There are games that need no introduction, usually preceded by a lot of hype on the Internet and trumpeted by self-styled content creators passionate about retro gaming: this is the case of the various Zeldas, Sonics, and the more recent strictly online titles, such as the much-discussed social game Fortnite.
Eppure there are wonderful video games, hidden in the undergrowth of titles, that are just waiting to be unearthed by people like me, vintage players who dare to write about them with all the passion that sets them apart.
Among these, I recently came across a small gem that I hadn't seen in a long time, like an old friend you'd missed, even if you no longer remembered the features of their face very well.
Hellfire has thus reappeared in my life, playing it at friends’ houses after pulling the Sega Mega Drive out of the sarcophagus, the legendary 16-bit console that still proves its worth today.
Si tratta di un titolo appartenente agli shoot'em up, side-scrolling shooter in this case, with the evocative space setting that nods to classics like R-Type, retracing their atmosphere and gameplay, but with plenty of personality.
Rigging the game case in my hands, I immerse myself in a stream of memories that smell of dust on the cartridge, of entire afternoons wearing spacesuits and gripping futuristic joysticks in pursuit of relentless alien robots, amid lasers and epic battles.
The game screenshots, however, do not fully do justice to the beauty of the levels, built skillfully by the guys at Toaplan who knew their stuff when it came to bringing pixel splendor to the screen.
Sulla carta d'identità di HellFire troviamo la data 1990, the year in which it saw the light of day in the Land of the Rising Sun: it arrived here the following year, benefiting from the major publicity campaign dedicated to the Sega console, especially in Italy.
Eppure the game did not have the same success it had in Japan, perhaps because the approach to home video games here was still absurdly seen as a niche sector, despite the whole world cheering for that mustachioed plumber from Nintendo, an idol destined to become wildly popular for decades, as History has confirmed over time.
Hellfire is frenetic and fun, the level concept does its honest job in catapulting the player into a polished sci-fi setting, alternating very classic gameplay sections with others in which our ship will even have to move vertically downward, in a riot of enemies whose only purpose in life is to hear you scream in space!
Gameplay that perhaps adds nothing significant or new; however, the beauty of Hellfire also lies in this, in its classic feel that pays homage to the titles released before it and does so with all possible enthusiasm.
It was a nice dive into the past to play it again, I must admit.
The Mega Drive joypad fit perfectly with the daring maneuvers of the spacecraft I was piloting; moreover, it fully gave me back that enveloping feeling of lightness and fun I felt when, sitting cross-legged on the floor in a dear friend's room, I shed the clothes of a student and put on the uniform of a space ranger, ready for another battle for the future of Earth.
