Seaside

Seaside Drive is the brainchild of long-time artist Shayn North, and his only time in the director’s chair. Thanks to his influence, Seaside Drive is a breath of fresh air, with unique art and style that makes it once of the best games in the collection.

Seaside

Seaside drive is my personal favorite shmup in the collection, and it’s not even really close. While Star Waspir was top down, like 1942 or something, and Caramel Caramel was clearly a Gradius game, this is a side scrolling land-based shmup, akin to something like Heavy Weapon. You play as a cool dude in a car, equipped with little but a submachine gun. This gun has a power meter, which is only increased by letting your car skid backwards. Enemies come from above, and from the side, where you can use your secondary fire to shoot side bullets.

The graphics are pretty and vibrant. The music is wonderful. The levels are the exact same, but ENTIRELY different, as unique new enemy patterns come and go. It’s not too long, and maybe a little too short. It certainly doesn’t overstay its welcome. Inbetween each of the levels there’s a bonus stage, which is just breakout, which is pretty cool. The action is fast and intense, you always gotta focus to swerve and dodge enemy fire.

Seaside

I do kind of wish there were three buttons on this controller, so you could lock your gun’s direction. There were several times where I wanted to swerve to dodge and still shoot at enemies coming at me. But you just gotta not put yourself in those situations. Seaside drive is an utterly fantastic game, and while simple, it shows not every new game in 1989 has to be a Mini & Max or a Combatants, some big budget high concept adventure. They can be just a good god damn game.

9.5/10