The Shoot Up #29 - W Ring (PC Engine)
3Taking a shot at the horizontal shooter "W Ring" on a PC Engine Duo-R. The music is nice. The first stage is reminiscent of Gradius, but the game branches out stylistically after that--the second stage (3:08) is strongly Geigeresque, for instance.
Enemy bullets can be almost invisible: check out the blurry little brownish bullets against the brown background at 5:15, for instance.
The number of color-coded pods on the rotating ring around your ship--or maybe how fast it's spinning?--represents your accumulated weapon power for that weapon color. The ring can actually block incoming enemy bullets (9:47), so if you want some cover, you can push back on the stick slightly to cause your ship to snug back slightly behind the ring.
There's only one weapon button! The PCE's second button toggles your ship's movement speed.
I'm not fond of the powerups, which cycle through colors corresponding to the weapon they give you (or further power up for you)--so you have to be careful to swoop over the powerup only when it is the weapon color you want. : P It doesn't help that I only really like the blue weapon. : PP
The bosses are so weak it's almost hard to call them bosses: the floating islands at the end of the first stage (2:33) seem less threatening than the stage itself, and the second stage's boss (5:18) died almost before I got a decent look at him! Ditto with the first half of the third boss (7:57)--and his upper half didn't survive much longer.
Then the stage 4 boss (10:44) just crowded me out. ;_;
There doesn't appear to be a continue option. : P
Recording: RetroFools RGB-modded PC Engine Duo-R, OSSC, Framemeister, Elgato HD60