Robots are very cool. We all know that. Sure they’re ridiculously geeky at times but who can resist a good robot, that’s why Transformers continues to be so successful after all. Despite quite enjoying both robots and side scrolling shoot em ups, I’d never heard of the Thexder series of games, that is until Thexder Neo appeared for the PSP recently.
Thexder Neo is a return to the old days of the arcade shoot em up. This means that it is horrifically difficult at times. There are no continues, no save points and no lives. Once you die in this game, you go straight back to the beginning. This is not a game for those with limited patience as it’s quite clearly aimed at the ‘hardcore’ minority who yearn for the days of mindless ‘schmups’ with no hint of a storyline and survival being the sole aim of the game. At times this is quite fun and it is nice to be able to switch your brain off to a certain extent and enjoy relying on your reflexes rather than having to concentrate on a storyline. However it doesn’t take long for this to change to resentment as you continually die time after time, all because you’re overwhelmed by so many enemies and all you have is a trusty laser gun.
Thexder Neo does have a trick up its sleeve at least in the form of the ability to transform into a jet whenever needed. This jet makes you a lot faster and able to get through smaller gaps than in robot form but it also makes you significantly more vulnerable. Crucially it’s much harder to move around accurately in jet form and when up against a tirade of enemies, it’s easy to get carried away and die all too quickly. You do have the option of a force field which is frequently quite useful; unfortunately it also runs out of power rather fast immediately making you vulnerable once more.
Simply put, Thexder Neo is not a game for the faint hearted. If ever you want to be reminded at how difficult games from the 1980s were compared to modern day games then this is the perfect example. This doesn’t make for the most enjoyable experience unless you’re after an extremely frustrating time. While there’s nothing fundamentally wrong with the game mechanics, it’s the fact that it feels so very dated that Thexder Neo really falls down. For nostalgia fans with godly levels of patience, there’s reason to stick by Thexder Neo. However for anyone else, it would be nothing short of masochism to bother with this far too awkward shoot em up.
VideogameUK verdict: 4/10
