Power Strike II is a re-titling of the second Aleste game on the Game Gear. It was again developed by Compile and published by Sega in Europe and Brazil in 1993. The original Japanese title was “GG Aleste II: Lance Bird“.

Power Strike II takes place in the far future, when an invading alien force is once again threatening Earth. You again play a female pilot who is flying the famous Aleste craft on a mission to destroy the invading aliens.

There are four difficulty levels (easy, normal, hard and mania), and eight speed levels which you set before the game begins. Before starting out you’re given the chance to choose which secondary weapon you want to employ. Powering-up your primary weapon is done in the same way as in previous Aleste games – by collecting ‘P’ capsules during stages – and changing your secondary weapon is done by collecting lettered capsules that are dropped by shooting alien pods that float down the screen. You also have smart bombs for limited use during levels.

Each stage has a distinct graphical theme, a variety of sub-bosses, and a more challenging boss fight at the end. Bonus levels are now third-person, fly-into-the-screen type levels, with the aim being: to try to shoot as high a percentage of what’s thrown at you as possible.

Power Strike II has much improved graphics over the previous Game Gear Aleste but gameplay is more or less the same as before. This is considered to be one of the best games in the Aleste series – at least on 8-bit systems – and it definitely is fun to play if you like bullet hell shooters.

More: Power Strike (series) on Wikipedia