[Under Defeat] Arcade VKL5.03 (P) 1-ALL [CC Commentary] (Score: 2,164,240)

G.Rev employee: Look at CAVE, they made a very cool chopper shmup!
G.Rev CEO: Aight, bet. Let's cook something better than CAVE!

Don't quote me on that, I don't have any strong evidence that Under Defeat got heavily inspired by Ketsui either. But I can't shake off he feeling that Under Defeat was made to counter Ketsui, from the both female cover pilots (All the pilots in Ketsui are guys, even Alice), more grounded (hehe) overall design, and weapon switching, the thing CAVE refused to do for good reason (and failed on it with Mushihimesama), but keeps one thing: Attack Helicopters! Like... Kyukyoku Tiger / Twin Cobra!

The final result feels like this game got raised by the aloof dad, Ketsui, and the tiger mom, Raystorm. R, really! G.Rev guys were formerly from Taito! If you've dealt with Raystorm before, Under Defeat will surprisingly feel like home! I LOVE IT!

First, controls. You can move, adjust aiming direction, shoot and bomb. The buttons look simple, but there is a lot of control the game demands at you! Aim adjustment is as it sounds: You get to adjust your aiming angle within 40° range at left and right in the Arcade mode? Sufficient and considering the patterns, you must master this!

Aiming is only one of its quirky characteristic. This is a 2005 game. Your shots look... huh? Pathetic? This is WORSE THAN RAYFORCE'S SHOT TYPE! This is deliberate and not gonna lie, in the era where big bullet streams CAVE style was the vogue, this is probably why Under Defeat was not that popular. It's only a 3-bulllet straight shot where the 2 side shots are puny and very weak, with the middle big shots do the carrying with the shot DPS. Sounds miserable, but in the context of this game it is (relatively) reliable! Remember, you can aim your shots, so this fact alone buffs its usefulness!

Right, tanks. Like Raystorm your normal shot can't directly hit the ground enemies. Not Toaplan-style, anyway. Hold on, unlike Xevious, Dragon Spirit and heck, RAYSTORM, it has no dedicated ground shot button! That's the fun part: Your normal shot IS your way to shoot the ground enemies! The hitboxes are in true 3D, so the middle shot must also get aimed towards the target, light gun style. To lock on towards them, simply shoot at your target like usual. Yes, with this shenanigans occur: When you overshoot, the excess shots become wasted. The tank at the shortest distance at you is also the target priority and you can't do anything about it unless you move out or change angles. Also, the environments actually have collision boxes! This doesn't happen that often, but at weird angles environments WILL block your ground shots! What a troll of a game, lol! Last but not least, this middle shot can function as normal aerial shots as well, sounds stupid as heck, but ground targets below will shield the further aerial targets from your middle shots! This is stupidly detailed. It's greatly designed, but this sheer complexity from your main shot alone while visually it doesn't look sexy, no wonder people stick more with Ketsui. Poor Under Defeat.

Then there is the charged Option shot. With the original ship you get to deploy an option that shoots by itself and has their own behaviors and limitations! All the while your main shot will still stay the same. That reduces the Wrong Weapon Syndrome symptoms. These are surprisingly very finely balanced too: very good at what they're good at, penalties otherwise. This is to me, one of the best balance ever calibrated for a weapon switcher shmup! There are 3 option weapons:
- Vulcan: Best fire rate!
- Cannon: Best DPS!
- Rocket: Armor-piercing boss buster!
To use them you need to not shoot until the Option gauge is full. That means you'll be vulnerable to not only popcorns, but the homing missiles too! Yeah, I suggest not to charge the option when you encounter these. The options will stick to the angle you assigned them to, by the way, so even you need to think of your aiming angle!

The bomb is, a simple, reliable, i-frame giving, screen-nuking bomb. Did you know that this game HAS NO EXTENDS!? To be fair, this game is for its time, SUPER KIND WITH THE BOMB DROPS! In a single loop the game gives you 9 WHOPPING BOMBS! So don't hesitate to spam these!

Its boss design is also a highlight. It's... so akin to Raystorm...! The bosses have multiple parts and only certain parts are actually the weak spot.The game won't explicitly tell you which is what. This is honestly pretty frustrating and one of the weaker points of Under Defeat, but believe me when I say this: When you manage to decode these Raystorm-level of cryptic bosses, these bosses are so fun to finish off! It's a rare experience for its era! You gotta enter the Practice Mode very often, though!

In short it's a cleaner spiritual successor of Raystorm! Tight routing with less nasty RNG. It's a beautiful, tactical and methodical shmup. Must play at least for 1-ALL!

This was played on Nintendo Switch 2.

#stg #shmup #nintendoswitch2

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