Customer Reviews

PLAYSTATION 2 MOBILE LIGHT FORCE 2

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Sadly, most people have no idea that this is part of a beloved shoot 'em up franchise due to the poor artwork that accompanied its North American release. Despite its Charlie Angels lookalike cover, this game doesn't even feature any of the characters on the game's North American artwork. This is Castle Shikigami, a 2D vertical-scrolling shoot 'em up.

Positives:
- Good bullet patterns
- Solid frame-rate
- Decent soundtrack
- Nice environments

Negatives:
- No TATE mode
- No story

While it was slightly altered during its localization, this is still Castle Shikigami.

Let's resolve something right from the getgo; this game is actually "Gunbird". Some people may have heard of it via its sequel, Gunbird 2, which saw some life over in the US via the Dreamcast. While Mobile Light Force is certainly worth the few bucks it usually commands and is a competent shooter there are a few things I must get across since it's vital to the game itself.

First of all the game and manual are poorly translated. You can't really expect much more for its original $9.99 MSRP but, honestly, SHMUPs do not typically contain that much text and to make mistakes like these speaks volumes about XM Games themselves. More important than that, however, is that it seems like there are major cuts in the game itself. It feels as if there should be story segments for each character between each stage but they are non-existant here.

Overall, this is more or less a barebones release but that shouldn't necessarily stop people from buying it. If you find it for cheap it does tend to be a competent shooter that's worth about $4 or so. If you're a huge fan of the SHMUP genre, however, you are much better off finding the original game and importing it instead.