Extra Bright for the Sony PlayStation is not an amazing game. It is a rail shooter with a generic anime motif. It’s not tough to see why it wasn’t picked up for publishing outside of Japan; it doesn’t really offer up anything new. It would have been lost in the huge library the system had to offer. In Japan Extra Bright at least had the anime theme going for it. Today I’m taking a look at this forgotten rail shooter. It’s fun in short bursts, but the game is too repetitive for its own good.
The story lost me almost immediately. It’s strictly in Japanese, and I wasn’t able to find any sort of summary so I don’t really understand what this one is about. What you do have however are a lot of voice overs and a plethora of animated full motion video. The budget for Extra Bright seems surprisingly high for a rail shooter, and the presentation is very polished.
What we have is your typical on-rails style shooter. It’s entirely 3D, but you can only move left or right in this case. What this means is your ship is moving perpetually forward. In Extra Bright your vehicle is stuck on the ground and is limited to moving only left or right. That’s a bit of a bummer considering Star Fox 64 let you move in all direction. Extra Bright makes up for this with the crazy route you take in each level while playing. You’ll fly over cliffs, make hairpin turns, and charge through bright colored or even dark passages. The action is fast, frantic, and often crazy. The decision to make this one more restrictive isn’t actually that bad.
You begin gameplay in Extra Bright by selecting your character. Honestly I haven’t noticed that much variation between them. You get a differently colored ship (well, it’s not exactly a ship… I’m not sure what it is) as well as different voice samples. From here you choose your sub-weapons. This is the highlight of the game for me. You have your basic attack which is two side by side energy bursts. You can use this infinitely. This is typical for a more traditional shooter, and makes the game feel like one to be honest.
Sub-weapons are the meat and potatoes of gameplay here. You have four different options. One of these is a traditional bomb attack that explodes when it reaches a certain distance into the background. The next sub-weapon is a more powerful shot that must charge before it’s used, but this is handled automatically. This one is a mere energy ball, and you have to get the timing right in order for it to hit your target successfully. It’s best used against the boss characters.
I found the latter two to be far more useful. Next up we have the flame pillar. This fires a flame shot that sets fire to the ground. It starts in front of your ship and moves to the background. The trajectory of this shot cannot be changed once fired, but if you shoot it in the center of the screen it works amazingly well at taking out incoming foes. The last ability is a vertical shot that fires in bursts. You can manually charge this to fire more bursts in reptition. This one is useful in normal play as well as against bosses because of the spread it doesn’t require a lot of accuracy.
Most games limit the use of your sub-weapon. Not Extra Bright! You have a meter on the bottom of the screen that measures the power of these shots, and you can use them until it drains. The nice thing is that your power gauge automatically re-charges. This means you’re not limited, well, as long as you’re patient. The two sub-weapons you’ve chosen are set to the square and circle buttons, and you can even use these at the same time. Not only is it possible to fill the screen with fire and explosions, but it’s actually recommended if you want to be successful!
Along with the standard life bar (that drains with each hit you take) you also have a dash gauge as well. By pressing the L2 or R2 button your ship will boost either left or right. It’s not as useful as the barrel roll from Star Fox, but it can definitely get you out of some hairy situations. Like your sub-weapons this can be used infinitely, but each time you do, a portion of your energy is drained. Again, this is something that re-charges automatically (and very rapidly, at that) so you can use it pretty freely. Even on the higher difficulty I found the only times I needed it was during bosses.
While Extra Bright is mildly enjoyable the graphics are not. The scenery is very sparce and most of the gameplay takes place in tunnels. This was no doubt an effort to hide the hardware’s restrictions, but it hampers the game a bit. Every stage feels repetitive. The outdoor areas, though few and far between, are a really welcome sight. Otherwise you’ll spend the duration of this title just flying through quick moving corridors. The enemies are also really underwhelming. They repeat far too often, and they’re generic looking robots. At least the framerate holds up even when things get chaotic. Extra Bright is adequate looking, but far from being anything special visually.
The music here is a bit better than the visuals. You have that bouncy techno-pop that so many similar Japanese games use. It’s fun, and it fits the anime style perfectly. Each stage actually features multiple themes; some are dark and forboding while others are a bit more rock and roll. I do really like the soundtrack, and it’s one of the high points in Extra Bright. Unfortunately the audio is marred with some annoying high pitched voice work during gameplay. It’s easy to ignore these samples for the most part, but I think their impact to the game is mostly negative.
I didn’t really have high expectations going into Extra Bright. It’s an import game on the original PlayStation, and one never mentioned at that. The overbearing anime style is a bit of a turn off, but I’m sure it’s more palatable if you can understand what’s happening in the story. I liked several of the gameplay conventions that the game uses. The sub-weapons are great. I just wish more care was put into the level design. Extra Bright is pretty average, but does have a few things going for it.
