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Publisher: Working Design
Category: Shooter
Platform: PS1
ESRB Rating: Everyone Release Date: December 2000
Overall Rating:
2 Stars out of 4
Review by Tom Allen
2 Stars out of 4
As one of the most gamer-oriented publishers in the business, Working Designs is one of the few
companies that still believes in spaceship shooters. The highlights of the genre include Xevious
and Einhander, but RayCrisis Series Termination can not hold its own against those titles.
The problem is that RayCrisis is no more involved than Capcom's Gunbird 2, except that the
graphics are three-dimensional. Besides the lack of complexity in game play design, another
irritation is that the bosses take way too long to defeat. This is not to say that the game is hard.
The game's visuals are needlessly energetic in terms of motion and color, perhaps to hide the
real lack of detail (although the ships look decent). The story appears to be an afterthought, as
the game play does not make a strong connection with the story that explains what you are in fact
doing in the midst of all this shooting action.
The game's worst offense, however, is the fact that you can beat it in fifteen to twenty minutes.
This is true regardless of whether or not the encroachment meter is kept low. If you play through
the game lazily, the game's final boss will appear once the meter hits full capacity. Then, you
can "beat" the game without seeing the whole game. Purists will want to play again and see
everything, but casual fans will not care, because the prolonged experience is no more rewarding
or exciting than a brief one. The whole encroachment concept feels like a cheap way to add
replay value.
Overall, the game is successful as an old-school shooter for those in need of nostalgia, but the
experience isn't deep enough or addicting enough to warrant much attention from a mass
audience. This is one of those games that has a very specific target audience, and while there's
nothing wrong with that, even die-hard fans of the genre should be able to admit that we've seen
far greater shooters.
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