Rally Raid

Rally Raid continues the tradition of excellent, commercial-quality shareware vertical shooters from Japan.

Beautiful 3D graphics create a great illusion of depth in a 2D playing field, anime-style ship designs are excellent, and your ship's power-ups and weapons are nicely varied. Make no mistake about it, though: Rally Raid is very difficult -- you will often find yourself trapped between so many rains of bullets from swarms of enemies that it seems impossible not to get hit. The action is non-stop, although the frequency of power-ups is generous. I find myself dying every five or so minutes, yet the game has that elusive "just one more try" quality to make me grit my teeth and move on until I finish the game. Rally Raid shares the same weakness as many other freeware shooters: it is a tad too brief, with each level lasting only a few minutes each. Fortunately, the high difficulty level and unpredictable patterns of enemy ship movements lengthen the actual play time.

Overall, Rally Raid is a definite must-play for anyone who enjoys vertical shooters, and well worth the price of a full version, although it doesn't boast the same (i.e. very high) production value as Idinaloq, my favorite freeware shooter from Japan.

Note: The download is shareware version (3 out of 8 total levels in the registered version). You can buy the full version at Himeya Soft using the related link below (it's in Windows JP --> Dojin Soft section).

Review By HOTUD