UFO 50 Retrospective Part 39 - Star Waspir

Another Shmup, it’s been a little bit! And this one is a VERY classic top down shmup. Humans have been living immortal thanks to the Blue Flower, a magic flower they found on a planet that is inspired by a painting they have hanging in the UFOSoft Offices. Things were good, until a horde of bugs came out of nowhere and started destroying everything. Now, you have to fight back! Choose one of three ships, each with a different attack pattern and option pattern, and go on a bug hunt!

Star Waspir is a little unfortunate. I think most people don’t like it very much. And uh, I’m sorry to say, I’m kind of most people. I like shmups, I do, I really like shmups. But uh, this one has some issues. It’s JUST a top down shmup with no actual stage gimmicks, think something like 1942. This is fine for the early 80s, but in 1988, it’s very disappointing, especially compared to Caramel Caramel, which had interesting stage gimmicks and concepts, and game out YEARS prior. The most interesting thing is the stage where there are enemies that are like long walls, and you gotta blow up the correct part of the wall before it reaches you from the top. But the rest of the stage gimmicks aren’t anything too special, though they DID try to make the levels unique, with new enemies and hazards. But they failed in some ways. We’ll get to it. There’s also a mechanic where you’ve got two bullet types, one where you tap A, and one where you hold A. Usually holding A does more damage, though you move faster if you just tap, so you need to jump between them for when you’re focusing between bullets or trying to get away fast.

Other than just being a shmup, this game has one gimmick. As you blast away enemies, they drop the letters “E” and “G”, in the pattern of “EGG”. You can spell a few things with this. EEE and GGG give you options, which block shots as well as shoot. This actually fucking sucks ass, My options blocking shots just throws me off, and ends up destroying the fucking options, which is another thing I need to focus on. In game iwth a shit ton of bullets, like this, I am weaving in and out of bullet fire all the time, and I can’t ALSO be careful that my mother fucking options aren’t getting hit too. You can spell “GEE” for a bomb, though honestly this isn’t too helpful from my experience, and you can, of course, spell EGG. Ahh, Petter. EGG will increase your multiplier, and is going to be your #1 goal in this game. Weave through bullet fire, and spell EGG. That’s the game. I actually kinda like the idea?

The concept of a shmup where you’re constantly spelling EGG is one I really like on paper. It adds a nice challenge, more to focus on without like, being too much or annoying, like the options thing is. Its not constant, you don’t HAVE to spell EGG. But it gives you score! And score gives oyu lives! So you want to do it, because you will die, a lot. Star Waspir is, in my personal opinion, the hardest game of the entire 50, and that’s saying a lot, some games are very hard. Rakshasa and Fisthell are no cakewalk, but this beats them both by a wide margin, I think.

The speed is just way, way too much. This game moves too fast. If it was 70-50% slower, I think it’d actually be REALLY interesting? But unless you are a bullet hell genius, you are going to struggle really hard to spell EGG and also dodge bullets and also hit enemies and also keep your options alive and also spell GGG when your options die because they will, all while the game moves at a million miles per hour. And that’s not even mentioning stage 3. Stage 3’s grave sin is a really bad gimmick. This stage is filled with asteroids that you break up as you shoot them. Okay, that’s fine? No big deal? Except the asteroids are a dark purple. On a black background. They look SO MUCH like background scenery that I, and literally everyone I have EVER seen get to them, just fucking runs right into them as they’re trying to dodge the onslaught of bullets. It’s really bad design.

And like I said, I like shmups. I’m not very good at them though, especially not bullet hells. This isn’t a bullet hell, but it’s actually worse, IMO. Cause it’s a LOT of bullets, a WHOLE lot of them, and bullet hells throw out a million bullets, but they are in patterns. You need to be able to read the pattern and quickly dodge them, it’s hard sure, but there’s a pattern. In this game, there’s like, 20% less bullets than a bullet hell, but there’s no real pattern. They fly all over the fucking place and you’ve gotta weave on the fly and it’s way, way too much at the speed the game moves.

So yeah. That’s a LOT to say I think Star Waspir is a really good idea, on paper, but is executed pretty poorly. Actually fun fact, if this game IS too fast for you, you can easily test my theory that it’d be better at 60% speed by changing the FPS of the game. Many modern games tie the speed to the framerate, and this game is no exception. At 30 FPS, the game will move half as fast. While I didn’t rely on this playing it, cause it felt like cheating, if you don’t have those qualms, or just want to see if my theory is correct, you can try it. I HAVE looked to see if it’s better, and yeah, I still think it is. If this game was like 60% as fast, it’d be a 7/10 maybe, cause it looks cool, has a cool concept, and has great music. But the speed and difficulty, on top of the few bad design choices, make this just kinda unfun.

4/10