Originally released as an arcade game on Neo Geo MVS hardware, Viewpoint is an isometric bullet hell shooter originally developed by Aicom, ported by Sammy and published by Ving for the FM Towns in 1993. It obviously takes inspiration from Sega‘s Zaxxon, but its aesthetic owes more to Irem‘s R-Type.

All of the game’s graphics were hand-drawn by artists, rather than being rendered by 3D modelling software, and it’s fair to say that Viewpoint looks pretty amazing, even by today’s standards.

One thing that has dated, though, is the game’s soundtrack, which is a mixture of breakbeats, samples and hip-hop that sounds direct from the late 20th century. At the time of release the music would have been very impressive, but now it’s the kind of thing that most people will just want to mute immediately.

The in-game options allow you change difficulty levels (easy, normal, hard and very hard); the screen resolution (basically either 4:3 or stretched wide to 16:9); normal speed or fast mode, and normal or ‘on-board’ gamepad mode (I preferred the latter, which moves the ship diagonally left and right, in relation to the landscape, rather than horizontally left and right in normal mode).

Gameplay-wise, Viewpoint has some interesting ideas, like gates that you have to open by shooting rotating wheels in the correct way; moving sections of floor that become barriers when they raise up; enemy generators that can be shot to give yourself an easier time through a particular section; gun turrets flipping up out of the floor, and enemies that are highly stylised and move in patterns that are both mesmerising and extremely dangerous at the same time. Bosses are also visually very impressive but hellish to get past. In fact, Viewpoint – as good as it is – is a very difficult game that treads a fine line between challenge and frustration.

Of all the versions of Viewpoint that were ever released, the FM Towns port is one of the best. And although this was a Japan-only release, all of the in-game text is in English, so it’s perfectly playable to Western gamers.

More: Viewpoint on Wikipedia