Axelay
| Axelay | |
|---|---|
North American SNES box art
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| Developer(s) | Konami |
| Publisher(s) | Konami |
| Designer(s) | Noritoshi Kodama |
| Programmer(s) | Hideo Ueda |
| Composer(s) | Taro Kudo |
| Platform(s) | Super Nintendo Entertainment System, Virtual Console |
| Release date(s) |
SNES Wii Virtual Console
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| Genre(s) | Scrolling shooter |
| Mode(s) | Single-player |
| Review score | |
|---|---|
| Publication | Score |
| AllGame |   |
Axelay (アクスレイ, Akusurei) is a 1992 scrolling shooter video game developed and published by Konami of Japan for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. The game was released on September 11, 1992 in Japan, later in that month in North America, and the following year in Europe. The game was re-released on the Nintendo Wii's Virtual Console service in Australia and North America in 2007 and in Japan in 2008.
Axelay is a sci-fi scrolling-shooter in the same vein as other Konami titles such as Life Force (Salamander) and Gradius. The game features both horizontal and vertically scrolling levels and allows the player to choose three different weapon-types, which increase in number as they progress through the game.
The game was programmed by Hideo Ueda. Kazuhiko Ishida, credited with "support program" on Axelay, later left Konami to help found Treasure Co. Ltd.Taro Kudo primarily composed the game's soundtrack.
Axelay's gameplay varies quite a bit from that of traditional 2D scrolling shooters. Instead of the player collecting weapon power-ups from defeated enemies in order to acquire more advanced weapons, the player earns weapons as he or she advances in the game. There are three weapon types with which the fighter is outfitted at the start of the level: a standard weapon, a special weapon, and a bomb or missile. The player may freely switch between each of these weapon types during a level. At the end of each level, a new choice of one of these types of weapons is added to the player's armory, and the player is given the ability to modify his or her fighter to suit the needs of the next level. Similar to Konami's own Life Force, levels transition between vertical and horizontal scrolling layouts, forcing the player to select weapons that will be most effective for each level. Finally, the game eschews the standard one-hit-kill model prevalent in space shooters, instead simply disabling the currently selected weapon and reducing the player to a weak default version of that weapon type. Sustaining a second hit while using a weakened weapon will destroy the player's ship. However, directly colliding into an enemy will still destroy the ship instantly.
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Wikipedia