Blazing Chrome

It's rare for me to review a game developer's entire catalog in a single year, but here we are. After releasing ports of both Odallus: The Dark Call and Oniken: Unstoppable Edition on consoles, JoyMasher is back with their newest throwback action game -- Blazing Chrome. This is an intense run 'n gun shooter with more than a passing resemblance to Contra: Hard Corps on the Genesis. But in a world filled with wannabe 16-bit action games, is this one able to find its own identity and stand out from the pack?

It's the future and everything sucks. Earth has been taken over by an AI-controlled robot army and the remaining humans have been forced into hiding. But just when it looks like all hope is lost, a small group of rebels concocts a desperate plan to destroy the nearby power plant and hopefully cripple the machines. This suicide mission is being led by a badass resistance soldier named Mayra and her deadly insurgent robot buddy, Doyle. Together they fight through six punishing stages in order to keep the machines from destroying the last gasp of humanity.

If you've played a run 'n gun shooter before, then you'll feel right at home with Blazing Chrome. This is a game where you run from left to right shooting everything that gets in the way, which in this case includes a full army of robot dogs, insects and soldiers. Our heroes are able to roll on the ground and use a powerful melee attack when enemies are in their face, but most of the action revolves around running, jumping and shooting your way to the boss.

The suicide mission is made a little easier thanks to the power-ups and selectable weapons. We start out with a fairly standard gun, but both Doyle and Mayra can also hold a grenade launcher, chargeable laser gun and, my favorite, an electrified whip. There is also tech you can pick up that will give our heroes an extra attack drone, a protective shield and a speed boost that will give you a useful double jump. But watch out, because if you die while holding one of those powerful guns, you'll lose it and need to find another weapon drop.

At first glance, Blazing Chrome looks a little too familiar. But once you take another look at start beating the levels, you'll find that there's a lot more going on than initially meets the eye. There are lengthy driving sections and several parts that have you piloting a deadly mech suit. And the action doesn't stay 2D, as I discovered when the game suddenly turned into a Space Harrier-style 3D shooter.

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The levels are never as straight-forward as you expect and are often split up into several different sections. This is what JoyMasher is good at. They first perfect the core mechanics and action, and then they keep layering new ideas on top in order to make all six stages stand out in unique ways. And this always ends with an awesome, multi-part boss fight that will test all of your shoot 'em up skills.

I don't want to just gloss over the core mechanics, because Blazing Chrome is a great playing game. I've seen a lot of run 'n gun shooters come and go over the last few years, and this is one of the few that feels authentic to the 16-bit presentation. I love the tight gameplay and how easy it was to feel like a complete badass. Just about the only thing missing is a way to lock the aim into place when you're running around. That would have been useful with a few of those late-game bosses.

On that note, it's worth mentioning that Blazing Chrome is a little gitchy. I don't know how widespread it is or if it's isolated to only the PC version, but I ran into one especially annoying bug that needs to be squashed as quickly as possible. When you beat the game, you're supposed to unlock the harder difficulty, extra modes and new characters, which sounds like a great way to get people to play the game a few more times. The problem is that none of that saved when I beat the game, so when I started the game up the next time, I realized that I had to beat the game all over again in order to try out that new stuff. That sucks.

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Beyond the glitches that will almost certainly be fixed in the coming weeks, I have to say that I like this game more than I love it. Don't get me wrong, it delivers an action-packed ride with a nice variety of levels and some incredible boss fights. There's a lot that I dig about this game and I recommend it to anybody who loves throwback shooters. But compared to Odallus and Oniken, I think this is my least favorite of the games from JoyMasher. It's a bit short and never fully forms its own unique identity. I kept waiting for it to twist the formula in a surprising way, but Blazing Chrome mostly plays it straight. That said, I loved when the game suddenly switched into a 3D shooter and would have liked to have seen more creative choices like that throughout the rest of the game.

But let's not get hung up in the negativity, because this is a great playing game with gorgeous pixel graphics. Although it's not especially original, the presentation sets a mood and there's a lot of subtle world building in each stage. The bosses are fun to fight, the music is catchy and there's a lot of detail in the backgrounds. It looks like the kind of Genesis game I would still be raving about a quarter-century later. This is the work of a confident developer that is at the top of their game, even if this particular shooter didn't hit me as hard as Odallus and Oniken.