Game:

Elemental Master (1990)

Category:

Let's Play

Duration: 31:58

271 views

7

Technosoft was well known for their Thunder Force series of shooters and Elemental Master is also a very competent game with superb graphics and an amazing soundtrack. The back of the box claims that the game had eight stages, but it only has seven. The game is rather short, even for shmup standards, and also fairly easy, but the options menu lets you set the difficulty to hard and extreme difficulties if you want to truly master the game. You can access it by pressing START and A at the same time.

The short version of the story is that there was a kingdom of the just and benevolent King Lorelei. A long time ago, some evil named Gyra showed up, but he and his followers were banished below the city. Now, Gyra has been freed and King Lorelei was captured by someone who turns out to be your brother (in the intro, so no spoiler). You set out to make things right again.

Elemental Master is somewhat different for a shmup. You're not in any vehicle - you're on foot and in a medieval fantasy setting. This means you can also get stuck on things in the environment or get damaged by environmental hazards like lava. You can select the order of the first four stages which also give you an additional weapon type. These weapons have unlimited energy and can be charged up for a super attack.

Overall, I think the game lacks the complexity of other shmups with advanced scoring features. The graphics and music are top tier and the stage design is well done. It's just missing something, I think, but it could also be that it's just that I don't like the overhead walking aspect that much. It's a fine game and I sure would have loved to play it back then at higher difficulty settings.

00:00 - Start
00:35 - Intro
02:40 - Stage 1 (Fire)
05:38 - Stage 2 (Wind)
08:28 - Stage 3 (Earth)
11:24 - Stage 4 (Water)
14:24 - Stage 5 (Clauss)
19:25 - Stage 6 (Salome)
22:15 - Stage 7 (Roki)
28:57 - Ending

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