PEG's video: Sengoku Ace Samurai Aces Arcade - 2-ALL Clear 1 539 300 Pts

Full run through both loops of Sengoku Ace (戦国エース), aka Samurai Aces, developed by Psikyo. Stage List: 00:00 - Stage 1 01:23 - Stage 2 02:58 - Stage 3 04:07 - Stage 4 05:24 - Stage 5 07:19 - Stage 6 08:54 - Stage 7 10:46 - Ending 11:08 - Loop 2 Start / Stage 2-1 12:32 - Stage 2-2 14:17 - Stage 2-3 15:24 - Stage 2-4 16:44 - Stage 2-5 18:48 - Stage 2-6 20:14 - Stage 2-7 Sengoku Ace is the first shmup developed by Psikyo, which was formed from employees who previously worked at Video Systems on games like Sonic Wings. And yes, this is basically Sonic Wings with Samurais. The one big change from Sonic Wings is that you now have a charge shot, which admittedly doesn't see a ton of use because of the enormous amount of time it takes to power up. The game also retains the annoying power down of your shot if you haven't collected a powerup recently. So you are forced to kind of manage the timing of picking them up such that you don't lose power. (Edit: if you refrain from shooting, the powerup will last longer, think of it as having a certain amount of ammo.) Making this even worse is most of the characters are slow moving and the powerups bounce around randomly, so they can be hard to collect at times. I was glad to see this go away in future games. Sengoku Ace does have 2 loops like most of the Psikyo games and while the difficulty is increased in the second loop, it's not overwhelming. Since I have a lot of history playing the Strikers series before, it seemed very mild in comparison to those games. In closing Sengoku Ace is fairly rough around the edges but despite it's flaws the Psikyo formula shines through and the game is still quite fun. Oh and the theme, graphics and music are excellent, perhaps some of the best they have ever done.