There's something I find charming about PCE ports of arcade games with heavy use of scaling. While that was enough to get me through to the end of this game, I have to say that Thunder Blade is easily the weakest experience I've had with these ports. You have a sluggish craft with a large hitbox, and due to the lack of scaling, it's really hard to tell when an enemy, projectile, or object will hit you. And to make it worse, it can be hard to see projectiles on some of the busier screens. I ended up relying largely on finding movement patterns that made it less likely to get hit than I did on actively dodging when I could see. Some of this may have been true of the arcade version as well (I've never played any other version), but in any case, what we have is something that's frustratingly difficult to play despite the short length. It's not awful, but not something I'd recommend.
To be honest, I wasnt that surprised or happy about it, although the switch between "into the screen" and "top view" of action are interesting features.
