Game of the Day 3/5/2016: Imperium

[celerystalker]

Imperium for the SNES is one of those game I've had for what feels like forever, and my initial impressions of it were pretty bland. In the '90s, it felt to me like just another shooter, as you could get shooters for next to nothing back them. They were everywhere, and they had to try something really different to stand out. In the years that have passed and the classic, non-bullet hell shooter slowly faded, games that once were a dime a dozen suddenly found room to breathe, and exploring them for their smaller differences has caused a few to rise to higher esteem.

Imperium for SNES is one such game that has a few wrinkles that can be delved into that show it to be a little bit different. It's a verically scrolling shooter with a giant robot anime flavor, with visuals that look a bit like a cheaper take on MUSHA, Spriggan, or Robo Aleste. Your robot fires a basic projectile not unlike the shuriken waves from those games, use similar sprite porportions, and use a bright color palette with black outlines to show the anime influence. The animation and effects aren't as spectacular as in any of those similar games, but the powerup system is quite different for the time, as is the weapon system.

You don't score points in Imperium, which truly is an anomaly for the early '90s. You do gain experience from each downed enemy, and you have a counter showing how much for the next level. Leveling up grants you a new weapon for each of your first three levels, and you can change on the fly. After that, each level ups the power of the weapons, cycling through in the same order. The weapons are quite varied and situationally useful, but getting hit will downgrade your active weapon by a level, and you'll have to power them again. You have a life bar for only one life, and if you lose that life, you can continue from the beginning of the current stage starting with all four weapons powered to level 1.

The game is difficult but not unfair, and feels from both challenge and gameplay standpoints like a middleground between MUSHA and Image Fight. The graphics are solid but unspectacular, and there are lots of minibosses leading to the final boss of each stage. The music... it's mediocre, using some of the worse SNES sounds to compose music that feels... I dunno... dated. Still, it controls well, has a cool opening sequence, and suffers almost no slowdown.

Imperium's weapon system is a neat wrinkle for shooters that was implemented well before the likes of Radiant Silvergun were praised for similar mechanics, and presents a unique approach to make it worth a go. It may not be quite as polished as Space Megaforce or Pop'n Twinbee, but as vertical shooters go on the system, it stands up pretty well, playing far better than its version of Raiden or D-Force. If you want a break from bullet hell games and have already played the crap out of the big boys on Genesis and Turbografx, Imperium does just enough different for me to challenge it now and again.

Played it?

[sancoa]

Imperium is a solid game, your review covers the game well (although I don't think the music is that bad). The emphasis on the weapon system definitely gives the game a different feel from the typical shooters of the time.
I just took a look at the prices for the game on eBay and I have to say that I was shocked at what I saw. Back in the day you could pick this game up for a few dollars. If you see the game for a decent price locally I would pick it up but I don't know about those eBay prices.

[celerystalker]

Crap. I hadn't priced this one out. I usually like to keep these posts to stuff that's inexpensive but fun to play... I dropped the ball on this one from that standpoint.

[Steven]

It's been 10 years since I played it. Need to fire it up again. I thought from my limited play time though that it was only ok. The game has shot up in value like crazy in recent times.

[sancoa]

As it says in the review at first it does seem like just another shooter. The experience system makes you try to shoot every enemy you possibly can though, since that is how you level up your weapons. While there is no scoring system I guess you can look at your overall experience as your score.

Ultimately there are better games but if you are a fan of 16 bit shmups this is something to look out for.

[Dire 51]

Not sure how much the Super Famicom version, Kidou Soukou Dion, is going for these days, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's a bit cheaper than the SNES version.