It’s no secret that arcade shooters have been in decline for as long as… well, for as long as the arcades that have housed them. Even after a brief renaissance with the likes of Ikaruga, Border Down, and an endless string of games from Cave, it’s a niche that has gotten smaller and smaller, even as other retro genres like 2D platformers have gained momentum.
It’s not really the simple gameplay that holds these games back. A lot of shooters are deep and challenging in an immediate way, which is why a few of them, like Dodonpachi, have translated so wonderfully to mobile. What shooters lack is the kind of immersive storytelling, cutting-edge graphics, and lavish presentation found in so many other games. Sine Mora is an attempt to bring 2D shooters out of the arcade with a richer presentation and beautiful visuals usually not found a humble shmup.
When you begin the game, you have a choice of either Story Mode or Arcade Mode. The latter is pretty much what you’d expect; a straightforward, all-action mode with a brutally high difficulty. The former, however, is Sine Mora’s great experiment; a more narrative mode with a gentle difficulty curve and a sprawling campaign with multiple paths.
This story isn’t told through real cut scenes, alas, just radio chatter as the tiny plane swoops around the impressive scenery. This is a nice attempt, but it doesn’t really do much to enhance the experience since the story isn’t especially gripping. Where Sine Mora fares far better is in its graphical presentation.
There’s no doubt that this is a visual showcase title. The console version of Sine Mora is arguably the most beautiful shoot ‘em up ever made and the mobile version comes very close. The environments are beautiful and varied, and full of atmospheric effects, taking you underwater and through fiery caves with rivers of lava. It’s all rendered in stunning detail, with subtle lighting effects. The bosses are screen-filling and menacing, with crazy transformations and animations, and tiny details that really impart them with a sense of scale. Sine Mora looks better on a phone than most games of this sort look on consoles.
All this detail comes at a cost, of course. Sine Mora is going to make your device sweat. On its highest detail settings, even the best devices won’t be able to maintain the kind of fluid frame rate that shoot ‘em up players are accustomed to. Luckily, the graphic settings can be chosen manually, but even on the lowest setting, it’ll be a challenge for mid-range devices, unless you can tolerate some dips in the frame rate.
For all of its grand ambitions, Sine Mora isn’t particularly innovative in the gameplay department. This is a classic side-scrolling shmup, without much in the way of crazy score hooks. You’ll fire, collect power ups (which, in an unusual act of pity on the player, can be recovered after you die), and fire off limited use secondary weapons (basically “bombs,” but these take many forms). Its main hook is a button that slows the action, a gimmick that has been tried seeming a thousand times since it was first introduced in Max Payne.
The action is solid, and the firing patterns often interesting, if not up to snuff with the likes of Dodonpachi or Ikaruga, but Sine Mora struggles to provide the kind of controls needed to negotiate them. This is a shame, because it seems like this problem has already been solved by other mobile shooters, in many cases working better than a controller. Sine Mora offers several different control options, including one that seems ostensibly similar to the perfect controls in Cave’s games, but in practice it’s sluggish and imprecise. To cement the problem, there is no controller support, making it impossible to avoid the issue.Fortunately, the game’s story mode is awfully forgiving. Your ship can take quite a few hits before you’ll actually use a life, which feels very strange to someone raised on the ruthless shooters found in arcades. This is probably not the best way to address the problem, but the game is certainly playable. In Arcade Mode, however, where one hit means instant death, Sine Mora feels frustrating and nearly impossible for lack of a good control scheme.
Sine Mora should have been great. It’s an utterly beautiful title, ported from a solid console release, and brimming with content. In that regard, it’s certainly worth checking out, but a shooter with seriously flawed controls is a tough meal to digest. With the recent release of DeathSmiles, shooter fans have plenty of other options out there, and unless stunning graphics are a priority, Sine Mora simply isn’t the first choice.
It’s not really the simple gameplay that holds these games back. A lot of shooters are deep and challenging in an immediate way, which is why a few of them, like Dodonpachi, have translated so wonderfully to mobile. What shooters lack is the kind of immersive storytelling, cutting-edge graphics, and lavish presentation found in so many other games. Sine Mora is an attempt to bring 2D shooters out of the arcade with a richer presentation and beautiful visuals usually not found a humble shmup.
When you begin the game, you have a choice of either Story Mode or Arcade Mode. The latter is pretty much what you’d expect; a straightforward, all-action mode with a brutally high difficulty. The former, however, is Sine Mora’s great experiment; a more narrative mode with a gentle difficulty curve and a sprawling campaign with multiple paths.
This story isn’t told through real cut scenes, alas, just radio chatter as the tiny plane swoops around the impressive scenery. This is a nice attempt, but it doesn’t really do much to enhance the experience since the story isn’t especially gripping. Where Sine Mora fares far better is in its graphical presentation.
There’s no doubt that this is a visual showcase title. The console version of Sine Mora is arguably the most beautiful shoot ‘em up ever made and the mobile version comes very close. The environments are beautiful and varied, and full of atmospheric effects, taking you underwater and through fiery caves with rivers of lava. It’s all rendered in stunning detail, with subtle lighting effects. The bosses are screen-filling and menacing, with crazy transformations and animations, and tiny details that really impart them with a sense of scale. Sine Mora looks better on a phone than most games of this sort look on consoles.
All this detail comes at a cost, of course. Sine Mora is going to make your device sweat. On its highest detail settings, even the best devices won’t be able to maintain the kind of fluid frame rate that shoot ‘em up players are accustomed to. Luckily, the graphic settings can be chosen manually, but even on the lowest setting, it’ll be a challenge for mid-range devices, unless you can tolerate some dips in the frame rate.
For all of its grand ambitions, Sine Mora isn’t particularly innovative in the gameplay department. This is a classic side-scrolling shmup, without much in the way of crazy score hooks. You’ll fire, collect power ups (which, in an unusual act of pity on the player, can be recovered after you die), and fire off limited use secondary weapons (basically “bombs,” but these take many forms). Its main hook is a button that slows the action, a gimmick that has been tried seeming a thousand times since it was first introduced in Max Payne.
The action is solid, and the firing patterns often interesting, if not up to snuff with the likes of Dodonpachi or Ikaruga, but Sine Mora struggles to provide the kind of controls needed to negotiate them. This is a shame, because it seems like this problem has already been solved by other mobile shooters, in many cases working better than a controller. Sine Mora offers several different control options, including one that seems ostensibly similar to the perfect controls in Cave’s games, but in practice it’s sluggish and imprecise. To cement the problem, there is no controller support, making it impossible to avoid the issue.Fortunately, the game’s story mode is awfully forgiving. Your ship can take quite a few hits before you’ll actually use a life, which feels very strange to someone raised on the ruthless shooters found in arcades. This is probably not the best way to address the problem, but the game is certainly playable. In Arcade Mode, however, where one hit means instant death, Sine Mora feels frustrating and nearly impossible for lack of a good control scheme.
Sine Mora should have been great. It’s an utterly beautiful title, ported from a solid console release, and brimming with content. In that regard, it’s certainly worth checking out, but a shooter with seriously flawed controls is a tough meal to digest. With the recent release of DeathSmiles, shooter fans have plenty of other options out there, and unless stunning graphics are a priority, Sine Mora simply isn’t the first choice.
