Söldner-X: Himmelsstürmer Comments by Christian Donlan

Hopefully hear some Savage Moon and Crash Commando reviews soon too!

soldner what?

himmelssstuuuuuurmer ;)

Plenty of other articles point to SoldnerX as trying to breathe new life into the sideways shmup field the way GeoWars and Stardust have reignited the twinstick shooter. Not a chance. Which is a real shame, cos I love sideways shmups.

Sometime in the mid 90s, some probably Japanese b*stard decided that shmups had to be ripped screaming and kicking from the masses, where they'd provided fun and cheap thrills for beer cuddling students for years (myself included) by allowing you to shoot the sh*t out of lots of thingies and make big explosions for not a lot of effort. From the early days of Defender, Scramble and Vanguard, through Salmander and R Type, sensible difficulty levels prevailed for the most part, with reasonable reflexes (even beer sozzled) and a rough idea of what came next being enough for most of the game, and ridiculous pixel memorisation not required until at worst the last few levels.

Nope, this wasn't good enough. Fun had to be banished, sometime around Ikaruga o'clock, and the hapless shmup kidnapped to a dark room to be the gimp of spotty OCD types who think memorising 12000 bullet trajectories and timings is the funnest way to spend a Saturday night.

SoldnerX is a lot of fun in the first few levels. Sure the bosses are tedious, but zapping zillions of formulaic cyber nasties is always a giggle. But all of a sudden a "factory" appears, with no space to manouver, and no way to shoot most of the things that shoot you. Half the girders and towers that were background in the first level become instadeath boundaries. Speeds up. Slows down. Undogeable attacks. Reflexes play no part - just memorisation and rote repetition, which I've just not got the time to do. And it all goes pear shaped. And that's a crying shame.

The game then helpfully follows the !H@RDC0R3!!!11! formula, and offers a completely useless "difficulty" adjustment, which neatly gets you to exactly the same spot that you died at before, with a little more health, before killing you off in the same way all over again. Because "accessibility" is a dirty word in post-Ikaruga land. Maybe it's a failure of translation, but the "very easy" difficulty just aint. Fewer enemies? Nope. Fewer bullets? Nope. Enemies die faster? Bigger powerups? Nope. Nope. You just take slightly less damage per hit. The effect on progress is negligible.

In the credits, there's two - TWO! persons listed as being responsible for "balancing" the game. I hope they didn't get paid.

Heck, I've no problem if they provide a hardcore difficulty level for the freaks. I'm happy to play the poofy girly difficulty if required for, y'know, FUN. But the shmup is destined to death and obscurity if it can't be rescued from this ridiculous attitude that it's a bl**dy memory test only suited for Rain Man and his pals. Ninty isn't making buckets of money for nothing.

/awaits Wipeout style difficulty patch or god code.

I bet its easier than Project X was though!

soldnerx heaven stormer?

6 is a little harsh I think, but then thats personal preference for you.
I've been playing it a fair bit since it came out, and can now get to the boss of level 3 on a single credit (the level 2 boss is typically where I loose my other lives). Anybody who thinks the level design is overcomplicated just needs to concentrate a bit and you'll soon see you can make it through even if its by the last few pixels of your health-bar. (and the game also makes a point of dishing out health power-ups after tricky sections to make things fair).

Also, Soldiner-X's 'blandness' is one of the things I like about it. These days shooters like Radiant Silvergun and Ikaruga rarely let you just shoot away at swarms of 'popcorn' enemies, instead assaulting you with boss after miniboss after highly structured setpiece, which i just find tiresome after a while.
Besides, these popcorn swarms are where you start racking up yor combos - constantly switching weapons and hoovering up powerups -so they are never actually dull to play.

Its not all great though. Like most western shooters the levels can feel overly long, and the bosses are either dull or take too long to kill; also its possible to waste lives thanks to an annoying respawn mechanic that makes you invunerable for a few seconds.... but not able to pass through solid surfaces, leading to the odd crushed-by-the-scrolling death.

Still I've played this far more than any other shooter in recent memory, so as an overall package its clearly doing something right. Sometimes I get the feeling that if Taito, Konami or Treasure (especially Treasure) had released this people would be going gaga over it, but as it is it just has to stand or fall on its own merits, and on its own merits I think its pretty decent.

Söldner-X: Himmelsstürmer is: The Name of the Ship: He who touches the sky.

Had this game since it first came out, the Christmas of 2007, on the PC. Hooked up my Xbox 360 joypad, and loved it.

Gradius V.

That is all.

At first glance I thought that I had accidentally chosen the german Eurogamer-Page, when I read that german title... You can translate it "Mercenary-X: Heaven Striker" or so... To me it sounds like someone used "Generic-action-title-martial-name-generator-mode switch on" ;-)

I have never been a fan of punishingly hard shoot-em-up games, but filled with the spirit of Christmas I bought this game over the holidays.

It has kicked my ass again and again and again.

About as much fun as root canal.

Lovely HD graphics though.

Unfortunately gameplay>graphics. Just not in this case.

Haven't played the game, but I say it should get two extra points just for having the coolest name since "Einhänder".

2D side scrollers have been in a slump lately. I haven't played any since the R-Type series. Pity.

why do they still make this 2d side scrolling shit, make a proper game like halo please

This is one of those games you really have to give the benefit of the doubt to, and deal with some degree of frustration and hopelessness before you can really make the most out of it. It's a difficult game, but once you've got your head around exactly how to make the most out of the weapons & combo system, as well as getting some experience navigating the evil 2nd stage, suddenly the game becomes very rewarding and a helluva lot of fun.

I give it a solid 7, money well spent.

I agree with most flaws pointed out by this review.

There is a distinct lack of personality overall, and the difficulty (with hardly any choice) is very off-putting.

why do they still make this 2d side scrolling shit, make a proper game like halo please


Oh you poor boy, did you miss out on gaming's golden era? Games like this are your chance to re-live it!

For me the games personality comes from its German-ness, with those little bits of German speech, and the narration that almost sounds like pitch-perfect english, but slips up in a few places, providing those nice little quirks similar to the Engrish that populates most Japanese shooters.
And then there is the distictly demoscene-influenced soundtrack.

Its not quite the bonkers-madness of fighting giant mechanical fish in G-Darius, but its there and it gives the game its own little vibe.

I'd rate this between 7 and 9 depending on my mood, but never a 6. That's just mean or missing the point ... or not in the mood.

I got the limited edition PC version when it first came out, is a fun game, but does lack greatness, prefer gradius V myself.

Also it doesn't work now I am on Vista 64bit.

why do they still make this 2d side scrolling shit, make a proper game like halo please

Are you for real or are you just trolling?
In either case, welcome to my ignore list.

Thought the game was absolute pants. Very generic pants. Can't believe this was scored 1 less than Treasures masterpiece Gradius V.

It's not a sequel to a hilarious buggy PC multiplayer shooter? :(

The demos I've directly downloaded to my PSP wont run, despite the ones I downloaded about a year ago on my PC still working.

Can't be arsed with the Playstation Network until it works properly. Certainly not spending money only to then have to ring customer support...

@3william56

I have no idea what you're getting at. You've probably seen some videos on "Ultra" and decided that's how the whole genre rolls these days.

Simply that most shmups revel in their hardcore status, with no space for the average gamer to pick up and play for more than a level or two. They are stuck in the coin-op mentality of the past. If the whole platform game industry had seen Ninja Gaiden, and decided to make every 3rd person game as hard as it, the 3rd person adventure would be as dead as the 2d shmup. The recent article about Radiant Silvergun not getting ported to the 360 is simply because the market for 2d shmups has shrunk to the dedicated hardcore, and they are simply not selling enough. Ditto the loud ignoring of fan cries to remake Gunstar Heroes, Bandai-O or any other of the golden age shmups. The frustrating thing is that the genre is awesome simple fun (Benno, go get GeoWars or SuperStardust and get educated) and can sell a bucketload, as those two demonstrate.

Look at the difference with SSHD. Death doesn't mean losing powerups. You can restart at any level you've reached and continue from there. Weapons are hugely powerful, with no more than half a second of fire needed to take out anything but a boss, and even those take a minute or two. Compare with S-X. Almost nothing goes down to a single shot. You can't progress except right from the start, which means to take a proper crack at the final boss takes an hour a try. Bosses take all week to die, and some don't show you what to shoot at. The difficulty level makes little difference.

I fired up MAME and Salamander last night and it was just as I remembered it - tricky but fair.

I gave S-X another go (on pussy level mind you), and with the help of a net guide finally bullied my way past the robosnake on level 2 (idiotic designed bulletproof boss - only the spikes from the roof of the cavern hitting it's neck hurt it). Next levels return to the open blasty goodness of the first, and rock. Then more crap unfair caverns, a great asteroid field, then a really stupid diagonal scrolling bit (so only secondary fire is in the direction of your enemies and you can't see which path to take). It just p*sses me off that a potentially great game is hamstrung by rote repetition of out of date play mechanics. For example, take Soldner, and add twin stick aiming, pump up the weapons and it would be a joygasm.

There's life in the old shmup yet, but devs need to look to the future not the past if they want to get the Bennos of this world to buy in and join the party.

This is the hardest game i have ever fucking played.

Woah, woah, woah! Slow down there william. Shmups aren't popular because they're hardcore or anything, but because they require a certain degree of skill. The fun does not lie in getting to the end (though that does count) but in getting through the obstacles. It's really satisfying if you can survive for a long period of time.

But of course most people would rather go buttonmashing than putting forth some actual effort into the game.

The people crying about games being hard should just go and play Prince of Persia instead.

The purpose of an arcade game is to challenge.

Yea, Faenwolf is right (Grüsse aus Österreich ;-D ). I'm intrigued by the japanese's curiousity for using german words. Other examples:
- Einhänder (PS1, Square)
- Zeitgeist (aka Jupiter Strike, PS1, Taito)
- Herzog Zwei (Genesis/Megadrive, Technosoft)
It's eighter the Ö, Ä, Ü or the Z's ... Also Battleangle Alita (the manga) had all their "fighting stlyes" named with german pseudowords. My favourite

... the shmup is destined to death and obscurity if it can't be rescued from this ridiculous attitude that it's a bl**dy memory test only suited for Rain Man and his pals.

ROFL!