Lightening Force: Quest for the Darkstar

The Good
Right from the beginning you get caught by nice graphics (multi-way parallax-scrolling, explosions, nice colour contrasts, good animations of your own ship and all those little details). There are really nice soundtracks which really pushes up the fun. All over the entire game neither graphic, nor the sounds decreases in quality. Indeed, partially the game raises its own quality - depends on your progress in the game. For example...I most like the sequence where you get equipped with that underwater-device - the sound in that sequence drives you forward and forward and your will to beat that upcoming stage gets higher and higher...because you feel, you are not alone...you simply cant resist this feeling :)

Another good thing is that you can push up / lower the speed of controlling your spaceship (its done in 4 steps...25% / 50% / 75% and 100% power). That means, you can control your spaceship through small passages for example with 25%, but can avoid enemy hits by using 100%, because you can move your spaceship a lot faster than with all other settings. Ok, maybe you get hit because of that sometimes ;)

The Bad
It is too short in my opinion, but due to the high quality its just understandable. There are no other negative points in my opinion.

The Bottom Line
Thunderforce 4 is a side-scrolling shooter game like R-Type or Empire of Steel. But its a bit more than those titles. The developer made a definitive "must-have", because of the graphics and sounds and because of all the other little details they included, things like a speed-control-option of your spaceship, nice weapons, nice bosses, nice effects, nice soundeffects...Its just like a film, you get caught right at the beginning, and get out pleased and lucky - Its one of those titles you are proud to have.