Thanks to Bitwave Games for the review code
Title: Fixeight
System: Steam (PC)
Price: $7.99
Release Date: 02/01/2024
Story
In this overhead shooter, you take control of one of eight characters as they set out to defeat an evil army of alien forces! Oddly enough, this game did have an intro made, but it was dummied out before releasing to Arcades, and this Bitwave port doesn’t add an option to re-enable it. The game still has an ending for each character, though.
Presentation
The usual Bitwave features apply here per usual; filters, screen size, TATE Mode, the usual works, and they work as well at making the game sharp as you’d expect. The game itself looks rather solid, with a colorful cast of characters and a few memorable enemies to encounter over time, though outside of the first stage I couldn’t particularly remember any of the setpieces all that well, even after looping the game. It really just feels like they wanted to copy Capcom’s MERCS as much as possible and just took visual inspiration from that game, but added some cybernetic stuff here. At least the characters are distinct and even have their own voice clips!
Unfortunately, of the Volume 3 wave, Fixeight easily has the worst audio emulation of the batch, though it wasn’t immediately apparent to me as this port was my very first time playing the game. Still, even I had a tiny suspicion that something was off, since while I was enjoying the game and the pickup and shot sounds appeared like your typical ones for the time, the way enemies exploded here sounded way, way too muted compared to what the animation would make you believe. That and the dull music seemed like it lacked energy, and eventually when a later stage song drove me insane I had to dig up a video of a PCB just to make sure I wasn’t crazy.
Well, my suspicions were right, as the booming sound effects I expected were indeed there in the actual Arcade PCB, and even various forms of MAME; just not this Bitwave port for some baffling reason. The dramatic, loud bang the first wave of enemies make when you destroy them is just a muffled mess here, and I am amazed at how such a major sound flaw was left as-is here. It gets worse too, since while this OST is different from the Toaplan norm and will take getting used to even in normal form, all the percussion sounds for the music are off in this Bitwave port, leading to the first stage theme having very weak instruments compared to how it sounds on a PCB.
While Batsugun was a bit off with percussion in its OST, at least the songs there still sounded like what you’d remember! Here in Fixeight, most of the songs just sound way, way worse once you compare with a PCB, and just ends up making the whole sound design come off as a bunch of generic noise in this port, somehow making a more relaxed Toaplan soundtrack even worse to listen to.
Gameplay
Fixeight is a co-op overhead shooter, not unlike Outzone! Unlike that game however, you have multiple characters to choose from, each with their own set of attacks. Like with Outzone, stages will have tiles that give you the option to switch between weapon styles, taking you from an eight way shot to a forward-facing one, which can lead to some tricky situations if you end up needing to fire in a direction that isn’t forward and get stuck with that.
Still, the various characters each offer their own weapon, leading to all of them feeling very distinct to play as. I eventually found comfort with the Ninja character, who reminded me a lot of SNK’s Ninja Commando game with his playstyle, since he throws shuriken in all eight directions normally, or uses a powerful nunchuk when using the forward weapon, which decimates bulkier foes when powered up.
Each stage offers a variety of powerups and items to collect, and lots of opportunities to blow stuff up as you make your way to the end boss. These are your typical fights, though every now and then you get on this cool hoverbike that briefly turns the fight into a mini shmup, which combines nicely when considering the bombs each character has to deploy, per the norm for a Toaplan game by now. While I found the shmup bosses OK, I never really liked any of the bosses in general outside of one that did a cool gimmick with the floor tiles shuffling around.
Speaking of shuffling around, the later stages of the game can get outright annoying, to the point in which I felt trying to 1CC and memorize the game just becomes utterly absurd after a while. Enemies will bombard you as you’re also dealing with other hazards such as moving platforms, instant death pits, and fast moving vehicles, leading to several times when I was dodging enemies and bullets just fine, but oops, the camera scrolling got a bit wonky and I could barely see ahead of me and fell into a pit. Very annoying.
Not that unfair by any means and the game is still pretty simple to credit feed if you and up to two friends wish to do so, (as this game offers 3 player local co-op, also like MERCS!) but as a scorechaser who likes these releases for the leaderboard aspects, this game definitely wasn’t nearly as fun to play or scorechase as Outzone was. Still a solid game that needed a rerelease, but with the aforementioned music issues, it really does hurt a lot more to play here, especially when the core game isn’t as strong.
Conclusion
In conclusion, while I had an OK time with Fixeight, I didn’t enjoy it nearly as much as Outzone, which felt like a way better execution of the overhead shooter idea. The multiple characters are a fun idea, and if you end up maining one you’ll be able to go a long, long way with them, but several of them just feel outright useless to play, with some being way stronger than others. The stages start off decently enough, but quickly become tedious, long treks through dull levels that just made me want to give up trying to practice any sort of 1CC around the halfway point, and not even the bosses stand out all that much.
But then the usual frustrations I had with these Bitwave ports return, and this game irks me more than most of the prior ones in that regard. This could have been a great port of a hidden gem brought back with a stellar coat of paint, but the music is just outright awful, and the sound effect emulation continues to be terrible. I was hoping the pre launch patch would fix most of it like it did for the other games, but alas, as of this review a lot of Fixeight just sounds off. There’s also the weird menu bug with the game region, making it trickier than it should be to play the JP ROM, and no matter how much I tried, my local high scores wouldn’t save at all.
All in all, a very sloppy port of a rocky late-era Toaplan game. If you enjoyed Outzone, this is still one worth checking out especially if you can pull off the 3P Co-Op, but don’t expect anything nearly as polished as that wonderful gem, especially with the sound in such miserable shape.
I give Fixeight a 4 out of 10.