Cho Ren Sha 68k

What is nice about CRS 68k is that it is very fast and relentless action but it does not feel unfair.

The graphics are not outstanding but they are functional and they work well with what they seek to represent. There are enough enemy types to keep things interesting and every level has it’s own special scheme going on as far as enemies go.

The power up system was and still is very innovative, giving the player the possibility to pick up all 3 power ups (Shot Power Up, Bomb, Shield) at once if one manages to hover inside the power up triangle for a certain time without collecting anything until it spins fast enough and you get all 3 automatically.

This is also part of the overall simple score mechanics of the game. Every 1mil points the next shield power up will be replaced by a 1up (given you have an active shield, otherwise you have to wait until the next, and guess what, have a shield). If the shot is fully powered up, the bombs stocked to the max and a shield is active every time one of the power ups is collected you get a higher score for them until they max out at 25000 points per powerup.

At the end of each level the amounts of lives, bombs and an active shield yield more bonus points. Here esp. lives are important since the more lives the more score the more lives.

Other than that there are a few places in the game where bonus enemies can be activated by destroying their predecessors in a quick enough manner.

I for one really enjoy the soundtrack and the stutter issues (at least under WinXP, don’t know about Vista/7) can be fixed if the compatibility mode is set to Win98/Me.

Overall I think every shmup fan owes it to him/herself to at least give this one a thorough try. If you like it fast but fair this is a hit.