Thunder Force VI

Thunder Force VI is the sixth installment in the legendary series of vertically-horizontally scrolling space shooters that made the Japanese studio Technosoft famous in the eighties and nineties. The series became known for its combination of fast action, distinctive music, and battles against massive bosses filling most of the screen. The player controls a fighter ship, flying through a series of connected levels full of enemy waves, gradually collecting different types of weapons which must be switched between mid-flight depending on the type of enemies and obstacles currently faced - precise maneuvering and knowledge of attack patterns matter more here than reflexes. From its beginnings, the series built a reputation as one of the technically most advanced representatives of the genre thanks to smoothly scrolling backgrounds with a sense of depth and generously animated bosses, and the sixth entry tries to maintain this standard as well.

After Technosoft's demise in the early 2020s, rights to the brand passed to Sega, which after ten years of silence decided to produce a direct sequel to Thunder Force V. Thunder Force VI was released in 2008 exclusively for the PlayStation 2, and only in Japan - the game never officially reached Europe or North America, so players outside Japan can access it practically only through import or later emulation. Sega bet more on continuity than revolution with the game: the graphical style and pace deliberately continue the tradition of the nineties, but a new mode for score collection was added along with tiered difficulty, letting players new to the genre try it out as well. At the same time, this was the first entry in the series not made directly by Technosoft, so fans watched with anticipation whether Sega could match the established gameplay formula as convincingly as the original creators.

Why play it: Thunder Force VI is a rare chance to play an honest old-school shmup that wasn't made as a nostalgic remake but as a full-fledged new installment in a long-dormant series - it will be appreciated especially by genre fans who relish precise timing-based gameplay and aren't afraid of higher difficulty or the need to obtain the Japanese version of the game.