Review - Based on an extremely rare and obscure coin-op, this Mega Drive port was never released in the west.

Space Battleship Gomorrah is a surprisingly original side-scrolling shooter in which you are required to shoot both normally and by using a target. As a result, this means that there are several gameplay twists that make it stand out from the rest. Interestingly, by picking up health icons, your ship will actually morph shape and grow! If collecting health is important, it also renders your ship so big as to make it sometimes problematic to dodge bullets effectively because you suddenly become an easy target.

You can of course remedy to that by picking up speed ups but more importantly, you can clear yourself a path by using the target. The problem is that when you activate the target mode, your ship is stationary therefore it becomes an even easier target…

To give you an example, sometimes you'll be in a situation where certain enemy guns will be out of reach for your regular shot so to avoid being hit you'll necessarily have to use the target. Be quick too because in the meantime, your ship will be idle and vulnerable to enemy fire. All these elements combined together make for an unusual shmup experience that is worth trying.

Also, by keeping the regular fire button pressed you'll unleash a huge laser beam that can take care of several alien waves at a time. That said, it must be noted that gameplay is a bit slow-paced to allow the player to switch back and forth from the regular shot to the target.

Generally, Space Battlleship Gomorrah has been considered to be an average game by people who didn't like its play mechanics. Moreover, it certainly isn't the prettiest shooter on Mega Drive although I found the colors and the parallax scrolling to be a plus while the main ship is nicely detailed. It just lacks a bit of polish as far as enemies and bosses are concerned while there sometimes is some flickering and some slowdown.

The music also seems to repeat itself too much although I found the tunes to be pretty inspired.

Overall, I think this game is a pretty decent diversion in the genre and even if it's not a masterpiece it is still worth checking out. You might find it slow and ugly or maybe, it will surprise you with it's slick play mechanics and its slow-paced but methodical destruction!

Bottom line: a side-scrolling shooter which tries to introduce a few novel ideas, but don't expect the graphics to blow your mind away. 6,5/10