Over Horizon

Has anybody here played the NES/Famicom game "Over Horizon"?

If yes, how do you like it?

And what would you say about the difficulty? Is it Nintendo hard? Or just average difficulty?

What would you say is the better game: "Over Horizon" or "Gradius"?

I'm also wondering: From which game does "Over Horizon" take more inspiration: "Gradius" or "R-Type"?

I really liked Over Horizon; the music is fantastic.

Overall, I'd say it's below-average difficulty. Quite easy until the later / last level. Deaths are often due to unanticipated enemies, which can be memorized and overcome, so that makes it much more like R-Type. Would other people agree?

I like the original Gradius, but the "Gradius" formula has been done much better in Lifeforce, Gradius III, etc. So I'd rather play Over Horizon than Gradius given the choice.

I played it but don't have much memories. I probably didn't go very far into the game, perhaps I even couldn't manage to beat the 1st level. It's definitely extremely similar to Gradius. If you like this kind of game you'll like both. Personally for some reason I like the original Gradius a bit more but overall I'm not fan of the genre as it's too hard for me.

What would you say regarding the whole atmosphere and the gameplay feel?

The ship looks closer to the one in "R-Type".
And "Over Horizon" has interesting bosses, also like in "R-Type" while "Gradius" always has the same boring spaceship that you don't even have to defeat because it destroys itself after a while.
But I'm not quite sure as far as the levels themselves are concerned.


By the way: In "Over Horizon", you have five different speeds that you can change by pressing Select. By default, the ship is set to speed 3 of 5, i.e. the middle.
Did you encounter any situation where changing the speed was necessary/usefule? What I'm especially curious about: What's the purpose of making your ship slower (speed 1 or 2)?

Precision dodging?

The press select to change speed method was very popular in the 80s, especially on PCE shooters. Even Recca does it (and on some bosses it's quite beneficial to lower the speed)
But it's very unintuitive to use, and most people will just find a preferred speed and stick with it.

I always loved the typical Cave way of doing it, where you ship automatically moves a little slower while you're holding the autofire button, but will move at full speed as long as you are tapping fire. Makes it much easier to quickly change speed on the fly as you need it when switching between long swoops and precision dodging, or slow herding.

But won't this prevent you from fast evasion of enemy fire?

I mean, is there an actual place in the game where the slowest speed actually comes in handy? Some narrow tunnels or the like?

For the fastest speed, I found at least one situation: There are waterfalls where you cannot properly control the ship with normal speed because the water pulls you down, but you can work against it by using the highest speed.

But this is just standard speed (3) vs. highest speed (5). I'm still not sure if there are situations where the other speed values (1, 2, 4) are consciously supposed to be used.

I haven't actually played Over Horizon, but considering most bullets are tiny objects, I'd say "fast evasion" is never necessary when you only have to move a few pixels down at worst.

If moving slower helps you avoid one bullet without accidentally running into another one (weaving in between them), it's an advantage.
Due to the awkward method for changing speeds though (pressing select), you'd probably have to know the stages in advance to know which speed is an advantage where.

I used to play it a few years ago on a bootleg cartridge that has a 30 lives cheat code, that makes things a hell of a lot easier.
Also... the PAL version of this game seems to have major issues with the music.

I find this tactic is a lot more important and viable in later, particularly danmaku shooters, where it's essential to stay in almost one spot, bob and weave with the incoming waves of bullets.

With older SHMUPS, the hitbox usually covers every single part of your ship and weaving between bullets is often impossible or unnecessarily difficult.

Basically, I feel earlier SHMUPs favor larger movements than later offerings.

I haven't played this one yet but you may be able to "Mega Man" it by pressing start and then changing speed.