Rating: 9/10
Another unplanned review. Well... not that unplanned. I planned on writing a review of Velocity X2 when I got to it in my backlog, and maybe write a review of the first game afterwards. I know it's a weird approach, but I played this game before and I must say it's pretty hard.
Velocity Ultra is a remake of the PSP vertical shoot-'em-up, Velocity, which came out pretty late in the PSP's lifespan. Velocity Ultra is a game that I can really only describe as being about speed. Simple explanation, but there isn't really much of a story to the game.
You play as Lt. Kai Tana (get it?), who pilots the teleporting spaceship, the Quarp Jet. The plot is that a star exploded into a red giant and is collapsing into a black hole.That's pretty much it for the plot, unless you want me to spoil the ending. Your main objective here is to rescue survivors from the star's EMP. The game starts out simple. You just rescue survivors and defeat enemy ships (how are they still around?). As the game progresses, you have to complete pretty well-made puzzles while trying to complete your main objectives. There's even timed levels as well.
As the name implies, this game is very much about speed. Much like Sonic, you should take your time. Not only because you might miss survivors and secret areas in the map, but because you might ram into enemies and other dangerous hazards. This might happen a lot in the timed levels. Especially the second to last level of the game.
Pros:
+ Fluent controls.
+ Challenging, but fair levels.
+ Good puzzles.
+ A nice soundtrack.
+ Replay value.
Cons:
- There isn't really much of a story. It would have been nice to expand on the game's lore.
Final Thoughts:
As I said earlier, this game is pretty challenging. There are fifty levels in total, that definitely take a lot of trial and error to get through. Since I played the game on a Vita, I had the advantage of a touchscreen in order to teleport. The game is challenging, but fair. Since this was my second time playing this game, I might have memorized some things from my first playthrough. Speaking of my first playthrough, the game uses an XP system in order for you to advance to the next level. At the time I didn't really know about it and I got a bronze rank on just about every level. When I got to the last few levels, I had to replay some of those levels in order to progress. Kind of tedious, but it's a nice way to make you do better. Overall, Velocity Ultra is a great shoot-'em-up that offers a forgivable challenge. My only real problem is that there's little-to-no story. Something between levels would have been nice, but this is a shoot-'em-up after all, so it doesn't really need to have a fleshed out story. I also noticed some pretty cool references that I haven't seen anyone talk about. Some of the level names reference people like Michael Crichton, James Cameron, Stanley Kubrick, Krypton (not a person, but possibly a Superman reference), Jules Verne, and H.G. Wells. Do I recommend Velocity Ultra? Well after playing this game twice, and falling in love with it, I would say yes. I haven't played the other versions of the game so I can't speak for them, but if you own a PS Vita, pick it up. Mostly because you can use the screen in order to teleport.
I would like to thank Rurikhan for putting this series in my radar. He has an old review of Velocity X2, which immediately caught my eye as a fan of shoot-'em-ups and platformers. He also has a list of his reasons to own a PS Vita on TGN's channel (from back when TGN wasn't an Overwatch channel). He's a pretty cool guy that I've been a fan of ever since the TGN video, so please check him out <3
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