If you’ve ever heard a longtime video game player complain about how games these days are far too easy in general, chances are this is the type of person who would have appreciated Super Star Soldier around the time it hit the TurboGrafx-16 back in 1991. Developed by Hudson, a developer best known for its Bomberman series, Super Star Soldier was a fairly impressive but conventional shoot-’em-up in its day. Looking back on it now, the game still offers a pure and punishing level of challenge as only an arcade-style shoot-’em-up can. It’s woefully inappropriate for anyone discouraged by the idea of having to meticulously memorize enemy patterns or use razor-sharp reflexes to avoid near-constant hailstorms of enemy bullets. But if all that sounds like fun, do check it out.

Almost all shoot-’em-ups boil down to you piloting a lone spacecraft against an entire enemy armada that’s got unlimited firepower and nothing to do but try to gun you and all your extra lives down. Super Star Soldier doesn’t so much as bother to give you a reason for all the madness; instead, it thrusts you right into the first of a number of difficult stages as soon as you start the game. This is a prototypical vertical-scrolling shoot-’em-up. The object is not to die as you collect multiple power-ups to increase your power and raise your defenses. Stages throw considerable variety at you because you’ll be contending with ground-based targets, as well as flying enemies coming from every which way. Stages have sub-bosses, as well as main bosses, which force you to concentrate fire on their weak points while avoiding their fast, deadly attacks. Unfortunately, Super Star Soldier does not support two-player simultaneous play like many other, similar games.

Download Super Star Soldier part 1:

http://d01.megashares.com/?d01=bda14f1