Relight: Eternal Overture (15.6Mb)
We don’t get too many Bomberman type games so I thought I’d post this one today. It has detailed sprites and a challenging difficulty level later on, together with 25 levels to complete.
Despite the difficulty, the game is hugely enjoyable to play. Besides being partly a Bomberman game, it does introduce some good new ideas to the genre very much to its credit. You need to eliminate all of the enemies from each level and also destroy certain blocks. The goal of each level is to open and reach the exit door.
A small screen select window appears first. Choose ‘Yes’ for full-screen, or ‘No’ for windowed mode.
When you start the game for the first time you are asked for your player name. Do Note - this has to be between 6 and 12 characters. You can then press ‘Enter’ to start the game intro, and advance through this using the ‘Z’ key.
There are hidden parts you can find in each level (usually by destroying blocks, or occasionally enemies) to add to your inventory and you will also need to discover their uses. To make a good high score you need to find all these hidden parts and what uses they have. The game mixes alchemy with bombing, and initially your attack range is small. You can increase the power of your magic though by eliminating enough enemies. Enemy shots/ lost lives can reduce your firepower too. You can sometimes counter enemy fire by firing back at the same time.
To start off with you need to approach close to some very agile enemies to attack them, making this a dangerous task. The enemies will not hesitate to immediately use whatever weapons they have at their disposal at you. Once you’ve earned an increase in your range of attack, attacking the enemies is (just) a little easier! Collect coins quickly after defeating enemies as they only appear for a short while. There’s a time-limit for each level and you get a time bonus for unused time to carry forward to the next level.
You may need a good few (or many!) attempts at the earlier levels to learn the enemies attack patterns. There are boss enemies to tackle during play as well before some levels can be completed. A good tactic is to wait for and ambush the more powerful enemies before they return fire. With lesser enemies, avoid their path and be prepared to keep firing and quickly get out of their way if your first attack doesn’t kill them. Dodging as well as firing tactics are needed with boss fights!
Though the story is told very briefly in Japanese, the inventory has an English sub-menu. Gameplay is largely intuitive - using ‘Arrow’ keys to move, the ‘Z’ key for attack, ‘X’ key for actions and power attacks (limited number of uses) and ‘C’ key for inventory. Use the ‘Arrow’ keys to move between inventory items and the ‘Z’ key to select an inventory item. There is a key configuration file in the game directory if you should want to re-define the game’s control keys. Use the 'Z' key to progress through eg level start screens! ‘Alt + F4’ exits the game. Gamepad use is supported as well.
Progress isn’t saved though so if you lose all three lives, or quit the game, you’ll restart from the beginning. This does make the game much more difficult to complete! Oh! And just in case you think that's difficult you are reduced to just one life for the last 5 or 6 levels or so! Your firewall may ask if the game can connect to the Internet, this is to allow you to send your (extremely high - if you are that lucky, . . or very highly skilled!) scores to the online top scores ranking page.
There are some areas where you cannot cast spells (tiles with circles on them) and spike tiles are hazardous to you in later levels.
It has great graphics and catchy music with sound effects. You can turn the sound/music off if it gets annoying. Gameplay is excellent and it plays really well. Just don't get too close to enemies or in their line of fire!
The game starts off fairly easy, but does get fairly to very difficult at later levels! It’s great fun to play!
I enjoy playing this game immensely! - - - It's a real gem of a game!
The only slight hiccup is that you need to complete a short (non-intrusive!) questionnaire on the download page. When completed the (Japanese) download link appears. Paste the download page link http://www.sunart.gr.jp/relight/download/index.html into Google translate to see drop-down choices in English.
If you don’t want to use Google translate here are the survey questions:-
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Download HERE
When you have filled in the survey and clicked the survey button, the download is the underlined Japanese text as shown here (not the button below this on the page!)
