain peace, they will need to face the Neo Loran Order with weapons that are equal.
Graphics
While the visuals certainly look outdated, it doesn’t weigh through as much as it often does. Sure, there is some form of pixilation going on but this is still somewhat smoothened out – causing the game to feel less ‘heavy’ visually. You won’t have much time to comment on the old school graphics anyway since there is so much action going on.
The animated backgrounds are one of the game’s best features. The various stages will bring you to various places, both on earth as well as in space. The visuals in these backgrounds make the game feel like it’s 2.5D while it is simply 2D. Armed Seven is a horizontal shooter but the animations, combined with the various enemies you’ll face, make the game feel more of a free roam game.
Sound
The soundtrack is certainly a catchy one, with quite an upbeat. Each of the weapons you can choose have their own sound design. This is a great feature but the ambiance sound gets lost during the bullet hells the game throws at you.
Gameplay
There are several basic features missing from the game such as a resolution and sound options. You can choose fullscreen or not at the start of the game but if you’d like to switch, you’ll need to restart the game to get to that option once again. The controls are solid, much like the gameplay itself. Even the controller works like a charm, possibly better than the keyboard but the aiming-system is something you’ll need to get used to. Luckily, the game does offer key and pad configs as well as a normal and reversed rotation for the aim-system.
As for the gameplay, Armed Seven is a horizontal shooter but the enemies seem to be coming from ever possible direction – even from behind you – which makes it feel more of a free roaming shooter. A simple yet effective illusion.
The game is all about annihilating these enemies, with tons of weaponry available for you. You can make use of a main weapon, a sub weapon and a charge weapon. Each category has four weapons you can choose from. The main weapon and sub weapon work simultaneously, which causes the bullet hell you’ll end up spamming. The charge weapon is a much stronger version of your secondary weapon. There’s a beam cannon, a missile pod, a napalm launcher and a pile bunker. My personal favorite is the beam cannon but this has a much longer charge time than the others. However, the ‘small’ amount of weapons means that you will be able to figure out a suitable setup with which you can annihilate the enemies best known as the Neo Loran Order.
There is a good variation of enemies in the game, each with different skills and abilities, which ups the replayability of the game. Several enemies do tend to take the same path, which does make them somewhat predictable, but since there are so many things going on at the same time, the predictability gets lost. There are seven stages of side-scrolling mecha shooting action in four difficulties: easy, normal, hard and insane. Each stage ends with a boss-fight. These bosses never feel the same, mostly because they have very distinctive looks and skills – yet another plus for such a small game.
A modern feature that you can find in the game is the replay option. After each death, you’ll be asked if you want to save the replay. You’ll be able to find these in a separate menu, for each difficulty. Additionally, there are emblems to be collected – four emblems per difficulty – ranging from simply clearing a difficulty, to clearing a difficulty with a score of several million, to clearing a certain difficulty with less than six hits to your mecha. Collecting these emblems are certainly worth being called achievements for hardcore players.
Conclusion
Armed Seven is a fast-paced game with plenty of action, tons of enemies to face and customizable loudouts per gameplay. While the game is certainly small in size, the solid and challenging gameplay allows for several hours of fun. The missing features such as the storyline could have upped the gameplay time but without it Armed Seven is still a great shoot ’em up styled mecha bullet hell.
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