Axelay

Publisher: Konami
Developer: Konami
Release Date: September 1992

An original and SNES-exclusive shoot-em-up, Axelay was what you expected from Konami at the time: expertly-designed action with gorgeous graphics and catchy music. What you didn't expect, and what made the game particularly notable, was the graphical warping effect that produced a pseudo 3-D perspective in the vertical-scrolling stages. It's funny to think about now, but this effect blew a lot of people away back then, and was what distinguished the game among the glut of shooters that populated the Super Nintendo's first year.

Disregarding the graphical novelty, Axelay is at its heart an alternating vertical and horizontal scrolling shooter. There are no power-ups-- instead, you choose three weapons at the beginning of each stage which you can switch between in the heat of the action. The pace is typically slow, similar to a game like Gradius or R-Type. There is never an overwhelming number of enemies on screen, but many of the enemies take an abundance of hits, and the action involves quite a bit of terrain-dodging. Furthermore, the weapon-changing mechanic gives the game an air of strategy, as you often need to switch to the correct weapon to navigate certain portions of a level.

Though the Super Nintendo isn't commonly known as a great system for shoot-em-ups, it does feature a small group of them which are of a notably high-quality. If you are a fan of the genre looking for action on your Super NES, Axelay certainly belongs at or near the top of your list.