Release date: March 25, 2004
Developer: Alfa
System
Genre: Shmup
(Vertical scrolling)
Current retail: £70-75 (eBay)
‘Right, number one, fuck you Jeff! Number two, yes Neal you
are right as ever, a shoot-em-up necessitates a fucking spacecraft and three,
if I hear another fucking teenager saying that Sine Mora is the best shmup
ever...’ – Steve, Super Red Green Blue
Depending on how much of a shmup purist you are – in my
case I would say I'm now a kind of Guardianista shmupper – either one or both
of the latter two assertions in the quote above will resonate with you.
Technically speaking, at least according to some of the more hardcore areas of
the genre fan base, a shmup has to have a flying craft to be
considered cannon. No ifs no buts. If
you aren't flying some hunk of heavily armed metal then that’s fine, we can
hang out and enjoy blowing stuff away, down some beverages and chase score, but
that title is never going to enter the historic halls of the shmup guild. You
either have it or you are dead to the genre.
 |
| Each character has a primary and secondary attack. They vary in usefulness. |
At one time I counted myself among these chosen brethren.
The purity of the ideal was powerful. You either have it or you are dead. It
helped reaffirm my gaming identity, putting down a marker that separated those who
were in-scene and those who were casual, pretenders, far younger than me and
had missed the shmup golden years. No fucking wanna-be hipster teenager was going
to gate-crash my party and start expounding how Sine Mora was the best shooter
ever. How could this moron understand? When you've ridden the fever dream dragon
of Radiant Silvergun and drunk the milk of paradise, how do you even explain
what you once saw? Far from bullet hell, it was bullet heaven.