Over the course of the past few years I've made it my mission to play as many bullet hell style shooters as possible. If you're into this type of game, one company that will frequently rear its head in the quest for shooter heaven is Japanese developer Raizing/Eighting. Another of the big producers of scrolling shooters to be spawned from the now-defunct Toaplan (along with the likes of Takumi, Gazelle and the almighty Cave) Raizing/Eighting have developed a number of highly-regarded titles among genre aficionados over the course of their existence. One such title is 1998's Armed Police Batrider.
Stylistically, Armed Police Batrider recalls many great '80s and '90s futuristic police styled anime, with players tearing through high-tech dystopian cityscapes (in the amusingly named 'Violent City') on hover bikes, blasting the ever-loving crap out of everything on the streets and in the skies. There's a plot buried in there somewhere, but when you're playing a game in which the sole purpose is to fill the screen with as many bullets as possible, frankly, who cares.
While on the surface the game appears not too different to the usual bullet hell fare, Armed Police Batrider actually brings a few new ideas to the table. Most immediately noticeable are the sheer number of options you're given when staring a new game. APB features four different modes or 'courses' tailored to suit players of varying abilities. The cut-down 'Training course' gives novice players three stages of action, while the 'Normal' and 'Advanced' courses knock the total up to five and seven stages respectively. The game also offers a 'Special course' which consists of a hardcore Advanced mode boss rush. All of these courses are available straight off the bat, without any conditions needing to be fulfilled or PCB dipswitches being set (unless you're playing the Japanese version of the game).
The other interesting addition in Armed Police Batrider is the character system. Unlike most shooters where the player is given a choice from maybe three or four characters/ships, APB contains a grand total of eighteen different characters (nine standard and nine secret), each with different shot patterns and bomb moves. The nine standard characters are divided up into three teams: the Police, the Psychics and the Criminals, and the standard 'Team Select' game mode enables you to select one of these teams to play as, with one life per character. The game also offers 'Team Edit', 'Random Edit' and 'Player Select' modes, the first of which enables the player to choose three members for a custom team, the second randomizing a team of three, and the last enabling a more standard "choose one character" style of play with three lives. The nine secret characters are taken from Raizing/Eighting's Battle Garegga and Mahou Daisakusen series, and when these are all taken into account along with the different power-up modes available, Armed Police Batrider has a massive 59,640 possible team combinations available – in other words, a shitton of replay value. I should also just briefly mention that fact that the music in this game is awesome, and with song titles like "Let Ass Kick Together!" how could you possibly go wrong?
As good as Armed Police Batrider is, it's still a game with its own share of problems that prevent it reaching the level of true greatness. First and foremost as far as I'm concerned is the way the game controls, which I can only describe as "slidey". The sensitivity of the control stick is just slightly too high, and while on the one hand this adds as element of precision, it also tends to mean you'll find yourself moving more than you intended and ending up with a face full of bullets. Repeated play alleviates the problem somewhat as you become used to the way the game handles, but at first it can be extremely frustrating.
The second problem is a graphical one. As someone who's used to predominantly playing Cave's shooters with nice bright neon enemy fire, one of the most annoying aspects of Armed Police Batrider is the subdued colour palette that's been used for the bullets. To put it bluntly: they're really fucking hard to see at times. Couple this with the overly sensitive controls and you've got a recipe for frequent disaster as you over-steer into a hail of bullets you didn't even know were there.
It's several steps short of 2D shooter nirvana, but even with its problems, the unique character and gameplay elements really raise Armed Police Batrider above your average bullet hell shooter and make it a game definitely worth your time.
