Hydorah: Retro Face, Progressive Brain

June 7, 2010

by Eric-Jon Rössel Tairne

The first thing you’ll think of when you see Spanish developer Locomalito‘s Hydorah, and the way you’ll probably see it described, is a Gradius tribute game. After you spend a few minutes with it, you’ll realize it feels more like Darius — the power-ups and weapon types, the progress map, the look of the shield, the wide and narrow playfield.

Somewhere in there, you’ll notice that the interface and sounds are reminiscent of Treasure’s games, in particular Ikaruga. As you play on, the R-Type references will start to taunt you. And then there’s something weirdly Turrican about the title screen. You get the picture; it’s retro in a blender. As Locomalito says:

Think of this game as a bastard son of the classics: it has the genes, but it’s not a clone of one or other. It has a lot of original content, so I hope you understand my intentions when you also notice something familiar with the old times

The save system is curious, and at first feels like it comes from the SNES era. Again that’s deceptive, as it’s a rather progressive mechanism. You have a total of three chances to save, that you can spend between any two levels in the game. So there’s a sort of self-pacing reminiscent of some recent console shooters like (again) Ikaruga or Gradius V, that gradually offer more lives and more credits, the more hours you put in — except it’s more organic. As your skills improve, you can play further without saving, allowing you to conserve your save points for longer and gradually allowing you to expand your range.

In its presentation and design, Hydorah is just maybe the most professional-feeling indie game out there. It manages to walk the line between overt homage to old-fashioned trial-and-error sensibilities and forward-thinking response to the most annoying side effects to that discipline.

You can download Hydorah at Locomalito’s website. When you do, you will notice that the download contains the full soundtrack, with a Winamp playlist file and cover artwork.