Welcome to Sega Astro City Mini Part 3!
14. Scramble Spirits - Like Sonic Boom, this one suffers from the same problem of being really hard to see the projectiles while playing on the small screen. Unlike Sonic Boom, I actually had fun with this one. It has power ups that give you drones to fight with, and if you've followed my mini console blogs, you'll know I'm a big fan of shoot 'em ups that give you these kinds of power ups. Also, there's a section in the first level where you go to ground and the camera zooms in adding more detail to the graphics. I played the first couple of levels, and I'd like to go back to this game at some point to see if it does that again. So far, the bosses haven't been very interesting, but maybe they'll be later on in the game.
15. Wonder Boy III: Monster Lair - It seems this franchise does not know what kind of genre it wants to be. The first was a platformer. The second was an action RPG. The third is shooter. WBIII's levels are split into two stages. The first is a run and gun where they bring the stamina meter back from the first game that you fill back up by collecting fruit. The second stage is a flying shooter were the stamina meter turns into an HP meter and it leads to the level boss. I played the first couple of levels, and it's fun, but the second boss was far more annoying than anything. It was obviously designed to be super cheap to keep the player dropping coins, but thanks to my magic drop coin button, I don't have to worry about it. I may come back to this game to finish it up, but it probably won't be anytime soon.
16. Gain Ground - This is a top down combat style shooter, but it's not a very fun one. It plays way too slow for me, and another thing I hate is that the bullets are extremely short range. This makes you get into dangerously close range in order to kill the enemies. I guess the design choice was to make the game harder in order to kill you more so you'll drop another coin. Well, that's horrible game design that doesn't translate well in this day and age, especially with an infinite drop coin feature. So, it's pretty safe to say I won't be coming back to this one at all.
17. Crack Down - No, this isn't the lackluster Microsoft open world franchise. This is a top down shooter that involves you planting time bombs and then escaping the level. I actually like this game a bit. You can get different kinds of weapons, and you have to pay attention to enemy positions and areas such as narrow hallways. A cool little feature the game has lets you press yourself against the wall in order to dodge enemy fire. Each level is broken into acts, and I played the first three acts of the first level. The level design seems varied enough that it should keep me interested when I decide to go back. I really would like to play more.
18. Golden Axe - Just like Altered Beast, what can I really say about Golden Axe that Sega fans don't already know? Even though I own a couple Genesis versions, it's nice to own the actual arcade version. Of course, it looks and runs a little better, and now thanks to infinite coin drops, I can actually beat this game without having to abuse the hell out of save states. Also, I did happen to beat this game years ago in the arcades, but I'm sure it took me over 20 dollars in quarters. Anyway, this is one of the definitive Sega arcade classics and I'm glad Sega included this in the Astro City Mini.
19. Cyber Police Eswat - Oh wow, imagine this game in the hypersensitive anti-police social climate of today. You play as a cop shooting and killing criminals. Because, you know, criminals trying to kill you don't deserve to be killed. Anyway, at least you arrest most of the big boss criminals. I played through the first six levels, and after the first two or three, you take on a suit of armor and have suped up weapons. I really enjoyed what I played, very similar in how Shinobi plays by jumping up to higher levels and into the background. Now that I think of it, I may have actually played this back in the day when arcades were still a thing. I'm definitely returning to this one.
As usual, thanks for reading, and look out for Part 4!
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