XIIZEAL Review (PC)
XIIZEAL is an arcade shoot’em up that was originally released as XII Stag in arcades in the 2002. The game was later on ported to the PlayStation 2 and now finally in 2015 we get to experience this classic on Steam.
Remember those times when you get surrounded in other shmups, either by a huge boss or swarms of enemies and you can feel the game starts to get cheap, as you can’t do anything other than shoot straight and try and dodge everything. Well, in XIIZEAL you can shoot sideways. You heard me. Even your back burners do some serious damage!
At first it might seem a bit peculiar but after a while you will be asking yourself how you managed to play other shmups without it. Getting yourself surrounded by enemies is a non-issue and you will even try and find the best position to wiggle in between as many of them as possible before burning them to bits.
Not only that but you can do this manually by frantically pressing left and right or going in a certain direction and tapping twice in the opposite direction. But if you are lazy like me you will use a button for it. And to be honest I prefer sideways firing to the regular firing. Still, you can also do both at the same time to give yourself even more firepower.
The game features an interesting scoring system as the current score multiplayer increases by one each time you destroy an enemy with a Side or Back attack. It starts decreasing if you miss an enemy or you haven’t destroyed anything on the screen for a second or two.
You can play in old school Arcade Mode, or you can try out Score Attack Mode for each of the eight stages. The game supports all kinds of customization, among others changing the difficulty to suit your skill; from very easy to very hard. You can even set up your screen size or set it vertically or at an angle, for those that feel a bit adventurous.
You destroy bigger enemies and bosses chunk by chunk taking the loot in form of upgrades and bombs, which always feels enjoyable. The bosses are all designed really well and take a bit of patience to crack their patterns. Beating them feels rewarding each time.
XIIZEAL really has that awesome nostalgia-fuelled arcade feel. It features some top notch pixel artwork and a great soundtrack. Both the backgrounds and enemies are all really detailed and each level varies so it never gets repetitive or boring. XIIZEAL has an abundance of features. You can save replays, but unfortunately only in normal mode. There are local and global leaderboards and the game supports Steam achievements.
With a total of 8 unique stages, each featuring an incredibly enjoyable soundtrack and a variety of enemies, bosses and modes, XIIZEAL it a must have for all shoot’em enthusiasts. But it can also be a great place to start if you are only getting into the genre.
You can get XIIZEAL on Steam here.
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