Review Changeable Guardian Estique Review (NES)

Regular readers will know we covered Changeable Guardian Estique last year and in May, and we were very excited for its release. We've actually had a review ROM since September, but we wanted to play an additional 19 games alongside – on real hardware – to fully appreciate what it achieves.

This is important because, post-obsolescence, NES development has often been lacklustre. Some examples are interesting, but rarely do they compare to Konami's Crisis Force or Sunsoft's Batman: Return of the Joker in terms of pushing the machine's capabilities (Former Dawn being an exception).

Estique's level of polish, in contrast, matches and sometimes even eclipses the best of the legacy library. It's not homebrew, and even "indie" feels inaccurate; the programming staff are mostly long-time veterans (programmer Jemini Hirono started in 1982; later, he created Zanac).

There are three difficulty levels in Changeable Guardian Estique; starting a game initiates a cutscene (different for the Japanese and English versions). Players control the eponymous Estique, which has three selectable speeds. The HUD shows a health bar, which recharges if undamaged for a time, and available Super Weapons (maximum 3~6 depending on difficulty).

Estique can change forms between a vertical robot and a horizontal fighter; the robot is immune to environmental damage (great for tight caverns) and recharges health faster than the fighter. However, the fighter has more powerful Super Weapon attacks. These are activated by double-tapping fire and are akin to traditional power bombs. The result depends on if you've got the Wave (W) or B.I.T (B) weapon. (W) produces a three-way shot, while (B) forms a barrier of two orbiting satellites. Every combination will have a use somewhere.

There are six stages set in major cities, which are thematically fun. London features its famous bridge in the background, while its boss is an enormous mechanical knight. One oddity is Level 4, New York; it takes place at sunset, and there's a brief section where orange enemies and projectiles are mildly camouflaged. It's weird because elsewhere, they appear darker, or even blue.

Generally, the graphics are incredible, making exquisite use of the NES' limited palette. Compare Estique's delicate tone shifts to something like Parodius; while beautiful on 16-bit, the 8-bit port was garish and so flickery it was almost unplayable. Much of our praise for Estique is thanks to its near-total lack of sprite flicker. This cannot be overemphasised – its absence is mind-blowing.

The NES suffers flicker because it cannot show more than eight sprites on a single horizontal line. For tate-shmups like Crisis Force, it's not a problem because projectiles move vertically. But look at two of the best hori-shmups available, Action in New York and Zombie Nation – the player character, enemies, all bullets, power-ups, quite literally everything, will randomly turn invisible during busy moments. There's a reason both have health meters: projectiles often can't be seen, so one-hit deaths would feel unfair.

This means games like Abadox, Salamander, and Gradius have aged terribly since the constant sprite flicker leads to cheap game overs. Some hori-shmups had minimal flicker, like Capcom's Section Z, but it's a bit dull. Or TaleSpin, which is innovative and vibrant, but players can only have a single bullet on-screen, slowing the overall feel. Emulators can disable flickering, but Estique is currently physical only.

Although Estique lacks the vertical screen movement found in the above, it runs with near-zero sprite flicker on our NTSC-U system. It would be duplicitous to claim it never happens, since we deliberately tried to break the game and succeeded, sometimes. When facing the recurring mid-boss, lining up all your shots against his can cause a bit of flicker. Or playing the highest difficulty and maximising the power attacks at certain points.

But when you examine other NES games, it's astounding what Cat Hui Trading has accomplished here. It makes one think that companies like Konami weren't even trying when it came to the 8-bit era. While there isn't any parallax scrolling early on, the final stage features some, along with pulsating organic walls.

As for the highest difficulty, the names for the three levels are inaccurate. Normal should be considered Easy: you'll finish it in a single sitting, never needing to change speed, transform into the robot, or think about weapon selection. It's not quite Zen Mode, but it requires little concentration and zero practice.

Do not be intimidated by Hard, this should be your initiation. It offers a fair challenge that'll take hours to master. Naturally, we selected "God of Game" mode. Enemies and projectiles were plentiful, and we finally forced the game to flicker occasionally. It also required reflexes and strategy, changing between the three speeds, making heavy use of each form and weapon.

For example, the robot's punch will clear a path through bullets and rake up points needed for life-saving shield refills. It's quite thrilling needing to adapt and swap tools as the action heats up. Playing on God tier, there'll be a moment where everything clicks, and you realise this is a hardcore love letter to the shmup genre. If you buy Estique please at least try Hard first, you will have a richer experience. Besides, there are infinite continues for all modes.

To highlight one example of the gameplay on a higher difficulty, let's examine Stage 5, Kyoto. It starts off relaxed, but then enemies arrive thick and fast; in addition to these zako, there are cannons on the ground and projectiles spawning from the hands of statues. The fighter's shape is best for taking out the ground enemies, while the statues need their heads destroyed, benefiting from Power Attacks.

If you've reached your maximum of three on God mode, then collecting a new weapon icon, which adds one to the supply, is redundant. So rather than waste the pick-up, the game auto-activates it, resulting in a frenetic pace of taking out ground enemies, swapping forms, collecting the weapon icon for an auto-activated Power Attack as the robot, timing it right so its punch wave clears a narrow path through projectiles, followed by increasing your speed, swapping back to the narrow fighter to squeeze through the gap, destroy a statue and – finally! – accrue just enough points to spawn a shield refill.

While Power Bombs in traditional shmups will simply clear the screen, the Power Attacks here need to be utilised very precisely. Players will find themselves structuring a play pattern to navigate towards weapon power-ups at precise moments to initiate the auto-activation. Any saved-up can be used at any time, but you'll probably want those for the bosses.

It's worth noting there's no simultaneous two-player mode, but this is a good thing. Thirty-five years ago, a NES game could sell on this feature alone, despite straining the hardware. Today, there will be few instances where two enthusiasts get to sit together – a retro convention perhaps, but mostly it'll be solo play. We rinsed the first level of Action in New York in 2P (tape down fire, D-pad under each thumb), and while fun, it was a creaking, flickery mess. Cat Hui Trading made the right decision to focus on a refined single-player experience for Estique.

The only other real negative is the aforementioned regional differences. In an attempt to satirise old localisations, the Famicom and NES versions have different intro and ending cutscenes. The problem is that back in the day, such changes were often deeply frustrating, resulting in cut levels, censored attacks, and ramped-up difficulty. Anyone who grew up reading Super Play will have known importing; your reviewer is so offended by regional changes that he assembly-hacks games back to normality.

As you'd expect, the NES cut-scenes in Estique are (intentionally) lame: the cool robot art is cropped, the villains less characterised, and the "yuri" ending is... well, less yuri. Of course, you can just buy the Famicom version, and the game itself is unchanged either way, but this joke is an unnecessary reminder of an irritating past.

Whichever version you choose, both the Famicom and the NES sets are available for €50 from the French publisher Broke Studio. It's a nice price considering the various legacy games previously mentioned go for several hundreds of pounds on eBay, while licensed reprints can still top the one hundred pound mark. For anyone who grew up on Nintendo's 8-bit revolution, Estique is a professional showcase standing alongside the system's finest.