Game of the Day - Samurai Aces

As you plow through great, latter-day vertical shooters, it can become a little hard to distinguish between them.  Samurai Aces (aka Sengoku Ace) which was the first effort from the great developer Psikyo, is known to me as the shmup with great graphics and baby heads.

No, apparently they aren't really baby heads, they are bald samurai heads - but they sure look like big, fat baby heads to me.

And despite that, the graphics are very enjoyable and thoroughly entertaining.  There are japanese villages, giant robots, buddhas, giant Speed Racer looking dudes and lots of cool stuff to go around.  The bombs you deploy are very cool, too.  Some are flowers, mechanical dudes, japanese symbols and other interesting stuff.

Speaking of bombs, you have two buttons to use along with the joystick in Samurai Aces.  They are fire and bomb - but you also have a charged shot if you hold the fire button down.

To begin the game you choose from six cool and interesting characters.  Each has a unique set of weapons (shot, charged shot and bomb) and each one's power-ups are tailored to their weapons.  Unlike some other games, power-ups only last for a preset amount of time and have to be re-upped when the next power-up comes along.

Samurai Aces' controls are very smooth and very responsive.  The controls, along with the fun look of the enemies and weaponry are what make Samurai Aces a cut above many other similar games of the time.  Yes, it's just another great vert shooter, but hey, it's another great vert shooter.