Axelay

[Wayler]

Oh hello. This will be a thread where I gush about every aspect of Axelay, the greatest shoot ‘em up on the SNES. First I thought about just making an entry to the “what have you been up to” -thread but I think it deserves its own thread. I picked this up again seriously after trying out a fast-ROM patch that someone had made. (Found here if someone is interested: https://github.com/VitorVilela7/fastrom). Any comments, opinions etc about the game are appreciated, even if “it’s not for you”™. So what is about this game that is so special? I hadn’t thought of this seriously as the game just seemed to click for me. Having now played it again after all these years, I went into this time with analytical mind. Let’s start dissecting from the beginning:

 

1.  The Intro

For most shooters, the story is a nothing-burger, go out there and shoot stuff. Heck, most of the times there is no story to a game, only a title screen and the motivations for your murderous shooting spree are in the manual. Or you wait in the title screen in the hopes of some opening scene to appear. Not here. After the familiar Konami logo, the screen goes black and then a picture of a family emerges, in total silence. Then a cityscape, the roar of a huge machine and that ominous thumping rhythm. You know that shit is about to hit the fan. What is this mysterious force that threatens a whole planet? The game doesn’t tell you but if you have the manual, the threat is named as the Armada of Annihilation! Can’t stress how cool of a name that is. These guys are clearly not kidding around.

So the stakes become clear. After months of attacks, only one ship has survived. Your ship, the Axelay. You keep that locket of your family close to your heart and get ready to save the whole solar system. The intro ends as you fire up your stratafighter (also in the manual) and blast off to confront the enemy as the the roar of your engine engulfs the whole soundscape. And then the title screen. What a way to start a game.

 

And there’s also another reason why I love this intro. The first few frames of the city reminds me of the best PC game of all time, UFO: Enemy Unknown

I'll split the rest of my ramblings into a few posts

[Wayler]

2. The Weapon System

 

I admit I’m not great at space shooters and I normally don’t like many of them. So what’s different here? Well for me, it’s the weapons and how they are used. In Axelay, you select 3 weapon types (Pod, Side & Bay) at the beginning of a level. At first, there is no choice to be had but a new weapon is added in after every level so at the end you have 8 different weapons to choose from. You shoot your main weapon with B and shoot tiny helper missiles with A (or drop bombs if you have your Bay-system on). Switch weapon systems with L/R (or map the all the buttons how you like in the options, a neat touch).

So you choose 3 weapons and off you go, that is it. No power-ups during gameplay, no fearing that you will lose all weapon progression after a single hit (I hate that to my very core). This decision to exclude power-ups also has an impact on the gameplay, because you don’t have to go running around the screen hunting for upgrade orbs and putting your ship in jeopardy and can only focus on the action. I’m sure this decision also lent itself to the gameplay design, as there are no “oh here comes the enemy formation that will give me a power-up” moments. And the game rarely feels unfair because you probably have the arsenal to combat every obstacle it throws at you. And with this system, you just can’t rely on your only super-charged main weapon and hope for the best, you have to know the strengths and weaknesses of every one to use them accordingly.

 

Here are my favorites from every category:

Pod – The Needle Cracker. An array of kinda-sorta homing lasers. They hunt down targets on the screen but fly in a straight line after the get a fix, like a swarm of needles. Effective against lots of small enemies.

Side – The Round Vulcan. This is by far the most fun weapon to use and a very ingenious design. It shoots continuous projectiles from both sides of the ship but you control the shot angle with your use of the B button. The projectiles always start from the back of your ship and arch forward if B is kept pressed. Once you let go, the bullet arch starts to go back again. So with gentle tap-tapping you can get fire cover in every direction. Level 1 even starts off with a scenario where you are completely surrounded and demands you to explore the weapon system in order to survive.

Bay – Macro Missile. Don’t know why it’s named like that, there’s nothing macro about the babies. They are a bit slow to recharge and you have to use precision and advance to make them work but it’s so satisfying to blow stuff up with these. Once they hit a target, a napalm-like afterburn will linger on to cause more damage.

 

3. The Hit System

 

Earlier I said the game rarely feels unfair and that is mainly to do with the hit system. Because: One hit deaths are your own fault. They happen if you fly your ship into an enemy or an obstacle. And that is on you for not paying attention or your lacking piloting skills. So what about bullets or projectiles? They come in multiple shapes and sizes and although the game is only a bullet hell in some places (or if you are masochistic enough to tackle the Hard mode), you are bound to take a hit some time. Well, in that case, you only lose the weapon you were using at the time and it becomes unavailable. If that weapon slot is on, you only have your pea shooter and tiny helper missiles to content with. If all weapons are lost, the next hit will kill you. Only then are the weapons brought back. So it’s essentially a four-dot health bar with drawbacks. And it’s great. I hate shooters with one shot deaths.

 

And this again forces you to become good with every weapon in order to survive. Granted, there are situations where one weapon is clearly the optimal choice and you are pretty much screwed without it but desperation may sometimes lead to overcoming the odds.

[Wayler]

4. The Alternating Stages

 

I’m sure this is by far the area that Axelay is most known for, the alternating perspective of horizontal and vertical. The neat rolling cylinder used in the horizontal stages visually works great, even today. And both orientations offer a different playing experience.

 

The horizontal stages have less obstacles for the player to worry but the ship’s movements are more restricted as the top part of the screen is off limits. There’s also this excellent drift effect that pushes your ship constantly to the center if you don’t move. It very much feels like battling against windshear at high speeds. The sprites are also bigger, so even though the enemies come in fever numbers, the play area feels more cramped.

 

The vertical stages offer free movement for your vessel but also more stuff to avoid and the stage design feels more focused and varied. I like them a bit more, but they wouldn’t be that special if the horizontal part was missing. It’s the alternation that keeps the player on its toes.

 

5. The Graphics

 

Hands down some of the best that SNES has to offer. Enemies come in all forms, big and small and some of them are quite unique, with multiple animation frames. Every stage has a clear identity and even though the amphibian creatures of Level 4 have nothing in common with the robots and droids of Level 2, it still feels like they belong to the same universe. Every stage has some form of eye candy on disposal and neat graphical tricks, starting with the level 1 mini-boss that is a part of the rolling landscape and intermittently disappears into the clouds.

 

But it’s the bosses that really stand out. From a hulking giant mechanical spider to the Level 5 lava monster (which I have a weird affection for), every one of them is a spectacle. Perhaps if you really twist my wrist, the biological blobby mass that acts as the final boss is a bit of a let down after everything that comes before it.

[Wayler]

6. The Soundtrack

Ooh the soundtrack, pure audio ecstasy. Every stage has a distinct theme that is rich in layered sound and compositionally very varied, almost progressive in nature. And it’s the sample quality and instrumentation that creates a very unique sound to the game. The composer Taro Kudo only made music for one other game for the SNES – Super Castlevania IV. Both of them stand out as the highlights of the entire system and it’s crazy how he was able to produce such a rich soundscape so early in the console’s lifespan. I think later only Rare got to the same height with their DKC-trilogy.

 

7. The Sound Effects

As you already are playing this game with the sound turned to 11 because of the soundtrack, you might have noticed something else too. Enemies go brak, swoosh, boom, fizz, pop a hundred different ways. And when you take down a boss, you surely know you have taken down a boss. These are the best explosions in the system’s library. I’m especially particular to the level 2 Walker (hello Robocop) which dispatches itself first in a slow burn and then followed by a massive explosion. Also there’s a few lines of great sounding speech in the game. “Arms installation is complete, good luck” sounds so cool before every stage. And klaxons and warnings blare before every boss. Don’t know why they yell “Earth murder”, weird aliens.

Edited January 5 by Wayler

[Wayler]

8. The Little Things

OK, so clearly it’s a good game. But why great? I hadn’t really understood it before but after really paying attention and thinking, it is the small touches here and there that really elevate the experience to greatness. I’ll just ramble on some more and list them:

 

-You remember where the intro ends? In the clouds. And where does the game start? Right where we left off. Seamless.

-Almost every enemy dies in a unique way or sound that makes the killing oh-so-satisfying.

-Stage 2 has a part where a glimpse of an earthlike planet is seen. Stage 3 is played on an earthlike planet. Brilliant foreshadowing.

-Speaking about that planet. The song for the Stage 3 is named “Mother”. The ending theme is named “Return to Mother”. So that planet is your home. World building through the soundtrack.

-And more about the music: every boss has a unique song to make all the boss battles that more special. And the songs also incorporate leitmotifs from the level music to heighten the tension.

-You can map your main weapon and sub-weapon to the same button. Easy on the thumb! (you can also map the weapon change to the same button for some unwinnable cacophony)

-When you die, your ship doesn’t just disappear to be respawned. It explodes into dozens of tiny particles that actually damage the enemy. This can be even used as a last resort ramming tactic when you are all out of weapons.

-In the horizontal stages, there’s actual simulation of a horizon. Enemies seems to appear at a distance and your shots disappear in slight curve. Small neat tricks that add a lot to the immersion.

 

OK, I think I’m done. I love Axelay by the way.

[Cris1997XX]

Oh yeah, Axelay is amazing. One of my favourite Konami games

Edited January 5 by Cris1997XX

[OldSchoolRetroGamer]

47 minutes ago, Wayler said:

OK, I think I’m done. I love Axelay by the way.

Wait, what? I had no idea! 😲😝

 

Kidding aside I agree it's awesome, I am not the greatest at shooters but I recall renting and loving it back in the day! 

 

[KulorXL]

Awesome game!

Something I always gotta mention because I don't think most people are aware, but for some reason, they gave you control over the brightness in the menu. This brightness setting controls an SNES register called INIDISP, which is usually set to 15 by default, and decremented down to 0 to fade the screen to black for easy screen transitions. But the default brightness setting in Axelay is 11 for some reason...which means the screen is constantly partially faded to black the whole time unless you set the brightness up to max. It's a very strange design choice, I can't think of any other game that did that, and I think most people are playing this game with needlessly muted colors as a result.

Here's the default brightness setting:

...and here's what it looks like at full brightness:

So definitely crank the brightness in the menu for the best possible colors.

[Cris1997XX]

Meanwhile, I'd argue this is the worst SNES shooter of all time 

 

[WavyGravy]

I like putting the trigger speed up for faster Round Vulcan cycling. It always surprises me that nobody seems to have cribbed that weapon off of this game. It's such a cool idea.

 

And Thunder Spirits? Nah, you could do a lot worse. It slows down a lot, but it's not the worst. That's probably D-Fprce. It's so bad that I'm not even going to fix that typo because it's not even worth that.

[Cris1997XX]

5 minutes ago, WavyGravy said:

And Thunder Spirits? Nah, you could do a lot worse. It slows down a lot, but it's not the worst. That's probably D-Fprce. It's so bad that I'm not even going to fix that typo because it's not even worth that.

D-Force? More like...D-Farce 😂

Edited January 5 by Cris1997XX

[KulorXL]

15 minutes ago, Cris1997XX said:

Meanwhile, I'd argue this is the worst SNES shooter of all time 

 

does Hong Kong 97 count

[WavyGravy]

D-Farts.

 

Anyway, where's Axelay 2 at? That's what we should really be mad at Konami about! What would an Axelay 2 even be like?

[Cris1997XX]

13 minutes ago, KulorXL said:

does Hong Kong 97 count

Only if you're an angry nerd who makes youtube videos for a living

[Wayler]

15 minutes ago, KulorXL said:

Awesome game!

Something I always gotta mention because I don't think most people are aware, but for some reason, they gave you control over the brightness in the menu.

Yea, that is definately strange when you think about it. Usually you tinker with these things on your TV settings, not inside a game.

 

Since you are here with your technical knowledge, do you happen to know what is bothering my namesake's arms here (starting at 6:20):

The damn things flicker like crazy. I think it's the only instance where the system can't handle the awesomeness on display. 

 

[OldSchoolRetroGamer]

17 minutes ago, WavyGravy said:

Anyway, where's Axelay 2 at? That's what we should really be mad at Konami about! What would an Axelay 2 even be like?

Good question, let me knock out some mockup images and do some concept demos in Gamemaker, hopefully, it will inspire some Snes developers to make a sequel with lots of colour Blasting!  

 

 

😁

Edited January 5 by OldSchoolRetroGamer

[WavyGravy]

7 minutes ago, OldSchoolRetroGamer said:

Good question, let me knock out some mockup images and do some concept demos in Gamemaker, hopefully, it will inspire some Snes developers to make a sequel with lots of colour Blasting!  

 

 

😁

Oh, God, I retract the question!

 

I suppose Iridion 3D and Nanostray are Axelay-ish, but I haven't played them enough to say for sure how close they are.

[KulorXL]

22 minutes ago, Wayler said:

The damn things flicker like crazy. I think it's the only instance where the system can't handle the awesomeness on display.

Looks like sprite line limits being exceeded. Basically, the SNES (and Genesis and PCE etc.) are like the NES, in that they can have a ton of sprites on-screen, but only so many on the same line at a time, and if you go above that limit, any extras just won't render on those lines. NES games often had flicker systems as part of their sprite drawing routines because going over the very sparse limit on the NES was extremely common, but on 16-bit systems, the limit is much more generous: you have just enough sprites to cover the entire screen horizontally on the Genesis, PCE, and SNES. Nobody really bothered coding sprite flicker on these systems because of this (yes you had to code the sprites to flicker on the NES), so when the sprite line limit is exceeded, parts tend to just disappear instead.

Edited January 5 by KulorXL
clarification

[Cris1997XX]

5 minutes ago, WavyGravy said:

Oh, God, I retract the question!

 

I suppose Iridion 3D and Nanostray are Axelay-ish, but I haven't played them enough to say for sure how close they are.

I wonder what Iridion 3D would look like in Mode 0, heh

[Kirk_Johnston]

Definitely one of SNES' top shmups. Improved further with a wee bit of FastROM too:

[Wayler]

1 hour ago, WavyGravy said:

Anyway, where's Axelay 2 at? That's what we should really be mad at Konami about! What would an Axelay 2 even be like?

Actually, if you manage to beat the game on Very Hard, you get a (now very somber) note at the end: "see you again at Axelay 2". So at least there where some preparations made for a sequel. But alas, it wasn't meant to be ☹️

 

I think it came down to money as the game just didn't sell very well. Shoot 'em up genre wasn't the hot commodity anymore I guess. Really a shame because you can see how much care and effort went into this. I would have very much liked to know what was planned for the follow-up. 

 

 

Edited January 5 by Wayler

[Wayler]

1 hour ago, KulorXL said:

Looks like sprite line limits being exceeded. Basically, the SNES (and Genesis and PCE etc.) are like the NES, in that they can have a ton of sprites on-screen, but only so many on the same line at a time, and if you go above that limit, any extras just won't render on those lines.

So can you circumvent this limit by "hiding" the sprites a few frames here and there? When getting the screenshots for my word salad, I noticed a lot of the weapons in the game seem to have some sort of transparency thing going on. Like the Needle Cracker, where the projectiles flicker on/off in a fashion where only half of them are seen when you go frame-by-frame. 

 

I guess that only visually works with high speed objects where the eye doesn't have time to notice. But it's still weird that they left such a glaring issue in. Maybe they didn't want to do compromises. 

[SlidellMan]

Excellent review, and great point on one-hit deaths in space shooters.

[Kirk_Johnston]

I particularly like the visuals in the fire level at 22:08 in Axelay:

 

I noticed recently that it shares a very similar visual style and effect with this level in Turrican 2 at 56:24:

 

I guess is imitation really is the sincerest form of flattery.

 

And interesting to see that Factor 5 used the SNES' Colour Blasting for a nice colour-mathed semi-transparent shadow effect alongside the three parallax layers there too.

[Austin]

3 hours ago, Cris1997XX said:

Meanwhile, I'd argue this is the worst SNES shooter of all time 

 

Not even close. You clearly have never played D-Force.