WOLFLAME – Review
WOLFLAME is the latest game by ASTRO PORT, the same developers that brought GIGANTIC ARMY, SATAZIUS and more great shoot’em ups. WOLFLAME brings the player to 2005 AD on the planet Sig Fildonia, which is under attack and being taken over by an alien race. Take back your planet, challenge yourself and climb the leaderboards!
Story
WOLFLAME takes place in the year 2005 AD on the planet Sig Fildonia. The Terran colony that was settled on the planet got attacked by the Adorians, an alien race. Within days these aliens turned the planet into a military base. In a desperate attempt from the Terran forces to counter the invasion, they launched Operation WOLFLAME which will hopefully win the planet back.
When you think about it, WOLFLAME has a fairly small yet established story that gives some context to the game. The only thing missing is that the story is actually nowhere to be found in-game. The Steam page has a fair amount of information, but this can’t be found anywhere in-game which is quite disappointing.
Graphics
The graphics in WOLFLAME aren’t the greatest ever, but that’s no problem at all since it looks very much like old school shoot’em ups. Your ship and the enemies look very retro, as well as the background and the overall presentation of the game. The game itself is played in just a fraction of the screen size, just a small vertical strip of the screen, which is fairly fun and again contributes to the old school look and feel.
Sadly, it looks like they also used old school screen resolution… The resolution of the game can only go up to about 1024×768, which is pretty annoying when doing things like dual screening. The game can also be played in windowed mode, but that ruins a lot of the immersion if it’s not presented full screen. It can also be played in TATE mode, which rotates the game so the bars to the side get eliminated.
Sound
Sound wise, WOLFLAME is actually pretty sweet. The music fits perfectly with the action packed levels and it fills the atmosphere perfectly. Sound effects are also pretty neat and also go well with the rest of the game. It seems that both sound effects and music fit together perfectly with the old school approach the game is taking.
Gameplay
WOLFLAME is an action shoot’em up like in the good old days. It doesn’t rely on a bullet hell to make the game hard, but instead it features very fast projectiles in order to make your life a living hell. The game can be played with both a keyboard and a controller and the controls are pretty simply. You just move around, hold the fire button and use a bomb now and then which damages everything caught in it and gets rid of projectiles.
The gameplay is built up of a stage-based combat system. Every stage features a boss at the end of it and of course some progression aliens in order to get to the bosses and in total there are ten stages. The stages themselves are usually filled with aliens but this doesn’t necessarily create a bullet hell. In order to create difficulty, the game heavily relies on bullet velocity in order to make it hard. It features a couple of difficulty levels and each one makes the projectiles faster than the other, making it harder and harder to both move around and stay still because it’s almost like you’re being sniped at times.
At the start of the game, your ship is fitted with a simple gun that shoots bullet straight ahead. There are however a couple of weapon upgrades that can be picked up and leveled up. In total there are three upgrades, one shoots extra bullets, another one shoots a big green laser and the third one fires smaller lasers that lock on to the target. These upgrades can be leveled up to five times, making their effect and damage more powerful. Each wing of your ship can also have different upgrades, so one wing could shoot a big laser while the other one shoots extra bullets.
Another thing that makes WOLFLAME fairly difficult is that you die after one hit. At the start of the game, you start with zero extra lives so in the first run it’s a one hit game over, unless you get enough score. Every one million score, an extra life is awarded to the player in order to help them get further.
In order to bring a little bit of competitiveness to WOLFLAME, online leaderboards are also available, which is always a nice thing for those die-hard players.
Conclusion
All in all, WOLFLAME is a shoot’em up that is pretty well executed. It features fun gameplay, a fair bit of challenge, great music and a great old school feeling that will make people crave Raiden and Twin Cobra again. The only downside to the game is the poor resolution and aspect ratio it’s played in, but that can be overlooked since it’s a pretty minor issue for a game like this.
WOLFLAME - Review,
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