~ ALZADICK ~
Naxat Soft
CD-ROM
1992
No multistage journeys are to be taken here. Alzadick delivers vertical shooting in the contexts of quickly completed timed modes and single-strip adventures. Expect to do a great deal of back-and-forth wending and drifting as you blast up lots of small villains and plenty of floor tiles.
Whether you're shooting for a high point total or playing for victory, suffer no misgivings about wrecking the game's scenery. Neither the rust-colored area nor the green-and-gray zone is particularly appealing, even when left undefaced.
The minute enemy sprites are uninteresting and unimpressive. Even the few large contraptions that get thrown your way are hardly worthy of being viewed as vintage PCE-shooter boss machines.
Those responsible for the title's audio enjoyed more success than did their graphics-department counterparts, but as there are so few modes and areas to experience, the tunes tied to said modes and areas are bound to wear out their welcomes quite quickly. The main scoring strip's loungy theme will likely be the first to become irritating.
As overstretched as it is, the soundtrack was done up in red book form and thus justifies to an extent the game's subsistence on disc. Expect no cinemas to provide further justification. Mere text blocks act as bookends for the one-level-and-done "story" segments.
No one should have much trouble reaching the text-screens of triumph, despite the meekness of the Alzadick craft's guns. Four different primary weapons can be acquired and utilized, but they differ merely in the directions their stick-shots spread out in. Also on offer are four super-powerful one-off auxiliary weapons.
What's not on offer is variety. But everyone who purchases the disc should be well aware of its limitations going in, as it's no great secret at this point that Alzadick is not a proper full-length shooter. Unfortunately, even when its assorted mini-modes are judged on their own merits, they fail to stack up against Cychorider and the score/time attack modes presented by the likes of Spriggan, Nexzr Special, and Soldier Blade. Alzadick doesn't boast the speed, depth, impressive enemies, appealing visuals, or cool weapons that many of its peers do--peers that in most cases provide not only superior score-based events but also excellent multilevel experiences.
