365//365: Day 052 – Space Channel 5: SE (PS2) [Quickie]

I’m not afraid to admit this – Ulala is a hot piece of polygonal booty. Pink hair, sexy voice, hot moves….how can anyone hate anything about her? She even convinces level bosses to follow and dance along with her and all her groupies, that’s how awesome she is! Her two game package, Space Channel 5: Special Edition, is almost as cool as she is.

Space Channel 5: Special Edition is a rhythm game, where you have to match up vocal commands at the proper times. If the enemy says up up down, you have to times our button presses at the same precisions as they said it. You can shoot the aliens when they mention the phrase to, or free humans under their mind controls with a different gun. Sounds simple enough, however it’s not. Sometimes they throw in curve-balls at you and change up the timing of the button presses drastically, or put two aliens to shoot and then a human to free, with a staggered response between them.

mmm Ulala *drool*

Throughout Ulala’s romp through the galaxy, she’s in a perfect choreographed dance routine with her groupies that she frees. Although most of the time your followers look pretty much identical, they change up every so often when you free other humans that were just freed. They all have rather simplistic details to them all, but animate quite well. It feels like a constant dance ensemble that only pauses when Ulala stops to take on the aliens or free people. But hey, you can free Michael Jackson and have him come along with you for a while!

I can only come up with two issues with the entire package. First being some iffy timing. I swear I press the button at the right time in the right rhythm at precise moment it needs to be pressed, yet there are times where it registers as an unpressed action. This happens more so in the beginning of the game for me, but comes up every so often throughout the game. Finally, even though you get both Space Channel 5 and Space Channel 5 Part 2, your experience with them will be short lived. There will be plenty of instances when you do mess up and have to restart certain portions. The bosses in particular can be a tough nut to crack as their timing is pretty much all over the place, yet makes sense.

You get two interesting, and ultimately enjoyable games for the price of one with Space Channel 5: Special Edition, not to mention the fact that the second installment never made it to the US until this package deal. It’s not the easiest game to find, though it shouldn’t be too expensive when you do. It’s definitely worth picking up if you can find it, and if you enjoy rhythm based gaming, and if you enjoy a hot piece of pink haired tail strut around.

Once again - mmm Ulala *drool*

Rating: 7.8