Review: Sine Mora

In some ways, Sine Mora will make you feel the way you did the first time you played Guitar Hero all those years back – ducking and weaving through a storm of enemy firepower, you may well feel like a god. But suddenly, the level you’re playing comes to an end, you are awarded an ‘E’ for all of your efforts, and reality comes crashing in – you really didn’t do as well as you thought. Sine Mora is a bullet hell shoot’em-up that’s made for both shmup fanatics and non-fanatics alike.

Described as Deiselpunk by the developers, Sine Mora truly is a dream to behold. Colourful and imaginative in both design and scope, Sine Mora is just GORGEOUS. The voice work is in Hungarian (Digital Reality, one of the developers, is situated in Hungary – also developed by Grasshopper Manufacture in Japan), and this really works to set quite a different scene to what many gamers are used to.

The game is initially played out through the Story Mode, in which players unlock ships, pilots and levels to be used in the two additional modes made specifically for shmup fans (they even have much harder difficulty settings – Hard and Insane are your only choices). Arcade is essentially the Story Mode minus the story, and provides an experience similar to other titles in this genre. Score Attack, the final mode, provides a choice of levels in which players can do some leaderboard chasing.

Story Mode is best described as “vanilla” mode – it’s easier than the others, and players are awarded 10 continues to help them get by. Ships and pilots are set in each level, which are played out in order. Arcade mode follows the same level structure, but players are only allowed 3 continues. Score Attack provides unlimited continues, but everything is reset at the end of each attempt. However, for both Arcade and Score Attack Modes, players can select their own ship, pilot and special ability (more on this later) – apparently there are 63 combinations, providing a timesink for the dedicated fan.

The game itself is fairly standard in terms of sidescrolling “bullet hell” shooters. On taking out enemy ships, occasionally you’ll find weapon power-ups, time extensions, point bonuses (which are cumulative – miss one and the bonus resets), etc., and the action can be truly hectic. However, Sine Mora has a clever trick up its sleeve…

Latin for “without delay,” Sine Mora has firm focus on time, and this is the primary differentiator between this shmup and its brethren. Rather than a “one-hit-kills” mentality, players potentially have UNLIMITED life. You’ll start each level with a finite amount of time, and getting hit will take some of this away. Similarly, shooting down enemies will add time back to your clock. It’s a clever mechanic, and provides some tense moments, particularly when playing the harder Arcade and Score Attack modes.

In addition–and beyond the standard bonuses–enemies may leave behind Time Capsules, which will fill a gauge provided for another very special capability. In Story Mode, this is “Speed Up,” which essentially slows down the bullets onscreen and allows players to navigate the danger with relative ease. To some diehard shmup fans, this might seem to defeat the purpose, but for the rest of us who lack the skills to dodge and weave through a web of fire, it adds some support to a seemingly impossible task. The other game modes allow players to choose from three types of time manipulation – “Speed Up”, “Reflection” (which provides a shield to reflect bullets) and “Roll Back” (allowing the function to turn back time, even after death).

It’s not easy. Even with the ability to manipulate time (which is limited, by the way), you will find yourself scrambling to locate something to shoot down just to add some precious seconds to the clock, or flying around recklessly to reclaim your weapon upgrades. Of course, with everything that’s going on in the background, and all the vibrant colours, the bullets CAN get lost from time to time. Not only that, it’s not hard to lose YOURSELF in the thick of things as well (not to mention the fact that it’s not always easy to understand what environmental structures will or will not destroy you). In some ways, that’s the nature of the genre, but it can be frustrating to lose some of your time to something you could have avoided should you seen or known was a threat…

So how does it stack up against the likes of Ikaruga in terms of difficulty? Quite well, to be honest – the Story Mode will be challenging for most players, but not impossible, and the alternative modes will provide enough challenge for even the most hardened shmup fan. In the interests of clarity, I’ve completed Story Mode–which I did without major issue, mind you–but I am yet to complete even a single stage in any other mode. It’s BRUTAL.

It’s easily one of the best XBLA games I’ve played, but it is challenging, and the Achievements are a nightmare. Still, it’s a steal for the price, and shmup fans would be completely remiss to skip it (in fact, if you are a real fanatic, add a full point to my overall score).