Jet Lancer is a new 2D multi-directional shmup that basically wants you to do your best Top Gun impression. Your goal is to fly about the sky blasting Sky Pirates to pieces while not crashing into the ground or other aircraft. It's definitely reminiscent of older shmups, but Jet Lancer does a fairly solid job of standing out as an enjoyable modern addition to this genre, although sometimes the difficulty may be set a bit too high.

Top Gun Meets Top Cat

The story revolves around an ace pilot named Ash Leguinn, who may be a flight school dropout, but is also one of the finest damn mercenaries around. She takes on various jobs that involve the destruction of ruthless Sky Pirate ships in pursuit of fame and fortune. Along the way, she also must contend with her experimental ship which seems to have a mind of its own, and some bizarre new additions to her crew, like a talking cat named Lem who coincidentally happens to be an expert mechanic and engineer.

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As you might suspect based on that brief synopsis, the plot is a tad silly and inconsequential. However, it never seems to take itself all that seriously and there is some amusing dialogue, especially between Ash and her commanding officer. For the most part, the story is unobtrusive and the characters are likable enough, although there are some occasional spelling or grammatical errors in the dialogue. There was also a very bizarre glitch where the dialogue boxes would just contain the number "0" over and over.

The graphics are charmingly old school. Jet Lancer's visuals wouldn't have looked out of place if it had come out during the 8-bit or 16-bit era. There's always plenty of action happening on-screen with tons of ships, projectiles, smoke trails, and explosions. It's all very quick and frenetic, so much so that it can be easy to lose track of yourself amidst all the debris littering the skies. Luckily, your ship is a vibrant pink which helps it to stand out among the multiple different backgrounds. Along with an excellent chiptune soundtrack that helps get the blood pumping for sky battles, Jet Lancer has an old school vibe that should make shmup fans feel right at home.

Take It To The Limit

The gameplay is a bit tricky to master, but can be pretty addictive once you've gotten the hang of it. The player has full control of the ship, which on the Switch means using the ZR trigger to control the thrusters and the ZL trigger to use the afterburner. You have your standard gun, along with an extra weapon type mapped to the left bumper and a kind of superweapon that can be activated by holding down the left bumper to charge it up. As you acquire the services of Lem The Cat, you'll be able to customize the ship's loadout. This includes switching out the weapon and superweapon types, as well as some modifications to help your ship's performance.

Keeping your jet in the air and its gun pointed at Sky Pirates can be a bit difficult at first. The player needs to mindful of keeping the thrusters going while also steering away from the ground. It makes for a pretty intense gameplay experience, but once you've got it down, it's a lot of fun speeding towards enemy ships and blasting them into pixelated smithereens. There are also some hard boss battles to get through that can be challenging, but never felt impossible.

Some Missions Feel Like A Nosedive

There are various kinds of missions, such as eliminating all Sky Pirates in the vicinity or escorting friendly ships and making sure they don't get shot down. Most of these are very entertaining, although there are some types of objectives that slow down the pace and actually ruin the experience a little.

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There are some mission types that just aren't as exciting as others, and in some cases, slow the action to a crawl. One mission, in particular, required a score of 70,000 points to continue with the story. Yet, it only seemed to be possible to get half of that most of the time as you receive a rather paltry amount of points for each ship destroyed. It took several days just to get past that mission, which was incredibly frustrating as I was having a good time with Jet Lancer up to that point.

It wouldn't be so bad if this was a skippable mission, but it had to be beaten before the game would allow me to play other levels. Complaining that a shmup is hard seems like a pretty weak criticism, as the genre is well-known for its difficulty, but this wasn't a fun challenge. It just felt annoying, tedious, and frustrating, like the rest of the game was being kept out of reach by a mission with an unfair objective. I wasn't dying a lot or not grasping the controls. I was just flying around trying to make an arbitrary number go up, which just isn't all that exciting.

Not The Top, But A Pretty Good Gun

Jet Lancer offers some fine shmup gameplay that offers a good amount of challenge without being too oppressive. It's unfortunate that some missions are simply not all that fun to play and seem to inflate the difficulty. Some of these really should have been optional missions, as requiring them to be finished before moving on gates the rest of the game behind levels that simply don't work as well as others. However, if you do happen to get past those obstacles, Jet Lancer features fast-paced action, old-school graphics and music, and a talking cat-focused story that could make it a swell game for shmup fans looking for something new.

A Switch copy of Jet Lancer was provided for TheGamer for this review. Jet Lancer is available on Nintendo Switch and PC.

Jet Lancer

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