Super Thunder Blade is a game that I expected to be a whole lot better than it actually was. I was actually quite surprised at how wonky the controls were. You had a really hard time dodging the enemy fire and making a move because timing it was near impossible due to all the lag and how slow the frame rate was. The whole game felt so buggy you’d think it came out in the 2020s. I like the concept of the game but I’m afraid that I have to review the actual title and not the concept. A true shame but that’s how it goes.

The game is short with only 4-5 levels in it. It’s a 3D title where you can move from side to side as you dodge enemy fire. The goal is to survive until the end of the level where you then have to take down a boss that appears. Typically the boss will have some obvious weak points to target but I should warn you that this isn’t always the case. So you just have to keep on blasting and you’ll win eventually. Your opponent will of course be shooting a lot of blasts at you during this fight as well so you can think of this like a classic bullet hell game.

I guess part of what hurts the experience here is just how limited the game is. You only have one kind of blaster, which is your default gun. There are no power ups or alternate guns of any kind. Then all of the enemies shoot the same kind of attacks at you. So the character model may change but not the attack itself which feels a bit limited. Or dare I say cheap? This plays more like an NES title than a Genesis one. So you’ve got a short game length and almost nothing to do within it. Just moving from side to side isn’t exactly the most thrilling gameplay after all. You just need a whole lot more than that here and the game doesn’t really end up satisfying you there.

The graphics aren’t all that good either. You can always tell what is going on which is nice but the colors and backgrounds are nothing particularly inspiring. I won’t say they’re terrible or anything but this game definitely needed a win somewhere and I can tell you that it is not coming from the graphics department. No sir, that’s definitely not going to be the case. The soundtrack is okay I guess. Not a whole lot of tunes to be found here but they do fit in with the gameplay which is the important part.

My only real gameplay tip is to be constantly moving from side to side. Odds are that you won’t be hit but you will be moving too fast to actively be dodging on your own. So you just have to hope that the game doesn’t catch on and often times this will work for a very long time. Likewise when it comes to dodging and going into caverns, try the same approach. The only time you may have to pause this technique is during boss fights where you have to target specific areas.

There is one boss where you can only damage him once his eye is open and the guy blinks like crazy. So you have to be moving while blasting and the whole fight tends to be pretty tedious. It’s just a nonstop game of momentum after all and you have to try and stay ahead of it at all times. If you stop to focus then you will make the fight a lot quicker but you also run a much higher chance of getting hit. So you have to decide to take the safe and guaranteed route that takes forever or the short bursts of glory with high risk. Either way it is not super fun since the gameplay itself can be rather dull.

With a name like Super Thunder Blade you are just counting on something with a whole lot more pop. I think that’s what had me confused the whole time. Shouldn’t I be able to shoot out electricity or maybe pop out some kind of an elemental blade? Now that would have absolutely been fitting and would have made the game more exciting. The first step of game design is to make something memorable that everyone wants to play. Unfortunately this is definitely not it. Super Thunder Blade will not last for very long in your memory as you complete it in under a day and place the game back on the shelf, never to be played again.

Overall, Super Thunder Blade is an okay game but it just feels like they put in the bare minimum level of effort. For a lot of games I can at least talk about how I think they are hanging in there and doing their best but not this time. The controls are just too slippery and half the time when you get shot you don’t feel like that is what should have happened. It’s a game I would have been unable to complete without the Switch Online and I don’t think it would have been close. I also wouldn’t really have much of an incentive to keep on playing either.

Overall 5/10