I went into this game with high expectations, coming as it does from Technosoft, makers of Thunder Force IV, a strong candidate for the title of best shooting game on the Mega Drive, a system with an absurd amount of high quality shooting games. While it doesn't live up to its legendary forebear, it's still an excellent game.
It's a vertically scrolling shooter that's surprisingly simple for the time it came out: there's no elaborate scoring system like you'd see in Cave's contemporary output, nore are there the many different playable craft with multiple attack options like you'd see in Psikyo's games. You just get one ship, with two kinds of normal shot (a powerful straight-ahead weapon, and a weaker, more spread out one), and the customary screen-clearing bombs. I wonder if this simplicity in an age when shooting games were going through a lot of sudden evolution is why the location tests for the unreleased arcade version failed? (Of course, I was emulating this game, and its arcade origins are so obvious that on more than one occasion I instinctively pressed the 5 key on my laptop, as if I was playing in MAME and needed to insert another virtual coin!)
That's not to say that Blast Wing doesn't have any new ideas, though. There's two big ones, the most noticable of which is the way every stage splits into two paths, chosen by pressing a button by nudging it with your ship. Though you go through the same stages no matter which way you go, there are two different boss fights for each stage, and the paths do vary in difficulty enough that beginner players would do well to learn what effect pressing the button or not has on their chances of survival. (And of course, advanced players will want to try their hand at playing through both versions of each stage no matter what).
The other big idea is one that seems inconsequential when you first encounter it, but turns out to be both interesting and important as you play the game more. When you collect a power up, as well as the usual effect, you also get a couple of seconds of invincibility, as well as a big powerful lightning attack that extends from your ship horizontally and cancels enemy bullets, as well as one-shotting most regular foes and dealing massive damage to bosses. It not only encourages players to chase power ups further up the screen to where the enemies are (as opposed to timidly waiting near the bottom for the power ups to come to them), but it also introduces a strategic element regarding when to collect them: if a couple of power ups appear on an empty screen, do you collect them there and then while the coast is clear, or wait until enemies appear so you can quickly wipe them out with the lightning?
It would be remiss to talk about a Technosoft game without mentioning how it looks and sounds, and luckily, their reputation is untarnished in Blast Wind. The backgrounds are really nice, full of cool little details. I really love stage two in particular, which takes place high above a huge city, which is far below in the background, with a much closer layer showing various industrial-looking platforms and walkways of some kind, and there's tiny little pixel people walking around them! There's lots of little details like that that make it feel more like you're flying over an actual world and add a lot to the atmosphere. The soundtrack is also really cool. Not as good as the one in TFIV, but again, that's one of the best videogame soundtracks of all time, and an absurdly high bar to clear. But yeah, the music's good. (I'm not good at talking about music though!)
Obviously, this is yet another Saturn game that had a low print run and fetches ludicrously high prices online. Hopefully someday, SEGA will start rereleasing Saturn games on modern consoles, but until they do, Blast Wind is definitely one that deserves a permanent place in you SSF/YabaSanshiro disc images folder.
