Developed originally for the SEGA Mega Drive exclusively by Masaya, GleyLancer is an iconic side-shooter title that was greatly received by players when it was released. Despite a Wii release back in 2008, indie publisher Ratalaika Games has now released this iconic shmup on modern consoles including PS4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch. Throwing tons of modern features into the mix, GleyLancer can now be played on your favorite modern console. This is our review of the PS4 version of GleyLancer in which jump in the prototype fighter CSH-01-XA ‘GleyLancer’ and shoot everything that comes in our way.
Staying true to the space shooters of the 90s, GleyLancer follows the same side-scrolling shooter formula of its time. However, it manages to hold on its own in the plethora of shmups released during its time. Naturally, Ratalaika Games has added many modern features in the new release to make it more accessible to new and modern players. Right after you boot the game, you are introduced to an emulator setting screen where you can tinker with how you want your experience to be. Right from this very screen, you can choose between three types of gameplay modes including Modern, Vintage, or Cheater.
Depending on how you want to play the game, you can go for Modern where you get to play GleyLancer with modern controls and settings. If you want a more hardcore experience, you can go for the Vintage setting or if you are in just for some fun, you can go for the Cheater mode where you have access to plenty of cheats to make the gameplay even more interesting. Other settings that you can tinker with here include various CRT screen settings, choosing English or Japanese language for cutscenes, and either loading a Previously Saved State or save your current state. You can access this menu via the Middle TouchPad at any time while playing the game.
Proceeding from this menu takes you to the cutscene where you are introduced to the main story cutscene where you are introduced to all major characters of the title and the setting of the game. You play GleyLancer as Lucia whose father is kidnapped by an alien race in the year 2025. Instead of killing her father, the alien race, which has access to time travel, simply transports her father to an unknown location making his fate unknown to everyone. When the government does not do much, Lucia decides to hijack the prototype fighter CSH-01-XA ‘GleyLacer’ and find her father herself.
This is where you step into the game and must play through 11 stages filled with various enemies and bosses. After witnessing the cutscene, you arrive at the actual menu of the game where you can adjust some game settings like auto or manual fire, turn story mode on or off, and so on. Starting the game gives you the option of choosing your Mover Systems. There are seven different Mover Systems to choose from. Each of them gives you a different sort of control over the various gun attachments that you can equip during the missions. In the Modern game mode, you can change them always however in the original Vintage mode, your selected mode lasts for the entire game.
The gameplay of GleyLancer is where the game really shines. The movement is crisp and precise and offers you a variety of variables to adjust your movement in the game. You can adjust your movement speed on the go by changing the engine speed. Increasing the engine speed will allow you to move around the screen much faster and if you want slow speeds, you can reduce the speed and your ship will move around the screen slowly giving you more control in your movement however it might make you too slow to even dodge the incoming bullets. You will need to adjust your speed on the go to succeed in the missions. Apart from your main cannon, you can equip two gun attachments in the missions which will fire at your enemies.
Depending on your chosen Mover System, their behavior will be different for example they might only fire in the direction where you are facing when you are moving in that direction, or they might only fire in the opposite direction as to where you are going. One of them also makes your attachments automatically seek and shoot at enemies near your ship so it all boils down to what you want to choose. For me, having manual control over the gun attachments was the best as using the right joystick to control their shooting gives a massive advantage in the game as you can easily shoot in multiple directions.
You can get various gun attachments like shotguns, lasers, machine guns, and many others and decide to stick with whatever suits your playstyle best. While the game comes with a life system and the game is over if you run out of lives, you can also rewind the game and correct your mistakes if you are playing the Modern game mode. The Vintage game mode removes all of these gimmicks and delivers the original hardcore experience. There are 11 stages in the game that you can easily complete in a single setting. For me, a single playthrough was a little over 1.5 hours for all 11 levels. Each level follows the same method of killing enemies and then concluding with a boss fight however each level has its own unique obstacles that you must watch out for.
The PS4 version also comes with trophies, and I think I was able to unlock all of the trophies in my very first playthrough making it the easiest Platinums that I have ever achieved. While the game may look short, it encourages you to jump back in the game with different Mover Systems to experience the game in different ways of trying out higher difficulty levels and try to beat highscores. There is no online in the game, and it is a single-player experience. The enemy design in the game is good and the bosses offer a fairly high level of challenge at higher difficulties. I loved how each level looks completely different from the other one and the soundtrack fits perfectly with the game.
For this review of GleyLancer, I had an extremely short window however I enjoyed the game so much that despite completing my review during my first playthrough, I played through the entire title at least 4 times with different settings and tinkered with the CRT filter each time to make the title as retro as possible. GleyLancer really brings the retro feel to the modern consoles and if you played the original GleyLancer, you would love playing it again on a modern console. There is enough in the title to appeal to both modern and old-school gamers with each multiple shooting style and high score hunting gameplay. For players who love going that extra mile and hunt all of the trophies, GleyLancer is perhaps the easiest Platinum as well so there is this excuse of trying it out.
Final Verdict:
GleyLancer proves that classic, retro titles do not need to be hard and difficult to be enjoyable. It definitely feels like a classic brought back to life with all of the modern goodies. For the true nostalgic person inside you, you have the Hard modes with all the CRT filters that you want to slap on the title to make it look as original as possible however the new release is excellent for new gamers as well who want to try out the classic era of side-shooters. There were many side-shooters back in the 90s and GleyLancer was certainly at the top however the modern PS4 release brings that same title to modern consoles and also brings many accessibility options to make it appealing to modern gamers. A must-play for retro collectors, classic side-shooter lovers, and modern gamers who love playing retro titles. Even if you do not really dig retro side-shooters, GleyLancer still deserves your attention.
Final Score: 9.5/10
