Robo Aleste / Dennin Aleste [Cruel Mode] (Sega CD) - Full Game

Title screen: 4:35
Stage 1: 5:10
Stage 2: 9:35
Stage 3: 12:57
Stage 4: 20:41
Stage 5: 24:00
Stage 6: 29:10
Stage 7: 34:23
Stage 8: 37:50
Stage 9: 41:52
Stage 10: 45:00
Stage 11: 48:20
Stage 12: 57:03


Yay, a shooter! It's another one made by Compile who are known for the Aleste series. I already made playthroughs of the two Game Gear ports which are both very good in their own right and push Sega's 8-bit handheld to the max.

Robo Aleste (or Dennin Aleste in Japan) is a Sega CD exclusive and sure pushes that device to its limits too. Luckily, it doesn't fill the CD with useless "full-motion video", but instead, it focusses on what a shooter is all about: non-stop action at its best.

The game takes place in Japan about 500 years ago. However, this is some alternate reality where engineers figured out how to create huge steam-powered robots armed with giant lasers. You are Kage, member of the White Fang Clan and pilot of ALESTE, an 8 meter tall robot. Japan is ruled by various warlords and it seems the whole country has united to fight your lord so you unleash a counter-attack and bring the war to them.

Your arsenal of weapons includes pretty much all standard weapons you would expect: homing weapon, cluster bombs, forward-facing but powerful laser... they can be upgraded from level 0 to 3 and switching weapons by picking up the respective orb gets you that weapon at the level you had for the previously installed weapon. Of course you have your primary laser at all times which is upgraded by small pods that are left by various enemies and drop towards the bottom edge of the screen very quickly.

one unique aspect about your Aleste robot are the two small pods you have to your front left and right. they are indestructible and can be used to damage enemies and absorb bullets. if you master this your life will be much easier in this game. oh, and btw, your shots can destroy enemy projectiles (the yellow ones).

The graphics are top, the levels have a great variety. I also like that you don't die if you bump into stationary objects and not even all enemies are lethal on touching them. The CD music is kickass and gameplay rocks too. However, there are two things that, imo, absolutely sucks about Robo Aleste:

firstly, the blue weapon seems to be the best general-purpose weapon because it's very powerful and covers a large area reliably. but this is also the problem: it covers about 25% of the screen and you can't see what's going on in front of you if you're firing that weapon and there's lots of enemy fire coming your way. i don't have a problem with challenge and lots of bullets, but i don't feel in control in that scenario.

and secondly, the bosses... a large part of the fun in a shooter are the boss encounters. huge, multi-stage bosses that require some tactics. in Robo Aleste, though, most die in a few seconds with the exception of Tetsu, your older brother. This guy is really ridiculous. He takes forever to kill and as far as I could tell there is no working tactics other than a lot of patience until you finally beat him with a lot of luck. I tried to find other movies of that fight on youtube to see if i missed something, but for some reason this fight is always skipped.

This game is good, but it leaves a bad impression and while technically superior it's not as good as MUSHA for the Genesis/Mega Drive if you look at actual gameplay. It doesn't matter what difficulty, all bosses die in seconds and Tetsu still kicks your butt on normal difficulty. That's what kept me so long from uploading another playthrough, but i didn't want to give in to this punk, Tetsu, and i wanted to beat this on Cruel difficulty. Still, somehow i'm disappointed.

As usual, please let me know if you want to see a specific game played and don't forget to subscribe if you like my movies.

Enjoy and happy new year!

Category:

Gaming

Tags:

• Robo
• Aleste
• Dennin
• MUSHA
• Sega
• Mega
• Drive
• Genesis
• CD
• arcade
• action
• shooter
• shmup
• playthrough
• walkthrough
• let's
• play
• Compile

[sacrisesma]

MUSHA is better than this in every aspect. The bosses are a joke, the music is bland and generic compared to MUSHA's, the blue lasers are overpowered so there's no reason to change weapons, and it's just excessively long. The graphics are good, but that's about it.

Really disappointing in my opinion. It's good that they didn't call it MUSHA 2.

[temujin9000]

@sacrisesma good to know, thanks. haven't had time to try MUSHA yet, but it's definitely on my list. I find the music of Robo Aleste really good and atmospheric. if MUSHA is even better there, then hell yea, can't wait.

[Ebb1993isgreat]

Nobunaga should have been the final boss instead...

[temujin9000]

@Ebb1993isgreat yes, at least as a true last boss on cruel mode or so. Also, I don't get the ending: was Nobunaga really a demon or did Astaros trick Kage? Why is Nobunaga's place on fire? Did Kage attack it or did he come too late? The place is just burning... why doesn't he flee (especially if he really was a demon)? Interesting story though very well supported by the intro like mbonnar pointed out.

[123doomdoom]

@temujin9000 The music in Musha isn't all that man. Some people just over hype it. This music is 10 times better. believe me. If you want something like this...play Spriggan and Spriggan 2 on pc engine. both compile shooters.

[123doomdoom]

@sacrisesma How is the music bland and generic. Man, atleast give credit where it's due. Complie is no more, and they have left us with some sick ass soundtracks. It takes a genius to come up with the unique style they presented here. I dare you to find anything of this quality today. gimme a break man.

[sacrisesma]

I see at least one scene removed from this version. In the PAL version, the bath cutscene shows Astaros standing naked, with her hair covering her breasts, and the water level barely covering the crotch area.

[Ebb1993isgreat]

@temujin9000 Yeah... I wonder how he defeated Nobunaga to begin with, other than using Aleste? And whatever happened to that Sango-lookalike that Kage fought earlier?

[mbonnar]

Surprisingly one of the best intros in a video game ever.