Reviews - WillyFourEyes

Ultionus is a side-scrolling action game starring a busty space explorer named Serena S. The plot kicks off when she posts on a social network celebrating her victory, and a guy who goes by the name of the “Space Prince” insults her. She gets mad and flies down to his planet to teach him a lesson.

The game takes place over six stages, and each stage takes you through a typical video game environment – an ice world, a water-based world, a jungle, a fire world, and underground dungeon, and then finally back to space. Most of the time you’ll simply be moving to the left or right shooting at enemies, and occasionally you’ll need to jump across platforms. The platforming sections are tricky, as it often takes a running start to make it all the way across a gap. Fortunately, there aren’t very many hazards or bottomless pits, so missing a jump won’t set you back too much.

Two of the six levels are auto-scrolling levels, where you’re either racing on a dinosaur or flying around in your spaceship. These levels add a bit of variety, and are more intense than the platforming levels as you’re forced to shoot everything that moves to avoid taking damage, but they’re shorter than the platforming levels and don’t leave as much room for exploration.

While most “indie retro” games opt to emulate older NES and Super NES titles, developer/artist Andrew Bado and musician Jake Kaufman went for something closer to what you’d see and hear on the Sega Genesis or an Amiga 16-bit computer. For the most part, this combination works pretty well – the levels are rendered in pretty nice detail, with a vivid color palette and some neat parallax background scrolling effects.

The six levels can be completed in about an hour, and for a game priced at $9.99, that’s a pretty tough sell. Still, a decent soundtrack, graphical presentation, and straightforward run-and-gun action make it at least worthy of momentary consideration.