Showing my age a bit here, but during my years as a video game writer, I can proudly confirm that I have now reviewed Under Defeat in three different decades. That is a statement I am perfectly happy about, mind. As G.Rev’s helicopter classic is still as great now as it was back when I first played it on the SEGA Dreamcast.
Arriving at an exciting time for the genre, Under Defeat was created during a hot streak for the team that had already changed the landscape of the Dreamcast scene by sending collectors worldwide loopy with the brilliant Border Down.
Moving away from the sci-fi themes of other shmups, Under Defeat is a gritty, almost steampunk affair that sees anime styled characters mingling with desolate war-torn landscapes and themes that could be ripped out of World War II. It also features a superb shooting mechanic quite unlike any other shooter you will have played. Whilst still a top down shooter, your angle of view is slightly tilted, and you are able to shoot at both airborne enemies as well as tanks, boats, buildings, gun emplacements and other ground-based foes.
You can move your craft the standard eight directions, and fire vertically, however, there is a twist: you can rotate to the left or right slightly, meaning that you can fire in three directions, forward, and left and right diagonal. In the classic arcade version, which is present here, the way your copter aims changes when you move left or right, and holding down the main shoot button will fix your fire in whichever direction you happen to be facing, allowing you to essentially strafe. Your cannons aim in the direction you move horizontally, but you have an option to reverse the polarity of fire at the start of each playthrough.
There are the standard shmup trope of smart bombs which you get three of, but Under Defeat also has the canny Option mechanic. The Option unit is a powerful beast, but comes at a slight cost. Refraining from shooting your main weapon charges it, and it will then be unleashed the next time you fire, with three flavours on offer: Vulcan, Rocket, and Cannon, with the type altered by collecting floating power up icons left behind after destroying enemies. Each type of Option has a different effect and takes differing amounts of charge to unleash. Vulcan is essentially a high-powered volley of machine gun fire that can cut through smaller enemies like a knife through butter, whereas the rocket is more explosive and has a wider destructive range.
This Switch package purports to be the best version of Under Defeat imaginable and it features all of the cool stuff from the 2011 Under Defeat HD release, all of the previously DLC additional helicopter types to choose from, as well as beautifully redrawn graphics and some stunning remixed soundtracks. Switch being Switch, you also have instant handheld access to TATE mode without having to do gymnastics with your telly. You can play in the original arcade mode as nature intended, take on the 16:9 “New Order” mode that was established in the HD version, or the “New Order Plus” which remixes the placement of enemies and jiggles some of the stages. Like the earlier release you can also play with the second analogue stick controlling your shooting – a la Robotron.
Under Defeat is a superb game, which quite rightly earned plaudits upon release and still feels like an essential part of anyone’s shoot ‘em up library, and this is the best way to play it unless you are the owner of a NAOMI cabinet. They don’t make ‘em like this any more, and I tip my hat to reverential Swedes Clear River Games for resurrecting it and bringing it to a wider audience. It will likely polarise modern gamers unfamiliar with teak-tough shooty stuff, but for old heads like me this is nectar from the gods. It can be finished in less than thirty minutes, but you will want to play it over and over again to best your scores or achieve that elusive one-CC run.
