Retro Weekends plays and reviews Thunder Force IV for the Mega Drive. All gameplay footage taken from real hardware.
What we thought
The graphics, the music, the gameplay, all incredible. Thunder Force IV Is just an incredible game and is definitely one of the best shoot-em-ups of all time, It's just that good. The attention to detail is huge, with you even able to set your engine speed to the literal percent, and managing to get through those boss fights gives you a massive sense of accomplishment, those boss fights aren't easy. Its an exciting game, a good game to play and its a five star game all round.
5/5
I think this is an impressive game, and technically its very impressive, being packed with huge bosses and line scrolling effects that create piles of parallax and cool lava effects and such. In respects to the gameplay the power-up system works well and adds a lot of tactics to the game, and the vertically scrolling screen even brings some exploration aspects to the experience. With this game there's always a lot of stuff going on and the set pieces are very memorable, the way that the music and action are timed with each other in many segments also lends a bit more of a cinematic feel than was common at the time. Personally I think this is one of the best shumps of that whole generation and possibly the best on the Mega Drive, its everything you want from a shooter.
