Golden Hornet- A Review From A Nobody | An Awesome Retro Throwback |

For Hijong Park's Steam page go here: https://store.steampowered.com/developer/HijongPark

For Hijong Park's Youtube channel go here: https://www.youtube.com/@UCJlvIALRa1SaZu4UJjREyvQ

I was playing Golden Hornet last night, and this game is just fun. I can't beat level 4-2, I just keep dying, so in all openness, I haven't beaten the game, because I am terrible at old arcade games. One day I was on Steam, I had some money left in my Steam wallet, and was jonesing for some good old Robotron 2084 twin stick action. After typing Roborton into the Steam search bar, I was incredibly disappointed to see that, alas, there still isn't a Robotron port on Steam. However, another game Piqued
my interest. It was game called Frantic Dimension that was a combination of Berserk, with Robotron 2084 twin stick controls for movement, and shooting.

The Steam page gives you the option to download the demo version, basically the full game, for free, or drop 99 cents to buy the game. I paid my 99 cents, and was just blown away by Frantic Dimension. I was and am still awful at the game, but what really struck me about the game is, I could tell the designer had a passion for 80's arcade games. There are a ton of retro throwbacks that get so caught up on making a game that has the retro aesthetics, they forget to design an actual retro game. It's more like they design a modern game with retro graphics, or they sometimes just feel, to me, soulless in their designs. You can make, say, a retro platformer that looks like an N64 game or a Snes side scroller, and still completely mess up the gameplay feel and the nuanced level designs that made the games they are imitating so good. Frantic Demension not only has the aesthetics down, but from a gameplay and design aspect, this game can easily pass for a game that hit the arcades in 1984.

Hijong Park, sorry if I slaughtered that, appears to be a solo game developer behind games both Frantic Dimension and Golden Hornet, is a person who you can tell not only has a deep passion for retro twin stick shooters and arcade games in general, also nailed the game play and design aspects that made those games so good, while even improving upon the formula and creating games that could easily pass for authentic 80's arcade games.

Not all of his games are twin stick shooters, for example Pentasma which is blatantly Defender, but all three of them I have played so far are excellent. Golden Hornet combines a game like Choplifter, but adds Robotron esc twin stick shooter controls for a combination the just works amazingly. This game is so fun. The combo just works so well.

Golden Hornet offers the simple arcade mode where the challenge is to rescue the required amount of hostages while fighting off the enemy hordes. The number of hostages you have to rescue in each level increases per level, as do the amount of enemies that swarm you making for some truly hectic fun. The arcade mode is a blast. I can't get very far into it, but I have fun every time I try.

The campaign mode is the level-based mode, where players are challenge with completing specific objectives in each level. It starts out simple with missions where your only goal is to rescue a set amount of hostages, but quickly adds new objectives like rescue a set amount of hostages, and destroy a specific set of enemies on screen. The levels get more complicated as you progress, and quickly become mazes the require careful maneuvering, avoiding obstacles like Laser beams, and fireballs that shoot out of the lava while trying to rescue hostages, taking a helicopter load back to the landing pad, similar to choplifter. The levels and mazes are filled with tons of enemies, each with their own strategy to dispatch.

Along the way, along side your normal machine guns, you pick up various special weapons like missiles, and ground clearing bombs to help you fight the hordes of baddies that swarm you. When you turn the Hornet to face the ground, and pull the trigger buttons on the Xbox One controller I was using, the hornet will drop the bombs on ground enemies, when turned facing left or right, the Hornet will shoot two types of missiles depending of which trigger you pull.
I couldn't get my PS4 controller to work on the game, but it does support the Xbox One controller well. When playing on a Keyboard, it's WASD to move, an the arrow keys for directional shooting. I prefer the controller for this game, personally, but the keyboard option is there if you want it.

#goldenhornet #choplifter #retroarcadegames