 If you put a gun to my head, I'd say Konami was the best third-party developer for the Super Nintendo. The huge variety of games ranging from Turtles in Time, Super Castlevania 4, Contra 3, Cyber Mater, Legend of the Missile Ninja, Gradius III, the Perotius games, and on and on, and Axelay, one of the five best shoot-em-ups on the Super Nintendo or Super Famicom. This is a game made for people who love shoot-em-ups by people who love shoot-em-ups. They were careful to nail down the even and balanced speed between your ship, enemies and projectiles, and give them all consistent and adequate spacing while keeping the game paced really well. Here's an example of what I mean. Check out another Super Nintendo shoot-em-up, Blazion. There's just nothing going on here. This game is going to put me to sleep. Or look at Super Nova, the sequel to Darius Twin. You move way too slow compared to how fast everything else is, so you have no time to react. What fun is that? Axelay gets the action right. Everything here is consistent in speed and pacing. You get three weapons to switch between, and if you take a hit from an enemy projectile, that weapon is disabled, so you can get hit three times. But if you collide with another ship, or an object, or whatever, you explode on impact. I really like the middle weapon here. It acts as a throttle, hold the button down, and it shoots forward, let go, and it circles back. What I really like about Axelay though is that Konami wasn't satisfied just nailing down the nuts and bolts of the gameplay, and so hey, it's time to add some bells and whistles, and by that I mean the graphics in this game, holy shit. Axelay is arguably the best looking shoot-em-up on the Super Nintendo. The backgrounds look tremendous, and the bosses are all memorable. This guy looks like something out of Contra 3, and this guy, wow. Its description in the instruction book simply says, it was designed to intimidate to the point that you freeze up from fear. That is awesome. One subtle touch on the first level alone is how the background is kind of tilted, so it looks like you're racing toward the horizon. The enemies even get bigger as they get closer to you, now that's freaking cool. And you know what's even better? There's no slowdown in Axelay whatsoever. What Axelay is most known for is probably the fact that it flips between vertical and horizontal scrolling. This I think has its pros and cons. The good aspect obviously is that it gives the game some variety. You get the best of both worlds when it comes to shoot-em-ups, and this game impressively manages to keep the speed and pacing consistent on both modes. There's kind of a negative aspect too, and just hear me out on this. When I play a shoot-em-up, if I want to advance far in the game, I have to get into a zone. I have to unfocus my eyes and really just lose myself in the game. I know that sounds tacky, like some kind of new age crap or something, but it's true. From vertical to horizontal, or vice versa, I have to refocus. It's like starting all over again, instead of staying in that zone. That's kind of a bummer. But again, I don't expect that to be a thing for everyone. One aspect of Axelay I don't think gets played up enough is the story structure. When you get to stage 6, the music from the beginning intro begins to play, and you fight the same ginormous ships that you saw destroy your home planet. Yeah, it's not Shakespeare, but I just thought that was a really cool touch. It's a neat feeling when you hear that music, like, hey, I recognize this. It's a well done sequence without having to resort to ham-fisted dialogue, or cutscenes. And of course I also have to talk about the music. Konami again nails it, just like it did with nearly every game they made for Super Nintendo, and Sega Genesis for that matter. Most tracks are memorable to the point that you might find yourself wanting to play the game just to hear that music again. Anyway, I've long heard people lament that the Super Nintendo has no good shoot-em-ups compared to the Turbografx 16 and the Sega Genesis. Don't listen to those people. Yeah, those systems have incredible games like Thunder Force and the Star Soldier series, but Super Nintendo has some great ones in their own right, like Space Megaforce, Macro Scramble Balkyrie, and X-Lay, particularly the latter. Check this one out.