The four games are: one major classic (Raiden 1) and three minor but fun spin-offs (Raiden Fighters 1, 2, Jet), nice additions to a celebrated vertical shmup saga. That said, DotEmu emulation packages tend to be a mixed bag and this one is no exception: menus are mouse-only (c'mon!) and on my system (Core i7 3.4 GHz, nVidia GTX 1060, Win7) there are problems with sprite shadows and flickering transparency effects - to the point that when you're hit and lose a life, for a few crucial seconds you're not able to see your aircraft, after you respawn. And you seriously risk losing another life. This is particularly noticeable in Raiden Fighters 2, train chase level, that has scrolling issues too (framerate seems 30 or less, not 60 fps). But wait! (1) - if you search the forum messages, you'll see there could be one easy fix: by right-clicking-->properties and setting "raidenlegacy.exe" compatibility to "Windows 95" or "Windows 98", if you start the game directly from .exe (not from GOG Galaxy), the glitches are solved, transparencies seem to work as expected, framerate is ok. But wait! (2) - unluckily, this way the game will crash often and you'll enjoy it only in short bursts... I'll leave the fix nonetheless: maybe on your system it will work better than with mine.
Italian cinema contributed many genres and subgenres to the history of the silver screen, especially in the 60s and 70s: maybe you already knew about "spaghetti western" and "giallo". "Poliziottesco" is far less known outside Italy and was a peculiar mix of french noir, gangster movie and procedural police flick - a mix that you could not find anywhere else. Milanoir takes heavily from that source and does so with a lo-fi, visually interesting approach: cool bad guys (and gals), dark alleys, rats, jackets, scooters, shootouts on the roofs, everything oozes style. Gameplay-side, Hotline Miami and Not a Hero are the ones that come to mind first, but Milanoir is sufficingly different from both to stand on its own merit. Unfortunately, all this goodness is heavily sabotaged by the controls: with a joypad, the dual stick system will have you struggle to beat even the first boss; and no much better luck with mouse and keyboard. Difficulty in aiming where you want, input lag, overall clunkiness are the norm here... better customisation and the option to have simplified controls were probably the way to go. TL;DR: graphics, music and atmosphere are what really stands out here, but the control scheme damages this game far beyond the sum of its positive elements.
On the whole, this was a satisfying game and when it came out it had some 'wow' effect, too: in 1996 no one expected a nice Killer Instinct clone, and for DOS on top of that! Yes, it showed lack of polish here and there, and some errors were typical of a (almost) rookie dev team: I mean the extra cheesy and badly translated dialogues; the unnecessary, long and clunky CGI movies; the stiff blocking moves. But PD also put on the table a solid combo system, a roster of interesting characters and *very* (and I mean VERY) good visuals for the time, far superior to SNES version of Killer Instinct and just a little below Nintendo 64 port (KI Gold), which had polygonal backgrounds. Yes, CGI models were grainy at 320x200 resolution, and screen captures don't do them real justice, but it was common back then: have to see the game in motion to appreciate it. And all the rest -animations, details, light and water reflection effects, perspective scrolling floor- was surprisingly good. Difficulty was and is average, I would say: the last boss battle is easy, but Pain boss is extremely challenging. All in all, PD is probably not among the cream of the crop of PC fighting games, but I'd easily deem it worth of a good place between second and first-tier PC beat'em ups.
[Yes, a shame you cannot even correct typos once the review is published: GOG, let's edit them!] So, I take the chance offered by this Deluxe Edition Upgrade to correct typos in my former review and praise again this game. Do you like 2D hand drawn graphics? Do you like heavy metal music album covers, their aesthetics and their epic -and just a bit cheesy- take on Norse mythology and chivalric literature, mixed with modern dark fantasy? Do you mind a little humour in it? Have you just answered "no" to all questions? Well, you should try Slain all the same, because it is a challenging and rewarding game. Take "Castlevania: Simphony of the Night" beautiful graphics and pump it up to the max, then apply it to a mostly linear level structure. Better yet, for those who remember it, take Psygnosis' "Shadow ot the Beast" approach to platform/action adventure and "Oh my!" visuals: Slain is indeed a worthy successor. Difficult, at times very difficult, some passages requiring many tries and experimenting with your three different weapons/blades before finding the right approach; but, except for some very long areas and a multiboss without intermediate check points, Slain is usually quite balanced and not as infuriatingly difficult-for-the-sake-of-being-difficult-then-tell-users-it's-their-fault, as so many recent platformers tend to be (you know, the ones where developers and fans say "git gud" and try to simply get away with that phrase). Then again, the reward is high: you will want to overcome any difficulties just to see some more of that beautiful, multi-layered art, parallax-scrolling by before your astonished eyes. Notice I did not praise the metal music score: I enjoyed it for the first 30 seconds of every level, then it sadly becomes too repetitive and generic sounding. Let's be clear here: it is surely appropriate for the mood and for the whole Slain vibe, but none of the tracks really sticks to mind in the continually looping form that is offered during the game. When listened on purpose and in higher quality FLAC format, though, you can appreciate more nuances and some of the tracks gain back in personality.
Do you like 2D hand-drown graphics? Do you like heavy metal music album covers, their aestethics and their epic (and just a bit cheesy) take on Norse mythology? Do you mind a little humour? Did you just answer "no" to all questions? Well, you should try Slain all the same, because it is a challenging and rewarding game. Take "Castlevania: Simphony of the Night" beautiful graphics and pump it up to the max, then apply it to a mostly linear level structure. Better yet, for those who remember it, take Psygnosis' "Shadow ot the Beast" approach to platform/action adventure and "Oh my!" visuals: Slain is indeed a worthy successor. Difficult, at times very difficult, some passages requiring many tries and experimenting with different arms and techniques; but, except for some very long areas and a couple of multiboss ending without intermediate check points, Slain is usually quite balanced and not as infuriatingly difficult-for-the-sake-of-being-difficult-then-tell-users-it's-their-fault, as so many recent platformers tend to be (e.g. the ones where developers and fans say "git gud" and try to simply get away with it). Then again, the reward is high: you will want to overcome any difficulties just to see some more of that beautiful, multi-layered art, parallax-scrolling by before your astonished eyes. Notice I did not praise the metal music score: I enjoyed it for the first 30 seconds of every level, then it sadly becomes too repetitive and generic sounding. Let's be clear here: music surely appropriate for the settings and the whole Slain vibe, but none of the pieces really sticks to mind.
