Super Hydorah review for PS Vita, PS4, Xbox One

There’s not sense beating around the bush or using too many extra words here: Super Hydorah is a ultra-hard, retro-looking shmup.

Like, that’s almost literally all there is to say about it. There’s not much story. The controls are exactly what you’d expect out of a shmup: your ship flies left to right across the screen as you fire various weapons at enemies and space debris. The graphics come straight out of the late-’80s/early-’90s, as does the music. If you’ve ever played a shmup — if you’ve ever seen a shmup — you’ll have a good idea of what to expect here.

Just about the only “twist” (for lack of a better word) is that Super Hydorah is incredibly difficult. Enemies can kill you with a single hit, and they’re relentless in coming after you. It’s one of those backward-looking games that believes the lesson to draw from previous generations is that they should be as painfully tough as possible, and that you can only have a good time if you’re dying constantly.

In other words, Super Hydorah isn’t really for me, since dying over and over again has never been my cup of tea. But it is for some people. So if you’re one of those people, and you’re into shmups, good news: here’s your new favourite game.

Abylight provided us with a Super Hydorah PS Vita code for review purposes.