Format: Sega CD
Genre: Shooter
Developer: Game Arts Co., Ltd.
Publisher: Sega

This reviewer is no spring chicken and has been around for decades-- but was totally fooled by this game not once, but twice. First: "How is the Sega CD pushing better polygons than the 32X?" Joke's up: the intro and backgrounds are pre-rendered, but with some kind of compression so clean that it literally leaves zero artifacts. The effect defies belief: better than Sega "Model 1" arcade graphics, for all intents and purposes. What a showcase!

The 1986 PC-88 original was one of those earliest of games which sold copies exclusively for access to the music, so the bar was high-- and met, which leads to the second time this reviewer was fooled: the music in this game is not RedBook-- it's 100% generated by the pairing of the venerable YM2612 with the Sega CD's rockin' new Ricoh RF5C164. And what a pairing! Fast, melodic, and mood setting, with percussion bordering on the "drum and bass" side of the spectrum. Sound effects are minimalistic, but there are some nice voice elements woven into the gameplay.

As what amounts to a remake of a mid-80s release, Silpheed doesn't have any sophisticated power up system, branching stages, or any other such madness: what it does have are rain showers of bullets over backgrounds full of exploding dropships. The game is maybe too difficult for its own good, as clearing even the fourth stage is a real accomplishment: several hits can be taken, but it's one life and five continues, only. There are a few selectable weapons, but the default one seems to be the only which is useful.

Watching the player's ship fly over the perfect, constantly-morphing, mind-bendingly high resolution polygonal space station structures in the fourth stage makes one question what compression algorithm the programmers used, and whether more games should have opted for an approach like this. The audio department lives up to the standard, blasting fast and technical chip music like no tomorrow. It's too bad the game doesn't have a lowered difficulty, as the later stages are inaccessible to all but the hardest of the hardcore schmup players.