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7

Jaleco is not a super popular shmup dev from what I understand, and the little I've played of their output before seemed somewhat interesting but not enough to really captivate me.

Game Tengoku was ok at best and the scoring sounds thought out but it didnt have any real wow factor and the crossover appeal was mostly lost on me since the cast is unfamiliar and not that varied playstyle-wise, and apparently only 2 characters are viable anyways. It ain't no Cotton RnR that's for sure!

Cybattler is something I should have loved in theory since you have a cool mecha that swings its sword at enemies, but in practice it felt too loose and the game tricks you by giving you fun weapons in stage 1 and then taking them away and forcing shitty tools on you afterwards, also with a boss 2 you have to glitch through to reliably kill. Whatever man. I didn't click much with the mecha in Psyvariar Delta either, mostly because of the multidirectionnal shooting that feels unfitting for that game. But maybe I just haven't played that ship enough to appreciate it.

I heard of Plus Alpha here and there in the past but never actually gave it a shot. It was Pearl who recently recommended it to me as an example of an actually enjoyable old-school tankboatplane shmup after I roasted those soulless sloppy products on forums and whatnot as I am alas way too often tempted to do. And he was totally right to suggest Plus Alpha, as this game is actually pretty cool! I wouldn't be surprised if it's the best Jaleco shmup, but I don't know if there's more than just the 3 I mentionned. A bunch of shmups with their name on it were actually made by NMK from what I understand.

Plus Alpha is pretty, has some excellent music (gotta crank up those MAME Sliders though), and while it has some tropes here and there (enemies swerving in near the bottom from offscreen, wide shot being superior, non-normalized diagonals, large enemies with the 3-way spread shot, etc.), it has lots of soul and charm and is mechanically fun too. It's fairly easy (This 1-ALL is basically a 2-day affair) and you're given tons of lives, but you're never bored since you can uncover ground items for point bonuses, destroy the Soldam peach enemies for fruits and stars to grab, and because the pacing of the game keeps you focused.

Recovery is fine as well! No speed-ups nor speed-down bullshit, your default shot takes a while to power up but the default power level is good enough to tackle everything in the game. Though be careful as this is one rare case I've seen in the wild of a non-Toaplan shmup with backwards checkpoints, where dying a second time too soon after getting back to a checkpoint respawn can make you respawn back even further. Also bombs for the wide shot are also a liiiittle bit delayed but not on the level of the games it emulates.

Bosses go down fairly quickly even without bomb + 30Hz pointblank stuff. Well, except boss 4 on low power I guess. That's probably the only low point of the game, since fighting it the regular way is too risky (the bombs won't save you against rocks!) so better park in the safespot (I hug the left edge then pull right a bit to put the shadow in the mountain crevice) and chill figuratively and litterally. Thank goodness this game doesn't have boss timer durations as stupid as CAVE ones.

In loops, the first 2 stages don't seem to be there anymore which is a bit sad since stage 2 has my favorite music in the game (it's the perfect nostalgic beach sunset music if that makes sense haha), but just going through the first loop is already a fun and lovely experience on its own. Loop difficulty seemed to increase a bit with enemy aggressiveness and maybe health as well? I felt I couldn't always speedkill stuff as effectively but maybe it's just due to not getting as close? Either way I can see why high-level players like Pearl (    • [AC] Plus Alpha - 7-ALL (8-5) - 10,000,000...   ) or Morsalty (   • Plus alpha 3-all 4,182,700   ) went for multi-looping the game. Gotta be a chill and comfy experience that's still challenging and stimulating...if you have the hours to spare that is.

5.61Hz and 28.09Hz
MAME 0.264