Well, this was a pleasant surprise. A new Cresta game, years after Nihon Bussan closed shop? And it was developed by PlatinumGames, of all people? This seems like the genre and developer mismatch of the century, rivaling Delphine Software’s unwise decision to tackle a fighting game after its previous successes with cinematic action adventure titles. What does PlatinumGames know about making a old school, top down shooter?
Judging from Sol Cresta, more than you’d expect. It’s a remarkably faithful to Shigeki Fujiwara’s vision of the franchise in spite of the twenty five year gap between sequels. The world of video games has changed a lot in that quarter of a century, yet Sol Cresta finds a comfortable middle ground between the past and present, being true to the previous games while expanding on their gameplay.
Honestly, Platinum may have expanded the gameplay a bit too much. Sol Cresta is a dense, meaty game, which overwhelms you with its tangled web of play mechanics the first few times you play it. Try to wrap your head around this… shooting enemies charges three formation gauges on the left hand side of the screen, while collecting coins and Sol icons fills a bar on the right. When a formation gauge is filled, you can change the positions of your three fighters, temporarily boosting their weapon power… but only after collecting hexagonal formation chips. There are six chips with a different formation printed on each one, and they can be flipped over with gunfire a la 1943, to collect any you’re missing. Catch ‘em all and you gain access to the the ultimate weapon of mass destruction, the flaming phoenix, which makes you invincible and lets you park your trio of ships over bosses to swiftly burn through their health.
Got all that? Good, because there’s more. In an odd tip of the hat to Clover Studio’s Okami, formations must be drawn by first holding down a slow motion button, then flying your fighters into position for the desired formation. Once they’re properly aligned, the trio of ships briefly gains access to a more powerful attack depending on the formation chosen. Arrange your fighters horizontally and they’ll fire a thick crescent beam in two directions. Draw an L shape with the three ships and they fire a massive laser from an awkward angle ideal for the bullet sponging bosses, but less useful for the swarms of popcorn enemies preceding them.
The formation system works better than you’d think, but not quite as well as it should, especially when the screen fills with bullets and you’re expected to trace out a formation while dodging the hot death coming from every direction. You can also “shuffle” your ships while holding the slow motion button, and the ship in front becomes the captain of the fleet, firing its signature weapon and gaining an edge against like-colored enemies. Shields protect you from attacks, but once you’ve lost them all, you risk losing a fighter, leaving you with less powerful dual ship formations. Lose your partner and it’s just you against the universe, at least until you collect power ups to bring your friends back to life.
Also, remember that bar on the right hand side of the screen? That gives the player various bonuses, from extra shields to formation chips to command shots which let you bust out sonic booms, flash kicks, and spinning piledrivers to fire even more weapons in the directions suggested by the joystick motions. You can also fire charge shots if you’ve got enough power in your formation gauge, with the current team captain firing a heavy duty version of their signature weapon. Amaterasu in red fires a penetrating laser beam, Tsukuyomi in blue launches a swarm of heat seeking missiles, and Susano in yellow slices through enemies and their bullets with a spinning drill.
Then there are the colored rings, which… okay, okay. Point is, there’s a lot to wade through here. Sol Cresta is extremely complex, and while that lends plenty of depth and technique to the experience, it also gives the player plenty of balls to juggle. You’re going to need to run through the first stage (as close to a tutorial as this game offers) several times before it all clicks, and even then you’ll forget about some of the many weapons at your disposal, particularly the command shots. (The player needed this? Really? Weren’t the game’s bazillion other weapons enough?)
The game is so packed with play mechanics that it almost doesn’t work. Almost. For all its daunting complexity, Sol Cresta is surprisingly accommodating to casual players. It’s a game that wants to be played, especially on the easy difficulty setting, which is so generous with its shields, lives, and continues that losing would take deliberate effort. This isn’t a merciless danmaku or a punishing “git gud” experience. Sol Cresta will happily let you continue playing as long as you keep shoveling in credits. You can play like a pro, taking full advantage of the game’s (overly) abundant features, or just sit back and soak in the synthy musical score by Yuzo Koshiro and an atmosphere straight out of an early 1980s giant robot anime.
After the somewhat forgettable alien blasting of the first game, the Cresta series has always worn its love for giant robot culture on its sleeve, and it’s never been more obvious than it is in Sol Cresta’s Dramatic mode. This optional story mode introduces the player to three young hotshot pilots, their greying and often furious commanding officer, and aliens both friendly and foul. It’s like there’s an episode of Voltron happening in the background as you play the game. It’s not something the game needed, and it’s certainly not something Hamster should have charged extra for as DLC, but the Dramatic mode adds mighty morphin’ flavor to the experience… if you can find the time to watch it while you’re dodging missiles and playing musical chairs with your fleet of ships.
The graphics in Sol Cresta are modestly attractive, as colorful and kinetic as any game you might have played in a 1990s arcade, but enhanced with contemporary special effects like haloes of semi-transparent light around power ups and color-coded enemies. Where visual quality is concerned, it’s roughly on par with that other souped up shooter sequel, Zanac x Zanac for the PlayStation. Enemies from Moon Cresta’s swirling Cold Eyes to the roaming dinosaurs in Terra Cresta have all been given a 21st century makeover, and explosions border on cataclysmic, with shafts of light piercing through a boss’s broken hull before it bursts, filling the screen with pyrotechnics. However, in keeping with the rest of Sol Cresta, the visuals are a little too busy for their own good. Messy backgrounds can make it tough to know what’s safe to touch, and reticules that appear to warn you of spiked shafts of rock and other hazards blend into the background, leading to damage you couldn’t anticipate.
PlatinumGames has never been known for its restraint, and the reckless audacity that defines many of its games is just as evident here in Sol Cresta. However, it succeeds in spite of its wicked excesses, because it’s accessible to newcomers and just plain fun to play. You’ll start the game, expecting to play a stage or two, only to find yourself whipping through half of them and grinning the whole time. You can even play with one of the series’ legacy ships if you bought the DLC, streamlining the gameplay for newbs while giving dedicated fans more ways to play, and even more reasons to geek out over this game.
Without an official sequel or even a crowdfunded spiritual successor, Cresta fans have been gnawing on bones for decades, but thanks to Sol Cresta, they’ll be eating like kings. (Now do a spiffed-up sequel to UFO Robo Dangar.)
