Take the classic Konami 2D arcade shooter Gradius, spice it up with some anime chicks with big breasts who straddle their spaceships and ride them (yeah, you heard me), throw it onto an Xbox 360 disc, and what do you get? Konami's newest Gradius-inspired / spoof release, Otomedius Excellent.

Otomedius Excellent is a hyper-energized, super-Japanese, super-anime-babe kind of game. You see, Otomedius Excellent is a 2D-styled arcade shooter, but it's coated with more scantily clad, high-pitched, squealing anime girls than you could possibly imagine. So far, so good, right? Well, sure it is, but unfortunately, it seems Konami was hoping all this eye-candy would cover up lazily-designed gameplay and an overall weak shooter.

2D side-scrolling shooters should have a few things. They should encompass the bullet curtain theory, where every single thing on the screen can and will kill you. Controls should be slick, while levels should be tough as nails, but not unfairly impossible due to bad design. Most of all, the ship you control should be able to collect power-up after power-up and become one mean shooting machine.

Sure, Otomedius Excellent has power-ups, a few ships / girls to pick from, and a variety of enemies, but there's very little else that shows Otomedius Excellent is a good 2D arcade-style shooter. Controls aren't spot-on, and often they seem downright sluggish. This is a big no-no in the world of 2D side-scrolling arcade shooters. Second, the graphics overall suffer framerate issues, another big no-no in the world of super-fast paced arcade shooters. The option of having power-ups automatically applied to your ship or being able to apply them manually was very nice, but not a saving grace. While playing through the breezy eight stages of Otomedius Excellent (it took me less than an hour), I was continually assaulted with anime breasts, so I suppose that was a good thing and it will probably make any male, young or old, happy, but these bouncing bosoms never distracted me enough to see how poor of a game Otomedius Excellent actually was, especially for Konami, the king of the arcade shooters. 

Difficulty comes in the form of a rough game design between ship controls, firing rates, and enemy patterns instead of good design. Throw in some weak, uninspired bosses and there's not much of a game here. Overall, Otomedius Excellent is a heck of a disappointment.

Music has a J-Pop vibe to it, so most gamers will either leave it or take it; however, Otomedius Excellent will find a happy home in most otaku and J-Gamers homes. The wardrobe designs (or lack of wardrobe, if you will) are creative, and everything screams anime silliness and irrelevance. If you choose to replay the stages, you'll earn more experience points, enabling you to upgrade your ships and unlock new girls. The hardest part about it though, will be actually wanting to go back and play through this lemon of a shooter.

A local co-op mode is supported, and an online one too. Up to three gamers can play, but even if you were able to stick six gamers onto the screen, it wouldn't make Otomedius Excellent any more excellent. This wonky, weird, overly-Japanese, and clunky shooter is easily forgettable. At a 30 dollar price tag, most gamers will feel they aren't getting anything worth of their dime; even if Otomedius Excellent were a 15 dollar downloadable title, I'd still feel a little jipped considering there are far superior 2D shooters out there. Still, it's nice to see these very Japanese titles released here in the states, as back in the 80s and 90s we would have never seen this sort of game make it to our shores, so for hardcore anime fans and J-Gamers, Otomedius Excellent is a nice little release. While this game fits the niche for those types of gamers, oddly, I don't think it fits the niche for casual gamers or hardcore 2D arcade shooter fans either… Unfortunately, this game reeks of style over substance. 

GameDynamo's Score for Otomedius Excellent (X360)

	Score	Description
Graphics	58	Often shoddy-looking and not very smooth, though at least there's plenty of brightly-animated, bouncing-breasted anime chicks to go around.
Sound	62	If you like J-Pop anime action music, then you'll love it. If not, you'll hate it.
Gameplay	54	Clunky, boring, and immensely disappointing compared to the Konami shooters of the past and newer releases of 2D arcade shooters. Otomedius Excellent excels in very little.
Play Value	42	Eight levels which will take less than an hour to complete, along with very few reasons to replay (not much more than a few unlockables and a co-op mode that is anything but special). Even at a low price tag of 30 dollars, most gamers will wonder what they just spent their money on.
Final Score	53	A game for anime fans and J-Gamers, but hardcore 2D arcade shooter fans steer clear, along with any casual gamers with a Western mindset. There's still an okay 2D shooter somewhere in the mix, but nothing worth going out of your way to get your hands on.

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