Tengai is an excellent horizontal shmup with a very intense pace, a smooth progressive difficulty curve, great visuals and a blood-pumping soundtrack. This port succeeds at bringing the game to computers with what seems to me flawless emulation with no input lag issues at all.

As other reviews have pointed out, it might be disappointing that the material added by the Saturn port is missing (extra animations, voice overs, bonus illustrations, guest character). I understand it could be argued that this release is transparent in its intention of translating the arcade original so ignoring the Saturn extra content is a reasonable choice, but still it means this cannot be considered a definitive way of playing Tengai —both the arcade and a Saturn mode should have been offered as an option from the main menu to do justice to the loving work that was poured into the home-console afterlife of this remarkable game.

However, the reason why this port undisputedly deserves a thumbs-down is that it fails at presenting the most essential features that should be expected from any shmup re-release this century: it doesn't have a practice mode (which already existed in the PS2 port!) and it doesn't even have save-states. Again: the game features NO PRACTICE MODE and NO SAVE-STATES.

Should they correct this preposterous situation and patch in basic features Tengai had almost 20 years ago in its PS2 incarnation, this review would turn into an enthusiastic thumbs up as the game itself is pure bliss. But as things are now, four years after release, this deserves nothing but scorn.

Tengai is an excellent horizontal shmup with a very intense pace, a smooth progressive difficulty curve, great visuals and a blood-pumping soundtrack. This port succeeds at bringing the game to computers with what seems to me flawless emulation with no input lag issues at all. As other reviews have pointed out, it might be disappointing that the material added by the Saturn port is missing (extra animations, voice overs, bonus illustrations, guest character). I understand it could be argued that this release is transparent in its intention of translating the arcade original so ignoring the Saturn extra content is a reasonable choice, but still it means this cannot be considered a definitive way of playing Tengai —both the arcade and a Saturn mode should have been offered as an option from the main menu to do justice to the loving work that was poured into the home-console afterlife of this remarkable game. However, the reason why this port undisputedly deserves a thumbs-down is that it fails at presenting the most essential features that should be expected from any shmup re-release this century: it doesn't have a practice mode (which already existed in the PS2 port!) and it doesn't even have save-states. Again: the game features NO PRACTICE MODE and NO SAVE-STATES. Should they correct this preposterous situation and patch in basic features Tengai had almost 20 years ago in its PS2 incarnation, this review would turn into an enthusiastic thumbs up as the game itself is pure bliss. But as things are now, four years after release, this deserves nothing but scorn.