Soldner X2: Final Prototype Review
by Omar (@neo_graphyte)
- Soldner X2: Final Prototype & Final Chapter (DLC)
- Developer- SideQuest Studios
- Publisher- eastasiasoft
- PlayStation Vita, PlayStation 3
I am at a philosophical impasse with Soldner X2. Formally, I cannot fault it. It’s polished, competent, and feature rich by genre standards. There’s a strong use of visual effects, unlockable stages to find, and ranks systems to incentivize replay. In other words, a well made shooter that is designed to encourage repeat sessions. So why do I feel so ambivalent towards it?
From the go, Soldner makes clear its influences. The beam weapons recall the Raiden series, there’s an R-Type homage in the form of a stage long fight against a massive battleship, and the bullet patterns clearly imitate the bullet hell genre. More than that, however, it owes a lot to the Amiga-era Euroshooter scene. Its splashy visual effects and level transitions feel spiritually at home with the demoscene-esque focus of shooters from that era, and it carries the trappings of the scene’s lineage.
Unfortunately, the scene was also notorious for games that prioritized spectacle at the expense of playability. To its credit, Soldner avoids being placed among the worst offenders of the scene, carrying a certain confidence of purpose to the proceedings. There aren’t any concepts present that feel half-baked, as SideQuest clearly thought through how these elements fit together. An extended health bar and play ranking system create a more accessible play experience, and an unlock system provides some contiguous measure of progress. So then my issues aren’t borne of the implementations of the concepts, but rather the concepts themselves.
I found myself raising an eyebrow frequently during my time with Soldner. There’s an odd sense of structure to how the levels are laid out. To start with, only the first four stages are initially available. You unlock these as normal, completing the first stage to move onto the second, and so on. However, after stage 4 you are taken to an abrupt end screen telling you that “the war has ended, but there are still systems to liberate”, and informing you that you can continue to play the game by unlocking keys and attempting to master the rank system. It’s like something you’d see at the end of a shareware era game, sans the sales pitch. The last stages didn’t stand out to me as requiring any specific knowledge from the earlier ones either, so functionally, the keys only stand to draw out your play time and have you repeatedly play stages.
It’s a feeling I had about the overall package. It seems most obvious in the leveling system, an overall rank that increases as you shoot down enemy ships. This exists outside the play itself and slowly unlock ships and powerups as you put time into the game. Depending on your perspective, its an absurd bastardization of leveling up, or the system taken to its logical conclusion. This gates entire play elements behind an investment of time, doing not much more than drawing out the play time.
Even more so, the stages themselves feel drawn out. While most scrolling shooters reach their peak at about 30-45 minutes, Soldner can clock in at over an hour, even before the Final Chapter DLC, making it less feasible for the popular “1 Credit Clear” attempts. While this doesn’t necessarily mark a fault in it, many of the stages could stand to be condensed both in time and play space.
The boss fights are particular offenders, with massive health bars that serve to make you feel underpowered even with weapons that are approaching full power. While SideQuest has attempted to create dramatic, multi-form conflicts, they’ve instead made each battle into a drawn out battle of attrition, complete with moments where you can do nothing more than wait for the enemy to finish attacking before you can continue the fight. It doesn’t help that they suffer from uninspired designs and the occasional unpredictable pattern that relies more on your reflexes than skill and wit.
Soldner largely suffers from a sense of “almost there”. There’s a strong sense of intent and polish, but it’s dragged down by the numerous small faults. Still, I find myself more philosophically displeased with it than ludicly. For many, the criticisms outlined above aren’t faults but strengths. The long play time, more lenient health system, and unlockable content may work antithetically towards creating the tightest game, but it provides non-aficionados with something to return to. My disappointment comes from approaching Soldner asking “what makes the best scrolling shooter”. I’ve been spoiled by the works of CAVE, TREASURE, Konami and Taito. Not living up to the masters however, isn’t exactly considered failing.