Game:

Aleste (1988)

Duration: 16:01

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14

I don't exactly know what the heck this is, but it's not quite Aleste. Is it fun though? Yeah. "Senjin Aleste" is a modern Arcade revision to Compile's classic "Aleste" series of legendary SHMUPs and developed and released courtesy of Sega as part of the M2's "Shot Triggers" lineup which attempts to revitalize various shooters. While M2 has many different "renewal" titles in the works, "Aleste" was one of the most anticipated reboots on offer, so when it eventually dropped in 2021, expectations were high... but it didn't quite excite long-time fans and didn't exactly pull in newcomers either. Word on the street is that location tests and sales were lukewarm and the game has no plans for a console port at this time, making this title to not only be an Arcade-exclusive (and Arcade first), but also the first to not see a home console port. Another, more "faithful" title, "Aleste Branch", was originally in development alongside Senjin Aleste but has quietly came and went so many times that it has significantly diverged from its original scope (adding many new elements and also changing from 2D to 3D). The game uses Sega's "ALL.Net P-ras MULTI Ver. 3" Arcade service.

The game does, surprisingly, have a story. It's about plants from space that were used as raw materials to advance computer components for mankind, which, unsurprisingly, causes problems down the line as machines go rogue and the last hope lies in a small squad (codenamed "Aleste") of well-endowed anime girl ace pilots with experimental and deadly war machines. I'm only slightly joking, but I didn't translate it verbatim. You can get a good little summary of the game from the dedicated fan site for it at:

https://aleste.fandom.com/wiki/Senjin_Aleste

Historically, Aleste games are single player affairs and this title is no different, but it does deviate in some significant ways. For one, the game has four playable characters that can be swapped during gameplay by picking up the corresponding letter to perform a "change". Selecting your main character will determine what "Leader Skill" will benefit the team by offering different buffs. As you cannot just swap characters at will, it's important to remember that each character has different strengths and weaknesses as well as two different shot types and a generic screen-clearing bomb. Another new mechanic is that each ship has a "Utility Radius" which serves several purposes; it will grab capsules within its radius that will fill up your "Power-Up" meter, serve as a "Bullet Buffer" (which repels bullets a short distance which then become revenge bullets, but this is used as a scoring mechanic as defeating certain enemies turns them into medals) and uses a secondary radius during Power-Up mode which shows how much time you have left before it runs out.

Utilizing Power-Up, Bullet Buffering and Changes effectively is the key to increasing your score rate, number of medals, etc., though scoring truly shines on the higher difficulties. Speaking of which, there are four of them, and they influence the usual things such as enemy waves, bullet speed, and recovery. On the subject of recovery, each pilot will die in a single hit, but they will slowly recover over time (and this is sped up if you collect a change pod for a downed ally). There are five stages and, in typical Aleste fashion, the game is fairly unforgiving. Even the first level has tons of things going on, though the game does admittedly do a pretty good job of telegraphing these things between the lights and warning meters that pop up as well as the small bars to show boss stamina and the like. The game is fairly nice in the audio / video department with crisp pixels and punchy audio, though the game's already small vertical playing area is made even smaller by not utilizing a fair bit of it, giving the game a fairly low-res appearance. While Aleste is not exactly what one would call a "Bullet Hell" series, some of the hardest titles would show that "Senjin Aleste" isn't so far removed in the challenge department as the game rains bullets from everywhere.

Senjin Aleste is a Shump I would give a soft recommendation to, but it would not be an exaggeration to say there are plenty of better shooters out there, especially many of the newer Doujin shumps (REVOLVER360 RE:ACTOR, Crimzon Clover, GRAND CROSS: ReNOVATION, Dezatopia / Momoiro Underground, etc.). This is a video showing different things in action including the tutorial, introduction, attraction, etc. Enjoy.

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