‘Ello Time Wasters!
It took me a bit of sifting to find a game that I thought was good enough to share for the Time Waster this week, but I finally found it in the game Obsolescence. If anyone has heard of the Touhou Project, then you’ll know what Obsolescence is basically about. If you don’t know what the Touhou Project is, it’s a vertical scrolling shooter whose main focus is to be a bullet hell; and bullet hell is definitely the best way to describe what you’re in for.
Your role in Obsolescence is pretty straight forward: you are the ship (or dot’I’m not entirely sure what you are exactly, but I know you have a laser) who must destroy the enemy bosses with your laser of power in order to proceed forward. Beating each boss however, although just as straight forward, is in no way simple.
Your one weapon in this game is always on and always aimed at the boss’s core, but of course it’s not like you can just hit it. In order to do any damage you have to first blast through the shields, guns and other parts that are circling the center. Not all the guns and parts have to be destroyed of course; you just need to kill enough of them to give you a straight shot at your target. But killing just what you need to is basically impossible in this game. One reason is because all of the boss’s parts are always spinning around and fluctuating away or closer to the core. You’ll be rotating around the boss yourself, but focusing on one part that you want destroyed might not be the best thing to do. And that’s where my second reason comes in.
Focusing on the bullets constantly coming at your face would be a better thing to watch out for than the parts you want dead. Obviously the amount of bullets doesn’t start out so bad, but it gets worse real quick, and you’ll be fighting to avoid getting hit more than you will be focusing on shooting the core. If no one has ever seen or played a game that’s been called a ‘bullet hell’, then let me explain what you’ll be doing. While you’re trying to kill the boss, hundreds of bullets (or at least close to hundreds) will be fired all over the map in a pattern, and while that’s going on you have to avoid getting hit by squirming your way through the tiny spaces that are in between the bullets that have been shot.
Sounds like fun right? I thought it was. Having to dodge around into small spaces while my laser slowly worked down my enemy’s defenses was something I haven’t really experienced in a long time, and I’m glad that I found something that gave me a different type of game to play. Even with simple graphics and 8-bit sounds, it’s nice to play a game that has the ability to kick my butt every once in a while.
Speaking of butts being kicked, there is one feature I will ‘warn’ you about even though I didn’t have a problem with it. There are no checkpoints in this game and no saves, so if you die on a boss you have to start over from the beginning. Personally I didn’t mind because that just added a level of difficulty to the game, and I don’t think I should be given the cheap way of making it through by starting off with all three lives each time I reach a boss (especially if I lost one or two to get there). That just my opinion though, and I’m sure there are plenty of others who would rather have the checkpoints. That’s just not what I wanted, and if you’re looking for a harder challenge, then you’ll probably be fine with testing your skills like this too.
Obsolescence earns 4 GiN Gems out of 5!