Platinum Games, best known for the Bayonetta series, is an odd fit for a sequel to an '80s shoot-em-up that started life as a Galaxian hack. Moon Cresta, by Nichibitsu, introduced a ‘docking’ system that would power up the craft after four alien attack waves. It was a novel idea at the time, and landed well with arcade audiences.
The 1985 sequel, Terra Cresta, is where Platinum’s effort borrows most of its design basics, including enemies, bosses and bullet spreads. Moving into full vertical-scrolling territory, Terra Cresta allowed the player to collect ship add-ons to increase their firepower, and then split those parts into formations for broader weapon coverage. It also featured ground-based enemies to destroy, some of whom — such as its dinosaurs — have made it wholesale into Sol Cresta.
The first thing that strikes you about Sol Cresta, is that it’s stunningly horrible-looking: a kind of mashed together, multimedia vomit of late-'90s freeware renders. Entirely disorderly, its backgrounds and HUD periphery are a masterpiece of incoherency. A game where ground and air targets need dispatching simultaneously, it can be confusing to focus on the threats, and almost impossible at first glance to discern obstacles you can crash into from those you can fly over. The frame rate seems a bit slow, too, even when docked; and while it doesn’t have a huge impact on the way it plays, it’s somewhat bizarre Platinum couldn’t clean it up a bit.
Someone seemed to think the game would benefit from a scanline filter to make the visuals more bearable, but in an epic misstep the filter actually makes the game borderline unplayable at any of its offered intensities. Imagine a broken CRT monitor with a failing tube and vaseline smeared all over the glass, resulting in a blurring of detail to the point where it becomes a handicap.
Where Sol Cresta does excel — arguably more than in any other area — is in its audio. The soundtrack has a very well-defined, old-school arcade feel; a wonderful blend of chords and score bonus ditties that perfectly capture their inspirations. It’s so accomplished aurally, that composer Yuzo Koshiro undoubtedly understood the game’s brief a lot better than the visual department.
Aesthetics, however, do not maketh the game, and Sol Cresta most certainly plays better than it looks. The horror of thinking you had fired up some random indie mobile phone port — which is very much what it initially resembles — fades after you get to grips with its system and focus on what it offers in shooting action adventure.
The series’ ideas of ship docking and formations has been greatly evolved. Now, you can collect three independent ships, tethered by sci-fi electrical wire, and bolt them together in a variety of different ways. Clearly delineated by red, blue and yellow, placing different ships at the head of the stack changes your attacks. This gives you a whole host of weapon options to toy with, from spread shots to homing missiles, as well as chargeable laser blasts and powerful drill bits. The game has an interesting economy here, although it does little from its outset to wean you into using any specific formation with a distinct purpose. There are also Street Fighter-style move inputs, such as quarter-circle and 360 degree rotations that can trigger bullet tricks — but in the heat of things it’s easy to forget they exist, let alone have an opportunity to put them into effective practice.
Once you get a handle on the core mechanics there’s less flailing involved. The game’s major device is in collecting icons with pattern formations that allow you to lock your craft into powerful three-pronged arrangements. Collect the downward triangle icon, for example, and you can drag the craft into the same pattern to spew a broad wave of deadly fire. If you manage to obtain all the formation icons in a stage, you can transform into a flaming Phoenix (another Terra Cresta nod) for a completely invincible and highly devastating period. Unfortunately, the Phoenix falls foul to an embarrassing programming error whereby if you fly it at a boss it ends up hidden beneath the sprite layer, almost always killing the player when the transformation reverts.
All powered-up formations are transient, reliant on building an SP gauge through collecting coins, medals, and destroying enemies. When your gauge has enough stock, you can trigger a formation of your choosing for a limited spell, before you return to your normal state. Cleverly, when detaching your ships, the game slows right down, allowing you time to drag your craft into your desired shape; but if all three ships are destroyed, a life is lost.
Sol Cresta offers no continues, which is a good thing, but does allow you to restart from any previously cleared stage. At first it seems overly-tough because of so many elements operating in tandem, not helped by its graphical hash and emphasis on formation fiddling. In actuality, it’s not that difficult at all, with extended survival depending largely on how much stuff you can grab. Shields, ship replacements, points bonuses, and point-based life extensions rain down to keep you in the game. Utilising different ships to open colour-coded boxes and achieve maximum bonuses from circular gates is a smart way to engage the player and force you to constantly use the formation juggling mechanic. By only our fourth go, utilising everything at our disposal, we made it to the end of the fifth (of seven) stages on a single run, proving it’s far less aggressive than it first seems. Oddly, online leaderboards are not available from the outset, instead requiring ‘purchase’ using achievements as a kind of currency. It won’t be the first thing available, either, but then you probably won’t have much of a score to upload until you’ve given it several hours of practice anyway.
It’s important to note, particularly where shoot-em-ups are concerned, that learning by repetition is a major part of the enjoyment factor, and knowing how to juggle Sol Cresta’s system certainly fosters a sense of accomplishment.
At the same time, it’s a game that feels unnecessarily untidy and unrefined. Despite touting a nuanced power-up system, even after extended play you aren’t sure where its specific advantages lie in relation to dispatching your enemies — and dodging has a critical imprecision about it. It feels as though Platinum wasn’t quite sure how to balance out the old with the new, faltered somewhere in the middle, and decided not to rethink or overhaul it in any way.
There’s a nagging feeling that Platinum — with all its talk of getting back to old school gaming — might just be cash-grabbing here, leveraging their association with the likes of Bayonetta to accrue early sales in a genre that’s been privy to renewed interest. Sol Cresta is far from unenjoyable, but for some, it may be slightly unpalatable. If you’re not willing to really communicate with its ship formation assemblies and oft-repeated bosses (albeit with powered-up attacks) it’s difficult to click with. Or, to frame it more clinically, you might well feel that there are other shoot-em-ups you would rather be playing instead.
Conclusion
If you’re a fan of this now very old series, you might find Sol Cresta’s mould appealing. It’s certainly fun to improve, win shields, and prolong your survival by grabbing back lost ships; and to be able to whip your craft into formation and quickly destroy bosses with a countdown of powerful ordnance — and the audio is sublime. At the same time, with all of its interesting ideas, one can’t help but feel that there are elements here that need more polish and careful implementation. There are very few memorable boss attacks, and while some stage junctures are somewhat shrewd, others come off as ill-conceived or uninspired. By no means is that to say it’s not enjoyable — a definite groove emerges as you chip away at its interesting core gameplay— but the fact of the matter is that Sol Cresta is up against a wealth of extremely steep competition, and to stand out it needs to be hitting the all-important notes with greater finesse.
Comments (70)
Not my thing and never was, but this looks disappointing even for those who were looking forward to it.
Looks like Platinum Games went downhill. Not surprising.
I was interested in the game until I saw that stream, it...was boring.
Oof. Was lookin' forward to this, too. I'll just have to stick with Terra Cresta and listen to Sol Cresta's OST instead.
"Sol Cresta offers no continues, which is a good thing" that feels...debatable
I'm not sure if I've ever seen that many cons with a score of 7. I already have multiple good shmups on my wishlist so I'll pass on this one.
@Joeynator3000 This is nothing to do with the Article and I've been wanting to say this for some time but I love your Avatar 😅
“ Sol Cresta offers no continues, which is a good thing...”
My man.
Great write-up. Sounds like my cup of tea. Is there TATE mode?
I was interested but falling off the fence somewhat after reading this less than stellar review.
Also, I’m puzzled why they would split story mode off into a “Dramatic DLC” pack ($10) separate from the base “arcade” game ($39.99). Did the reviewed copy include that story mode DLC? And will LRG’s $50 standard physical release include it…?
This 7/10 reads like a 5/10 at best! Surprising score. I'm a sucker for shmups so I'm grabbing this physically but I hope all, if any, patches will be on disc because this sure sounds rushed (despite delays)
Ah man great question @teksetter
I like the genre, but I don't think I can stomach the $40 price tag. Just off of the review and the stream I feel like the mini game from No More Heroes looks better than this. Oh well at least you make very good action games Platinum.
The headline and the writing depicted a worse score. So, why a 7?
@denpanosekai
Yes, inquiring minds want to know! I like story modes and the 3 pilots in combining mechs is a classic Getter Robo anime trope that Hideku Kamiya would build into a fun, geeky story.
For me it would be deal breaker if A) the story fell flat, and didn’t rate a mention in the review, or B) the story mode DLC isn’t included in LRG’s cartridge version.
I had doubts about this from the beginning, but I kind of hoped they would surprise me. Doesn't sound like they did.
This started life as an April Fool's gag, and maybe it should have stayed there.
$40 for a mediocre shmup? Nope. This didn't even make the Ninja Approval help-desk.
I just watched some recent footage of this game in motion. It really doesn’t look bad at all. The graphics are far more impressive in motion than in screen grabs. Regardless I don’t see it as a $40 purchase but it definitely looks fun and in the 7/10 range when you watch some gameplay.
I feared this would happen. The hype was huge, even though the previous Cresta games aren't that good. And that's because the coverage of this game has been insane.
4 joys, 5 cons....and a 7 overall? Weird
Kamiya will insult and block you all for saying that about his game ! 😁
I was interested in this, but definitely not £36 interested, especially after that review.
After reading that Dynasty Warriors review yesterday, I would rather say that and this game both deserve a comparable score.
After reading this whole review I am surprised it even got a 7, this feels more like a 5 at best.
No matter what the score is, $40 is an absolutely insulting price tag for a shmup.
Let’s hope Bayonetta 3 fares better.
A graphically-confusing short 'em up with a high price? Yikes.
Thought Platinum Games would've made something innovative and aesthetically pleasing.
I dont give a ***** about the comments here, Im getting it day 1
Destructoid gave it an 8 and VGC a way more positive review. Im leaning on I have same taste as them
Also Reviewer here didnt even bother confirming if there will be Online leadboards while the 2 above reviewers did confirm there are online leaderboards. FYI
I was interested in this but the price is too steep for what it is and I thought this had been delayed to give it that extra polish oh well back to G Darius for me
All this game does for me is remind me that PlatniumGames still haven't released any Kickstarter DLC for Wonderful 101, despite it now being 2 years since the release.
The whole thing looks a bit fiddily and unintuitive to me.
@DarkTron they’ve been partying on the kickstarter money for 2 years instead of concentrating on any decent game development…..once that runs out they’ll knuckle down to some work.
for a dude who acts like big dog on twitter Kamiya-san should be able to walk the talk and make good games lol
I love Platinum, I love shmups- but I’m underwhelmed.
My first thought upon seeing it at the eShop was, "Yowza, that asking price!!!" Look, I love me some old school schmups, and I know this game touts its pedigrees, but this isn't 1992 and this isn't a Genesis cartridge like we paid those kinds of prices for back in the day (ThunderForce III was $64.99 at Toys R Us as I recall, but I don't regret that purchase for a second). It's 2022 and many if not most gamers place value on a potential purchase by the number of expected hours played per dollar spent. Schmups just don't lend themselves to $40-50 price tags anymore for that reason, even if you're a hardcore fan of the genre.
I Wish Listed this one, but it'll have to come down in price SIGNIFICANTLY before I drop money on it.
Thank goodness I'm saved from importing the limited run print.
This doesn't really sound deserving of a 7/10.
The biggest turn off for me was this part
"By only our fourth go, utilising everything at our disposal, we made it to the end of the fifth (of seven) stages on a single run."
That right there is enough to tell me that this shmup will bore me to tears. A shmup should offer a stern challenge right from the start and even an expert player should not be making it so far, after just 4 turns.
@Spiders There is a tate mode in the game.
7/10... Hmph! This review reads more like a 6/10 imo! And others saying that it reads like a 5/10. In overall, game looks a bit disappointing. But if compare Sol Cresta to other shoot 'em ups that is available on Nintendo Switch - it's looks more disappointing. For example, I think that Ikaruga is a lot better than Sol Cresta. Oh, and also - Ikaruga is a good game that passed through the test of time.
Given how negative the review sounded, I'm surprised it got so high a score!
In chile instead of saying go to hell, we say go to the cresta!
Disappointed and absolutely not worth that price tag (it never was, regardless of the review score).
Good review though. I enjoyed phrases such as "stunningly horrible-looking" and "masterpiece of incoherency".
I hate how the game's graphics genuinely remind me of those old maths game websites. Mangahigh to be specific.
What a letdown! I love shmups and Terra Cresta was always among my favourite. So I was waiting for this only since I heard about it, some 2 years ago. And first came the delays, then the price tag and the idea of separating content and now all this... What a shame!
@gojiguy @Vyacheslav333 @OorWullie @Rayquaza2510 @UglyCasanova @Savage_Joe @denpanosekai @FishyS
Hello to all commenters. Firstly, thank you all for reading the review, hopefully in its entirety. I understand many of you feel the score doesn't match the overall tone of the review. Hopefully, I can shed some light on how this works.
Review scores are very arbitrary. Ideally, not having scores would be better, allowing the content of the review to guide the reader toward a decision. However, scores are a popular format, so therefore we are compelled to use them.
Sol Cresta has flaws people should be aware of, and it's my job to try to break down, in both an honest and entertaining fashion, exactly what they are. Reviews that break a 1200 word threshold are something I try to avoid as a matter of good practice, and even here it ran slightly over. That means that there is a limited amount of space to provide history, backstory, and run through the finer details of what works and what doesn't.
To get to the point, then, Sol Cresta deserves a 7 purely based on the fact that, in spite of its flaws, it's still a pretty fun shoot-em-up. It has a certain amount of depth and intrigue in its formation mechanic, that can be toyed with. It's not hugely difficult, but it's also not an instant 1CC. There's increasing challenge in its last three stages (on default) that will keep you actively pressing for a while.
It is a grotesque-looking game, but aesthetics can (and should!) be looked past in light of whether or not the game is playable. And it is. A 7 isn't a bad score, and Sol Cresta isn't a bad game - it's just a game that probably doesn't warrant its current price tag, could have been improved in several key areas, and certainly doesn't beat out other competition in the genre.
Because of the process of reviewing and some of the limitations I have as an author trying to express the details, there are times when content and tone might not match your score expectation. This is sort of a curse of the process, and one of the reasons why scores are kind of detrimental to the reviewing process. It's not always easy to think about which digit makes the most sense in relation to how well a game plays, or, importantly, in relation to similar games in the field.
I hope this helps to explain a little about why the score might not match your expectations. It's not a perfect science, but I've done my best to be informative.
Thank you very much for reading both the review and this reply, I appreciate you all being here to read my work.
Tom
That was expected, this game never looked like it could stand out among dozens of great shmups that released in the past 30 years or so. $40 for what? A bunch of ugly pixels and a barebones presentation?
I was going to make a joke about 'sole crusta', but deemed it too gross.
Looks like PlatinumGames wanted to be like Treasure but failed. No one does schmup better than Treasure. Even the Bayonetta shooting section can't even compare to Sin and Punishment. Platinum just needs to go back to what they are known for, making great action games like porting Madworld and/or Vanquish to the Switch. Not sure why they hadn't done it yet.
Well, this review has tempered my expectations somewhat however it is in the small print that I need this game.
I'm STILL getting it! Shmups are niche anyway.
Not many people play em.
I do not trust this review.
@Tom-Massey Thanks for the reply. I enjoyed your review and I'm glad you pointed out these things as I now know I won't really enjoy this. I'm a huge fan of the genre and despite not being that great of a player, I play them mostly with score chasing in mind. I enjoy trying to make it that little bit further than before and climbing the leaderboard. But knowing you can get so deep into this one so early, means each run will be quite long, taking the fun out of score chasing.
As fun as it may still be otherwise, it seems to be a shmup I'll play a few times and never go back to. I was prepared to pay the price asked, which is about the same as the M2 Shottriggers games but only if it was of an expected quality, It seems to have fallen short on a few things. It would need a pretty big discount for me to consider it now.
What a waste of a licence and the possible rebirth of the franchise. Glad I didn't waste money on it.
@Vivianeat Ha haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa. yeah really niche.
If you're looking for an extremely high quality vertical shmup on Switch, honestly just get Eschatos instead of this. It's cheaper, too. $40 for Sol Cresta is ridiculous.
Wow, I'm sorry to hear that this isn't locked at 60fps. It's a bummer that new shoot em ups are coming out, but some, like this one and R type final 2, aren't hitting the needed native refresh rate of the Switch. I bought COTTOn Rock'n'Roll because it's an awesome new shmup that runs at 60(admittedly with some rare drops) and is just fun with all it's variety. I want shmups to do well, but won't buy them if they're not great.
Good enough for me. Can't wait to get my collector's edition from LRG. The game even has dlc on the eShop. What more could you ask for!?
@FishyS 7/10 is below the videogame average on metacritic. Video game reviewers are waaaaay too generous and 7/10 is rarely a good game. And anything below is usually not worth your time (as long as the critics are objective)
@CharlieGirl
Genre has nothing to do with price. I've paid more that £30 for plenty of shmups over the decades. Agree this seems high - cos it just doesn't sound exceptional - but the £60 I shelled out for Radiant Silvergun or Pulstar never left me feeling swindled!
@Specter_of-the_OLED
Treasure is a great devco, but I'll take Technosoft, Irem, Compile, Aicom or Toaplan or even NCS first for shmups 😁
@Teksetter Looks like the DLC will be included (it's literally called Dramatic Edition)
SOL CRESTA Dramatic Edition includes:
Dramatic DLC
@Tom-Massey I wanted to say thank you for the above-and-beyond reply and explanation to our comments.
I would say personally that I agree the scores are a bit arbitrary but that they also gives a nice ballpark. One of the things I really appreciate in these reviews are the pros and cons. The review itself is always good to read, but having a summary afterwards to clarify and emphasize what the reviewer thinks stands out also helps.
As for the scores, my personal experience with NintendoLife is that I almost always dislike games I play scored below 7, I almost always like or at least respect games I play rated 8 or higher, and 7 is a toss-up.
In this review, even if you liked it overall, you gave a fair amount of critical comments, some of which are things I care about more than maybe you do. And there really are an insane amount of shmups with very positive reviews on Switch. I really appreciate reviews like this because there are too many good games to play, and these reviews help me differentiate and decide which to play.
@BinaryBoss I stand behind what I said. A genre with such a short gameplay loop should not cost $40.
@denpanosekai
Thanks for the heads up! I went and checked and see now that the LRG release is indeed the “dramatic edition” with the story mode and voiced characters. That’s good, but bad for me in a way because there are so darn many games I want to buy coming out this year.
I have to make a list and triage…
Kirby
Lego Star Wars Skywalker Saga
Aegis Rim 13 Sentinels
Dawn of the Monsters
Arcade Paradise
TMNT
No Man’s Sky
Xenoblade 3
BOTW 2
That SD Gundam squad battle game?
Sol Cresta?
It’s looking grim for my wallet 😵💫
@FishyS
Actually, this is a conversation I’ve had with the editor several times. The Pros and Cons aren’t meant to dictate the score: they’re literally just a list of bullet points. If they were supposed to directly correlate with score, we wouldn’t need a review at all.
As it stands, they simply summarise some of the review’s key features.
On a scale of 10, a 6 is above-average and a 7 is a pretty decent score, denoting a work that will provide enjoyment for people invested in a particular genre; but letting the content of the review guide you is probably the best way to make a decision about where you put your hard-earned money.
Appreciate the reply and engagement, many thanks and happy gaming.
@OorWullie
Thanks for the kind words, I’m glad I helped you toward making a decision.
You might be right about how engaged you will be by Sol Cresta, but at the same time you might be surprised at how much you get into it. Its scoring is more tied to survival and use of formation icons to down enemy waves. I did enjoy the scheme of having a lead ship colour to open colour-codes crates and fly through scoring rings - but it’s a tad unintuitive for precise scoring in its regular mode, I’d say.
Ultimately a lot of this comes down to pricing. $40 is a big ask. At $15 I’d probably say it’s worth your time - although it wouldn’t impact my scoreline either way.
I’ve seen you comment on other reviews I’ve put up, so thank you for being there to engage, I really appreciate it.
I saw the price on the UK eShop the other week and laughed to myself. Never been a fan of Platinum, even when Nintendo publish their stuff.
review scores are irrelevant for me personally, considering I like to read them and based my judgement on that. That said, this one sounded more like a 5 instead of a 7. Still, I'm glad I'm not picking this one yet. I prefer to wait until R-Type 2 gets more price cut lol.
Title of the review changed.
The review and all those cons make this look like a 5 bumped up to a 7 for some reason.
Someone put up a youtube video showing the frame rate of Sol Cresta on Switch. It drops to the 40s, and frequently goes down to 52 to 55fps. Such a disappointment. I still want to play it, but a discount frame rate deserves a discount price!
I think I look more into the PS4 version. Not sure what all the score fuss is about. I see a 6/10 for R-Type Final 2 on Switch. A 7 seems within the bounds of reason.
@CharlieGirl how so? shmups are niche titles with a dedicated audience whose smaller sales figures are accounted by an higher price point than the average indie random, which in this case is in line with other shmups at release time.
I have this lifelong love for Terra Cresta so I've been really looking forward to this game... Hmm, it was a bit pricey, OK, I'll overlook that, I'm a fan after all. The music is kind of cool, the story seemed OK:ish. The controls are nice, this new system of power-ups requires some learning... neat.
But the graphics...
The more I play this the more I keep thinking that QA and testing must've had a stroke. It looks like someone did 3D-graphics, then rescaled the picture to 1.5x in width and 1.7x in height, without any filter, so the "pixels" are just a horrorshow. I've tried TATE, I've tried different scanlines (which makes it even worse, who knew?) but I just can't over it, it's ugly, like ET on Atari ugly. And then you see it... it's not 3D graphics at all it's just the worst pixel graphics you've ever seen.
I really hope this gets fixed. Because that's what's needed, you need to redo all the graphics tiles or at least fix this weird it-was-scaled-wrong-problem. If you need help and inspiration, just look at Hamster's Terra Cresta...
I don't think videos makes this justice, because almost all video online is compressed. Find a video of the gameplay: you think you're watching a 240p version of the video, with terrible bandwidth and that it soon will look better, but you're actually watching the game, it looks like that. You have to see it live to believe it.
So it's really weird, because the gameplay is actually nice, but then every new wave of enemies you're reminded of that the graphics are just broken, so very very broken.
I really want to love this game, but as it is now, it's not finished.
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