If you want to know what to expect from a game like Otomedius Excellent, all you need is the intro: a short musical opening that may as well be a fansubbed anime episode — what with the karaoke lyrics that fly in and out of the screen. It’s how you’re introduced to the nubile heroes of the game, too: the female students of St. Gradius High School with special talents that get them recruited into the “G” organization’s intergalactic defense force, where they don frilly-yet-skimpy costumes and pilot miniature fighter ships, and… yeah. Mind you, none of that is explained in the manual, much less the game itself — I do my research. If you react to the word “moe” like you would sipping lemon juice, then you probably know better than to keep going. But if you’re simply a shooter fan, you’re going to try it anyway.
For the uninitiated, Otomedius is an unabashedly old-school shoot-em-up, with game mechanics and half a title taken from the Gradius series. You do just as much dodging as you do shooting, but the bullet curtains are sparse here. The levels are varied, taking you through a sunny port town through a lava-filled cave and the far reaches of space, while cute cartoon girls taunt each other in Japanese every couple of minutes. Again, you may not be the intended audience.
