Video Game / Hydorah

HYDORAH IS BASED ON 80'S GAME STANDARDS. IT WILL REQUIRE SOME TACTICAL PLAYING SO, SHOW YOUR POWER OR PREPARE TO DIE!

— Warning Message

Hydorah is a freeware horizontal Shoot 'Em Up by Locomalito that takes after classic arcade games, namely games like Gradius, Xexex, R-Type, and Darius. Needless to say, it is somewhat difficult. Pick it up here - you'll be glad you did.

It got an Updated Re Release in Super Hydorah, Released in 2017 for Steam, PlayStation 4, Xbox One and in 2018 for the Nintendo Switch. This adds a few new levels, bosses, and power ups.

This game provides examples of:

• Always a Bigger Fish: In the Path of Scylla, see below.
• Asteroid Thicket: The first level.
• Attack Drone: The Scort weapon
• Bait-and-Switch Boss: The Bonefish in the Path of Scylla. Halfway into the battle, Scylla bites it and drags it further into the level. You later see it being fought over by two of Scylla's heads. Lampshaded by the pilot: "What the hell was that?!"
• Antagonist Title: Hydorah is the Big Bad.
• Battleship Raid: The Galactic Inferno.
• Boss Rush: No Mercy has you facing the Meroptican Elite; luckily, each one that falls is another check point.
• Cameo Cluster: In the good ending, a series of monuments to heroes of classic shoot'em up games such as Gradius, R-Type, Darius and XEXEX are shown.
  • In Super Hydorah's Hero Ending, you instead have statues of the heroes of other Locomalito's games.
• Collapsing Ceiling Boss: One of the attacks of the Cyclades boss does this. Also a more extreme example with the Dunarys boss, which is literally a collapsing ceiling.
• Continuing is Painful: While not as bad as certain shmups, you lose roughly 33% of your upgrades each time you die, which is still pretty crippling during a boss fight.
• Do Well, But Not Perfect: If you beat the first two phases of the Red Eden boss too quickly, then you'll have to wait forever on the last phase before you can even attack, due to the badly designed movement pattern.
  • In Super Hydorah, the weak point stays open on the third phase, so you no longer need to wait.
• Easy-Mode Mockery: In Super Hydorah, playing the game on the "Cadet" difficulty will grant you a 3-hit shield at the beginning of every level, but your score is halved and you cannot obtain the True Hero Ending.
• Eldritch Abomination: Hydorah himself, who looks quite bizarre (somewhere between a humanoid without arms and a serpent), is quite large compared to a human, sports a bit of a Voice of the Legion, is a god and lives at the center of a seeming Womb Level and uses some fairly bloody projectiles against the player.
• Excuse Plot: There are sixteen lines of dialogue in the entire game, including multiple variations and the post credits scene. And some of those are not even relevant to the plot, whatever it is.
• Featureless Protagonist: Played with. The pilot is never seen without a helmet on in game, even during the post victory Credits Montage. We hear his voice, however, so we know he's male. Also, one of the posters shows the pilot with his face visible.
• God-Emperor: Hydorah is a god, and appears to be ruling the Meropticons. Also, it looks suspicious worm like.
• Good All Along: The boss from the two Breather Levels rescues you at the end after your ship is damaged by the collapse of Meropticon. In the best ending, he takes his child to visit a monument to you. His final words implied that he's mind-controlled by Hydorah and there's the fact that he could gave a heart-shaped bullet that gave the pilot extra life.
• Guide Dang It!: A few of the secret items are rather... unintuitive.
• Infinity +1 Sword: Ancient Sword, the last power weapon. Strangely for a shooter game, this is also a literal sword.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: When told in No Mercy that they're gonna have to essentially be a One-Man Army and infiltrate Meropticon to finish off Hydorah, the pilot responds with, "I'm a shoot-em-up pilot, colonel!"
• Load-Bearing Boss: The entire planet of Meropticon starts self destructing inexplicably after you defeat Hydorah.
• One-Hit-Point Wonder: The shield powerup turns you into a Two Hit Point Wonder. After you clear the game, you start every life with a shield.
• Orcus on His Throne: Hydorah's units are attacking but he himself doesn't seem to be doing much besides sit on a throne.
• Marathon Boss: Rubina, if you use anything besides the Wave (which you get much later in the game). Also, if you finish the first two phases of the Red Eden boss too quickly, the third phase will take ages because the timing of the patterns gets messed up.
  • Also the Galactic Inferno. After a long level and two minibosses, the final boss has three forms (not counting its turret defences), including coming back for some Bullet Hell fun after apparently being killed off. You will be very satisfied and reassured when it finally burns away to nothing.
• Multiple Endings: If you don't destroy all the seeds of hydorah, you get a Bad End.
  • Super Hydorah has a Hero Ending if you get the good ending without using a single continue. It only changes the monuments at the end, see The Cameo for details.
• New Game Plus: If you find all the Secret Items you can start a new game with all weapons and effectively unlimited save options.
  • Also, after beating the game and getting the good ending you get a free shield each time you die.
• "Not So Different" Remark: The Big Bad objects with this line after you call him a tyrant.
• Ominous Pipe Organ: A particularly evil one plays as you approach Hydorah himself in the final stage.
• Precision F-Strike: In the Path of Scylla, when Scyllia grabs the giant fish halfway into the level, the player says "What the hell is that?"
• Remilitarized Zone: Red Eden
• Save-Game Limits: And strict ones at that; your stock of saves is very limited and can only be used in between levels.
  • However the game is slightly more forgiving than it looks, as several later bosses drop additional saves, meaning you aren't limited to just the initial three.
• Scenery Porn
• Shifting Sand Land: Dunarys, complete with sandstorms, a Sand Worm like miniboss, and a Temple of Doom.
• Shout-Out: Beside the evident inspiration from several classics of the Shoot 'Em Up genre (Hydorah looks almost like a lost Konami game from the early 1990s), there are also a couple of references to Turrican: one of the special weapons is an energy wall named "Turri Wall", and the parade of bosses of No Mercy includes the iconic giant fist.
  • And besides the homage to shmup heroes described above, the game features Yomar◊ from Knightmare II: The Maze of Galious as a background element at one point.
• The Very Definitely Final Dungeon: The planet Meropticon, a black rhomboid-prism-shaped planet (that smacks of being artificial) that seems somewhat reminiscent of Leviathan from Hellraiser and is the stronghold of the evil god that rules it, Hydorah.
• Under the Sea: Path of Scylla.
• Video Game Caring Potential: In Super Hydorah, you have a possibility to beat the boss of the two Breather Levels without shooting him. Wait for him to shoot a heart-shaped attack, and touch said attack.
• Video-Game Lives
• Waiting Puzzle: The third secret requires you to randomly wait a while in the boss room after defeating the boss.
• Wave-Motion Gun: You'll be on the wrong end of one of these in Galactic Inferno.
• Womb Level: A borderline example with the final segment of Meropticon. The walls appear to be pulsing blood vessels, and everything is red, but it's not clear whether you are actually inside an organism.
  • Further evidenced by the hydorah seed in the Path of Scylla which is starting to fill the surroundings with the "grasses" seen in the final level.

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