In Defense: Hydorah

So you say you've played Gradius...you've played R-Type, you've played Darius, you've played Twinbee. You've played Ikaruga and Galaga, and Salamander and Life Force and Raptor and Mutant Space Bats of Doom. You've even played Zero Wing and Parodius, and maybe a little bit of Phalanx.

Well you probably haven't played Hydorah. That in itself is the biggest fucking shame in the whole world.

Hydorah is a very little known side-scrolling space shoot 'em up, much in the classic vein of games such as Gradius, R-Type, Salamander, and pretty much every title I've listed off above. Sure, side scrolling shmups are nothing new, and oftentimes new shmups don't bring anything too new to the table. While Hydorah also doesn't really do anything new, it's the fact that it takes elements the games that inspire it to create a new masterpiece that is so damn well made and well refined that it really crafts it a spectacular and rewarding experience.

Hydorah was created by a dude who goes by Locomalito, and he made it using a program called Game Maker. Along with a few other people to aid him with the art and sound production for the game, Loco used this particularly simple program to make one of the best side scrolling shoot 'em ups that I've ever played. That says a lot, considering it's a freeware non-commercial game that's as well-crafted as a 16-bit style game can get, and also considering how many shooters I've made my way through.

This is a relatively small on-screen projectile count for Hydorah

The story is very simple, because it doesn't need to be fuckin' complicated when the point of the game is to blow shit up. You pilot a spaceship that's on its way to send a tyrant/god/alien/asshole named Hydorah to kingdom come because he thinks he's gonna wipe humanity off of the galactic slate. In order to do this, you have to travel through a crapload of levels, destroy enemies and bosses, and upgrade your ship's capabilities as you go, eventually turning your craft into a spacefaring deathmachine.

The first thing I'll mention is the levels. Your path is not linear, and you choose your path to the final goal. It's limited a little bit, but the different paths definitely give unique and different experiences. One path is usually easier than the other, but the harder ones will often nail you some cool powerups and weapons for your ship. In fact, smaller nodes on the level select screens represent smaller levels, so you can even take that into account before you choose your destination. Before each level, you choose a primary weapon, a secondary weapon, and a special ability to take in. At the end of (almost) every level, you acquire a new primary, secondary, or special weapon, expanding your arsenal for the next mission.

Choose wisely, you miserable prick!

You start off with a standard forward shooting Railgun, but eventually unlock 4 more primary weapons, 5 secondary weapons, and 5 special abilities overall. Of course, that's only if you play every single level, rather than just pick a straight path to the last level and technically avoid half of the game. This is fuckin' awesome, and really gives it a Gradius-like feel in that you can choose what you want to take into the level, allowing for some customization and favouritism among the weaponry. And trust me, there are some weapons you're gonna love, such as the classic-style, front-firing Laser, missiles that can fire below or above your ship, escort pods called Scorts that surround your ship and fire when you fire (much like the Options in Gradius), and a screen-clearing wave of pain called the Turriwall.

And that's not even the fuckin' cool part about the weapons. Every single primary and secondary weapon can be upgraded by picking up green or red weapon pods that drop when you destroy certain enemies or other structures. The pods actually switch between red and green every 5 seconds or so, so if you're patient and have the time, you can choose which of your weapons you want to upgrade first. You can carry ten of each weapon upgrade, but they only actually upgrade once you reach certain thresholds...so for example, your weapon will upgrade once you get 5 weapon pods, and then again at 10. Each time your ship is destroyed (and trust me, this WILL fucking happen), you lose a few pods and your upgrades may diminish as a result, so you have to be careful. It reminds me a lot of Blaster Master in this respect...when you're hit you don't just suffer a loss of health or life, but your firepower also suffers. This means you need to be extra friggin' careful and accurate in your movements through the treacherous levels you have to deal with in order to keep your ship in...SHIP SHAPE (haw haw). Pretty neat element of the game, if you ask me!

You can also pick up shield, turbo, and special weapon pods as you fight the horde. A shield pod will give you a purple force field that surrounds your ship, allowing you to take an extra hit. A turbo pod will increase your ship's overall speed, up to a maximum level of 3. Special pods will give you one use of the special ability you've chosen for the level you're in, up to a maximum of 3 uses. The special and turbo pods also alternate with each other, much like the weapon pods, so again you get a subtle element of choice when you encounter one. Do you want to be able to evade incoming shots a little bit more quickly? Or would you rather take the special ability that makes you indestructible for 10 seconds so that those shots don't even matter? The choice is yours, commander! Just keep in mind that when you're killed, you also lose 1 special and 1 turbo, much like the weapon pods as previously mentioned.

Fact: Alien ruby monsters do not need oxygen to live

Let me go back to the levels for a little while, and comment that these are some of the coolest, well-designed levels I've ever fuckin' played in a side-scrolling shmup. One moment you'll find yourself attacking an enemy fleet and entering one of their giant battleships to wipe it out from the inside. The next moment, you're making your way through a field of rubies, some of which have fuckin' faces coming out of them that spit out debris for you to dodge (a clear nod to the Maui heads of Gradius). And even after that, you'll be trapped in a watery level with liquid on both the top and bottom, which eventually starts to wave up and down, forcing you to dodge the water and the islands resting upon it...and after that? Well, I don't wanna ruin one of the coolest surprises of the game, but just trust me when I say that playing through the level called the Path of Scylla is fuckin' worth it.

Another element that defines a shmup is the enemies, and these are certainly no slouch. Simple drone enemies establish themselves in patterns for you to dodge and destroy, in true shoot 'em up fashion. Larger enemies that take more damage and have a few more tricks up their sleeves populate levels, forcing you to think about how you take them out and minimizing the risk to yourself. The bad guys in this game are pretty much an ensemble cast and they all serve their own purpose and have varying methods of attack to keep you on your toes.

And the bosses and mini-bosses! Oh man...these fuckers are damn well designed and have some really frustrating patterns that'll really test your limits. These patterns often change depending on how much you've busted up the boss' ass, which is always a nice touch. There's this one level called No Mercy, which is just a rush of 7 bosses in a row, and man did I ever have fun figuring out the best way to get through them all unscathed! Again, I don't wanna give too much away, but these enemies are some of the coolest shmup bosses I've fought and can be frustrating as hell, to boot. Not impossible though...and that's an important thing to note. There was never a point in this game were I thought "Oh man, I'm never gonna get through this part", but at the same time, there was never a point that was way too easy. That balance is a very important thing that seems to be a tricky quality to establish, I feel...but Hydorah fuckin' nails it to the wall.

Everything wants to kill you...including the world

From the get go, you are allowed to save your game three times...so you really need to choose wisely when you save your game. Should you try to stick it out and get through the next stage to clear as much as you can before saving? Or should you save now and try and do the next few levels all in one go? It all depends on how confident you are in your skills, so you really need to think about what you're doing and when to save your game. If you clear a level without dying once, you get an extra score bonus at the end which encourages you do to your best. These are indeed possible to get, and once you get a hang of the game it's definitely within reach to fully clear it without taking a single hit. I've come close, but I think I got smoked on the second last level or something. In addition, there are plenty of secrets to find, and even a couple of different endings depending on your actions throughout the game...but again, that's something I can't give away! You do get a reward for locating them all though, so it's certainly worth the effort to search them out!

The graphics are clearly 16-bit or 32-bit and it looks great. Every animation is quite fluid, and all of the spritework is very well detailed and stylized to the point where I really don't understand why the hell Locomalito isn't charging for it. The sound production is amazing, too...catchy tracks abound throughout the entirety of this game, and you'll find yourself humming them way after you've played through. The sound effects fit the game perfectly, from laser shots and explosions to organic noises and machinery. The voice acting is awesome in the fact that it's clearly not done by some form of professional. Why is this awesome, you ask? Simply because it really drives the point home that it was a team of a few normal and determined people who poured their hearts and souls into this game and made it what it was...and what they made is a top-caliber shoot 'em up that is leaps and bounds above a lot of shooters I've played recently.

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The Bottom Line

This part's gonna be relatively short this time around, because less is more in some cases.

I can safely say that I fuckin' love this game. I've played it through 5 times already, and I plan on playing it much, much more. It retains the core and spirit of the classic side-scrolling shooters while refining it to near-perfection. It looks great, it feels great, and the difficulty is just perfect such that it doesn't need different difficulty settings. I applaud Locomalito and his team for making such an amazing new-fangled throwback to one of my very favourite genres, and the only bad thing about this game is simply that it probably won't be played by as many people as it should be.

Oh, and it's free and only 82 Mb in size...so go get it and test your mettle, you fuckin' assholes!

10/10, easily.

(P.S. I realize a lot of my scores for games are pretty high, but it's because I haven't really talked about a bad game yet. Just you wait though...just you wait.)