Axelay

Axelay is a 2D shoot 'em up video game developed by Konami of Japan for the SNES. It was launched on September 11, 1992 in Japan, later in that month in the United States, and on September 30, 1993 in Europe. The game was released on the Nintendo Wii's Virtual Console service in Australia on October 12, 2007, and was released on the Virtual Console a month later on November 12, 2007 in North America.

Souji Taro composed the game's soundtrack. Kazuhiko Ishida, credited with "support program" on Axelay, later left Konami to help found Treasure Co. Ltd.

Gameplay
The game begins with a scene where alien ships are invading the Earth-like planet Corliss so that it falls to the ship, Axelay, to fight with the alien invaders. The game earned significant popularity for use of the SNES mode 7 and parallax scrolling effects in comparison to other games at the time. Such visual effects combined with what was then seen as an advanced selection of weapons available as well as the music score made Axelay into a popular shooter for the SNES console. The shooter was somewhat unique in that it utilised a subtle fantasy motif rooted in adventure RPG's, yet still retained all aspects of a sci-fi shooter. Some bosses reflect this idea: A large mechanical spider, a craft shaped like a massive witch's hat, and a fiery ogre.

Axelay's gameplay varies quite a bit from that of traditional shooters. Instead of the player collecting weapon power-ups from defeated enemies in order to acquire more advanced weapons, the player earns weapons as he or she advances in the game. There are three weapon types with which the fighter is outfitted at the start of the level: a standard weapon, a special weapon, and a bomb or missile. The player may freely switch between each of these weapon types during a level. At the end of each level, a new choice of one of these types of weapons is added to the player's armory, and the player is given the ability to modify his or her fighter to suit the needs of the next level. Also, levels transition between upward and side scrolling layouts, forcing the player to select weapons that will be most effective for each level. Finally, the game eschews the standard one-hit-kill model prevalent in space shooters, instead simply disabling the currently selected weapon and reducing the player to a weak default version of that weapon type. Sustaining a second hit while using a weakened weapon will destroy the player's ship.

Reception
Axelay is largely considered a classic of the genre, and was voted #91 on EGM's 100 best games of all time in their 100th issue. It was also voted #6 on the 10 greatest 2D shooters list by ScrewAttack.

At the end of the game on the hardest difficulty, after beating the game twice, a message promises a sequel to this game, though it never materialised. According to Konami, it was never made because the game sold poorly.