Move and shoot, slice and dice.
I will be upfront with you here; I have never before heard of Vasara. But to be fair, I doubt many of you will have either. Originally released in Japanese arcades in the early 2000’s, the two Vasara games never made it to the west. So little is known about them, they don’t even have their own Wikipedia page, instead being just a footnote in their publisher’s page. But it is now 2019 and apparently the time is right to re-release the two games, with some added bells and whistles.
The games are set in 16th century feudal Japan, but in this universe the Samurai battle in ships, and use bullets instead of swords. Both original games give players a selection of 3 characters to choose from, each having their own weapons and special attacks. The starting missions also change depending on which the players pick, but no matter who they go with, they will get to experience all the different levels and bosses.
Platforms: PC, PlayStation, Switch, Xbox (Reviewed)
Price: $9.99
Multiplayer: Local co-op
Price I’d Pay: $7.99
This is your standard shoot ‘em up arcade game from the nighties; power-ups and bombs are used against waves of various enemy ships and turrets, ending in a massive boss fight with multiple forms. With this comes the infuriating part; the fact that this game was designed to eat Yen, so it is soul crushingly difficult. Even when I whacked the game down to easy, I still ended up getting killed every minute or so. I guess I can be thankful that there is even a difficulty setting at all, but it really put a dampener on things. The biggest issue with the original games is the speed at which the ship moves, along with the number of things happening on screen. Not only did I have to avoid all of the bullets coming my way, but I also had to collect the falling gems, as these powered up the Vasara, my special attack. Add to that the number of enemy ships and the power up icons and things can get too messy on screen, which always resulted in my death.
Thankfully the game comes with a bunch of options that include a freeplay mode, basically unlimited continues. From the menu I could also change the amount of lives I had per continue, the difficulty and even change it from a vertical scrolling shooter to a horizontal one; some nice touches to add to the package. Vasara 1 and 2 also include a co-op mode so a friend can hop on the couch and give a hand. In some cases it works well, but most of the time it just adds to the chaos on screen and is more of a hindrance than anything else.
The most fun I had with the game was with the third mode, Timeless. This gives the game a complete overhaul visually and changes it to a 16:9 full screen game with the option of up to four players. The core of the game is the same as the arcade versions, but having more room to move around in can be helpful. They also add a dash button which allowed for me to move from one side of the screen to another instantly, which helped enormously with the dodging of the thousands of bullets. It also means that there is more room on screen when playing co-op, making it more fun. There is also a larger pool of characters to choose from, each with their own unique ship designs allowing players to find a favourite quite easily. It was nice to compare the originals with the new version and experiencing the small differences to the way the game plays to bring it more up to date with the games of today.
The Vasara Collection is an unusual choice for a modern game port. A game not many people would have heard of and a genre that is more niche than most. I would certainly recommend turning down the difficulty for most people to ensure that you have a good time. But if you are the sort of person that loves the kind of challenge a bullet hell game provides, well there is certainly some of that in there as well. There is plenty of game for the low price point and I definitely had some fun mixed in with the frustration.
Review copy of game provided by publisher.