Anyone who’s read more than a few posts here might come to the conclusion that I rate games on a) whether there’s fan service, b) if the fan service is relevant to my interests, c) if there’s a lot of fan service, and d) whether or not the game is any fun to play.

This is not far from the truth at times.

Otomedius Excellent is one of the solitary exceptions to the rule, because it is nothing BUT fan service, complete with Yoshizaki Mine character designs and cute girls in glasses riding improbable fighter planes into battle, and I hated every minute of the hour it took to play through the story mode.

I LIKED the first game, Otomedius Gorgeous.  It was a little frustrating at times, but the levels were interesting and the enemy designs were hilarious.  Most of the bad guys were, for some reason, penguins.

The levels in Otomedius Excellent are dull, the enemies are a sea of indistinguishable generic robots, and about the only good thing I can say about the boss fights is that, after a while of fighting them, the bosses get just as bored with you as you are of them, and they leave.

Wait, no.  One of the bosses is a giant space battleship piloted by, in theory, Shiori from Tokimemo.  That would be kind of cool, if the boss was Tokimemo themed in some way, but it’s just a really generic space battleship.

I am at a loss for what possessed Konami to strip out most of what made the first game fun to play.

At least I only spent about twenty bucks on the domestic release rather than importing from Japan.  That’s something, I guess.