Over Horizon x Steel Empire (Switch)

Over Horizon X Steel Empire is a budget ININ release compiling two iconic Hot B developed Shmups into one affordable package with frills and all. 

Over Horizon.

Over Horizon is a traditional Shmup in the vein of R-Type originally released on the NES; it has the Spaceship shooter vibe that all the shoot ’em-up titles were going for at the time and, at the time of release, garnered some good scores. 

It’s a traditional title with some really impressive visuals for the time of release. Naturally, it does suffer slowdown and flickering because what kind of a NES would it be without? It is well designed with all the various tropes from the genre you could want such as various shot types and fantastic stage bosses.

Over Horizon’s innovation lies in its’ “Ship Edit” mode; you can edit your ship base stats to make you more powerful but have lesser defence, speedier but slower firing rate and the like; it’s a basic system that hasn’t been matched at all in the genre. 

Over Horizon is nothing particularly life-changing, but all in all, it is a nice little Shmup and a great view into Hot B, who would go onto the iconic Mega Drive timeless classic Steel Empire.

Steel Empire. 

Steel Empire is an iconic shoot-em-up that originally launched on the Sega Mega Drive, the game featured an unforgettable Steampunk aesthetic long before it was made popular and converted many a gamer onto the genre, since its inception we have had a plethora of remasters and re-releases including the recent Legend of Steel Empire which got a 4* rating from myself here.

Steel Empire is more of a traditional shooter than Over Horizon; it features two ships, a Bi-Plane or a Blimp, and has the usual power-ups you’d come to expect. Even the screen-clearing bomb is here. 

Steel Empire is remembered mainly for its fantastic set pieces, addictive gameplay and ease of difficulty for newcomers to the genre, all things I tackled in my previous review above.

The versions on offer in this package are the original Mega Drive version and the Gameboy Advance remake; while they follow mostly the same beats, the Advance version has a few tweaks because of the smaller screen size, including bullet patterns; worth a look for the die-hard lover of Steel Empire. 

The Package 

Over Horizon x Steel Empire is your standard InIn re-release, you’ve got slightly spruced up visuals, rewind and save state features and both the English and Japanese versions of the Steel Empire games. 

There is the option to play the games in “Challenge Mode”, which just strips away the QoL feature, but in terms of extras, this is sadly once again missing that museum mode a title like this sorely needs.

Overall, this is a fine package for Shmup aficionados and those who are craving more Steel Empire; sadly, it is weak on the celebration, but the actual game where it counts is solid.