Get back in the fight
The lesser-known counterpart to Irem's more famous shooter series, the legendary R-Type games, Image Fight is a standard but still enjoyable little game which is well worth a look if you're into Xenon 2 and such games. It's got some nice visuals, plenty of hardcore action and some decent weapons which combine into an entertaining retro blaster. There's some semblance of a story here which is the usual guff and which revolves around an alien menace that is spreading throughout the galaxy. It's already taken over the moon and now it's got its sights on Earth so of course, humanity has sent a lone pilot in a hi-tech fighter to deal with the threat. What follows is a fairly standard vertically scrolling shooter where you have a variety of enemies to take care of, including ships, turrets, robots, and so on, while there are also the usual array of weapons to collect. You have to destroy containers to pick these up while you can also change your speed to suit your mood. There's nothing spectacularly original about Image Fight and it pretty much ticks all the standard boxes for such games. However, if this doesn't bother you and all you want to do is blow up aliens then there's a good time to be had here. The visuals have that lovely chunky 90s look about them and there's some great sprite work and environmental design to enjoy here. The sound is equally cool with lots of slick effects to enhance the mood while the controls are very responsive. It's a challenging game too, with the action coming at you hard and fast so if you're looking for a new shooter, this is a great choice.
