Lightning Swords Arcade Longplay

Channel:

Absolute Longplay

Subscribers:

1,450

Published on July 14, 2021 5:00:03 AM ● Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9swEkFfxDYo

Game:

R-Type (1987)

Duration: 20:49

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Irem has been making arcade games since the early eighties. They started out with fixed-screen shooters that no one heard of outside Japan. Later, they expanded into the American market, releasing their popular shoot-em-up, R-Type. They also experimented with beat-em-ups, and one of these is Lightning Swords (or Ken-Go, as it was known in Japan). It is one of their overlooked titles; not one home system received a port.

The game opens up with a cinematic similar to the one in Ninja Spirit for the TurboGrafx-16, showing a young woman walking toward a tree. She collapses then is brutally murdered by a group of ninjas. You control Blue Dragon (a second player can join in any time as his teammate Red Dragon) as he negotiates a series of landscapes, killing baddies that stand in his way and defeating a boss at the end. After you deal with a boss, it appears as a regular enemy in the game.

Lightning Swords is a cross between two other Irem games. It has the same gameplay mechanics as Ninja Spirit minus the weapons switching; you still have to beat each stage within a time limit, but the timer is represented here as a series of golden balls that gradually deteriorate. Like R-Type, holding down the fire button for a certain time unleashes a powerful blast which proves more effective against end-of-level bosses than it does normal enemies. Power-ups can be collected by smashing the gray pillars along the way, and upgrades to your weaponry can be obtained by collecting swords left behind by certain enemies.