Under Defeat – PS5 Review

Under Defeat is a vertically-scrolling shoot ’em up that has an interesting history.  Developed by Japanese shoot ’em up experts G.Rev, the game originally showed up in Japanese arcades, running on the Sega NAOMI hardware.  This made it a perfect candidate for a Dreamcast port in 2006, one of the last games to be officially released for Sega’s short-lived wonder console.  It then had a hi-def remaster in 2012 with Under Defeat HD on the 360 (where I once reviewed it) and the PS3.  That version, which forced the game, somewhat awkwardly into a 16:9 aspect, then got an arcade release (as Under Defeat HD+) and now we’ve got another updated port for modern consoles.

In this game you control a helicopter as it attempts to shoot its way through five stages and, on the face of it at least, this is pretty standard stuff.  You’re fighting against a military force here so it’s all tanks, planes and boats.  There’s nothing particularly interesting or original to see here, we’re not fighting the Bydo Empire or whatever.  But what is interesting is the viewpoint and control system the game opted for.

While still playing like a normal shoot ’em up, the camera has slight angle to it, giving the game a bit of 3D polish.  It doesn’t change the gameplay, which is essentially the same thing as any number of 1942-influenced shooters, but does drag the game out of the old ’80s and ’90s flat perspective.  So that’s nice at least.

The controls are pretty interesting though.  Your helicopter can be rotated as you move and then when you hold down the fire button, your aim will lock to the direction you are facing, instead of you just firing upwards.  And, thankfully, the 360-era port introduced dual-stick controls, which are implemented as an option here, so you can now just aim with the right stick (this auto-fires too).  That’s definitely the best way to play the game.

In terms of other mechanics, there’s not much to speak of.  You’ve got a limited supply of smart bombs, essential for getting you out of the many tricky (and borderline unfair) situations the game puts you in, and there’s an ‘option’ weapon.  This thing isn’t the best implemented weapon we’ve seen.  To trigger it you need to lay off shooting for a few seconds, it’ll then appear when you shoot again.  There are three versions of the option.  A Vulcan machine gun shoots a steady stream of bullets for a few seconds, the Cannon does the same but with more powerful ammo fired less often and the Rocket shoots one single rocket grenade.  To be honest, they’re all a bit meh and likely to get you into trouble if you have to keep looking at their cooldown meter while stopping shooting.   You rarely have that luxury.

You switch option type by picking up floating icons.  What’s odd is that these show up all the time but don’t stack.  Picking up two or three ‘Vulcan’ options doesn’t make it any more powerful.  The Rocket is rubbish as well, so you mainly spend time waiting for it to morph into the next option type before you pick it up.  The whole thing feels like a liability and not all that satisfying.

As we said, the game’s five stages are all military themed and a little uninspiring.  It’s all stuff you’ve seen before in other games.  The giant tanks, the turret-laden battleships.  It’s all very predictable.   That said, everything is reasonably smooth and playable.  It’s also mercifully short (we hate shoot ’em ups that drag on).  But there are some significant issues.

The main one is visual clarity, always an important factor with vertically-scrolling shoot ’em ups.  You can generally make out enemies and bullets but Under Defeat has a real issue with missiles.  Enemy missiles are barely distinguishable from the background and also much quicker than bullets.  So you’ll definitely have a few ‘what hit me?!’ moments.

The other issue for us was a couple of the bosses.  The level three boss has irritating homing missiles and fussy bullet sprays and the game’s final boss is an absolute sponge that also has an annoying attack that comes from the bottom of the screen.  Chore.  But with all that said, I definitely enjoyed the game more now than I did in 2013.  Have shoot ’em ups really failed to progress in the last decade?  Maybe.  We’ve played, and reviewed, so many rubbish indie shooters that maybe Under Defeat has benefitted from the malaise.

There are a two main versions of the game on offer, with variations.  You get the modern ‘New Order’ version that zooms in the viewpoint and pushes it into a widescreen 16:9 aspect.  To be honest, we’re not sure what this mode is for.  It looks slightly nicer I guess but reduces your reaction time for enemy attacks and is really just style over playability.  Your helicopter is pretty chunky, so there’s not a lot of screen real estate to work with.

The original ‘Arcade’ mode has a much more traditional viewpoint and it works a lot better.  Obviously, you lose a lot of useable space on the screen and everything is more zoomed out, so it’s a bit harder to see some of those missiles in the detail but this was our preferred mode.

Each mode also gets a mirror mode where everything is flipped on left to right.  It doesn’t really add anything but the trophy set requires you to play through both versions of the game while mirrored if you want the Platinum.  And if you’re worried about difficulty, each mode adds an extra continue for each hour you play (up to nine credits and then after that you’re on ‘Free Play’ which just means infinite credits).  And while initially we did think we’d need all the credits we could get, we did find ourselves improving as we went on, eventually only needing a continue to get past that pig of a final boss.  So the progression is pretty good here at least.

In terms of presentation, things are okay here.  The music is suitably boisterous and mad with a jazz fusion sound that’s all very Japanese but not out of character with the gameplay and the visuals, while a little bland and unclear, do benefit from being a bit more three dimensional.  This doesn’t feel like usual slew of 8/16-bit shooters that hit PSN every week.  And the £15.99 price tag isn’t too offensive either.

Over the years, Under Defeat has definitely gained some cult status thanks to its Dreamcast/Arcade roots and it is different enough, at least in terms of the controls, to a lot of other shoot ’em ups.  We’re not sure it’s ever been so good that it needs a port each generation but it’s okay.