A port of the original Neo-Geo game, Viewpoint is a freakishly hard 3D polygonal shmup ( shoot-em-up ).
STORY
As with basically all shoot-em-up games, this game has almost zero story line. You control a mini ship called a Byupo Fighter through an unknown planet and well....basically just blow the hell out of anything that comes in sight.
GAMEPLAY
Since this is a shoot-em-up, your main goal is to get through each stage while destroying and dodging an onslaught of enemy fighters and encounter a huge boss at the end of each stage. Unlike other shmups that have you navigating through a vertical or horizontal point of view, in here you have to navigate your Byupo Fighter through a isometric point of view which contributes to one of the game's many reasons why it has a high level of difficulty. The reason is this, as the enemy comes at you with tons of bullets to dodge you'll have a hard time telling if the bullets are going above or below your ship, which results in almost 90% of your Byupo Fighter being destroyed. Another reason for it's high difficulty level is the constant slowdown whenever the screen is filled with lots of objects. Now to help you get through this game in one piece, you have and can obtain a couple of items scattered throughout the game which are a standard in all shmups. You can charge up all your energy into one powerful blast called a Power Wave, you can get extra fire power by getting an Option Item ( odd name ), a barrier to protect you and of course you can obtain bombs with different abilities.
GRAPHICS
For it's time the game looked really nice with it's 3D polygon graphics.
MUSIC/SOUND
The music in the game fits really well with it's mix between a techno and funky disco sound ( funky disco, lol ). Probably the funniest music comes when your fighting a boss, a guy that sounds like James Brown keeps shouting stuff like ''whoooooaa!!'' and ''baby!!'', it just sounds hilarious! The sounds are pretty basic, nothing special.
REPLAY VALUE
Once you finally beat this game ( took me 6 years! O_o ), I don't think you wanna touch it again because of it's frustrating difficulty.
OTHER PORTS of VIEWPOINT:
-Arcade
-Neo-Geo
-Neo-Geo CD
-Sega Genesis ( the version I'm reviewing of course )
-Sony Playstation
OVERALL-6
It is quite a challenge beating this game, most people will probably be turned off by it's difficulty ( I know I did ). If you study the patterns of the enemy moments and such then you might have a chance of beating it.
Overall Rating: 6/10