Nobody likes Japanophiles – it’s a fact. Unfortunately, the internet (being, of course, the bane of our existence) is always ready with some annoying little mangahead who can’t help but go on and on about this or that in Japan. Whether it’s impressing no-one with lame party trick Japanese or learning then rabidly reciting the theme song to Neon Genesis Evangelion, I think web users everywhere will agree that these people need nothing less than a good hard slap to the head.

Unfortunately, this puts me in an awkward position. Because I love Tetsuya Mizuguchi.

Well, actually, let me be clear: I don’t actually love him. That would be weird – though it did serve to make the introduction a bit more interesting. As an aspiring game programmer, and a forum user who has just seen his respectability drop into negative numbers for saying that, what I actually think is that his back catalogue is incredible. So in fact I love his games. Whatever.

So it’s with some disappointment that I’m sat here with heavy thoughts about the newest game from his company, Q Entertainment – a hyper-reworked version of the immense PSP game, Every Extend Extra. Called Every Extend Extra Extreme (or E4 as ‘the kids’ call it), it takes the challenging, beautiful, honed and toned E3, gives it a shakedown, and chucks oodles of bloom, bombs and beats over what was a perfectly good game to start with… confusing the game’s objectives in the process.

Can you tell I’m not impressed? That’s because I’m not impressed. Why, Q Entertainment, did you have to use so much bloom? Why are there no proper levels and bosses and progression? And why oh why is it so damn easy?

I guess those who haven’t played any of the Every Extend games would probably appreciate a bit of a heads up right now. You are a ship, pulsing to an ever-increasing BPM rate. Your enemies are numerous, abstract and scattered, traversing the screen in time with the music. Your only weapon is self-explosion, and your objective is to take out as many enemies as you can with each detonation. A good detonation results in a chain of explosions, wiping the screen and gaining you valuable points and ‘Extends’ – read ‘extra lives’. Enemies numbers increase with the BPM rate, and the only way to increase that is through use of ‘Quickens’ – items that build not just pace, but anxiety.

Or at least, they did.

See, here’s the thing – E3 (the PSP version, you remember) allowed you a max of 8 Quickens, and achieving this was no small task. They sped the game up immensely, and the risk-reward mechanic was that the blistering speed meant that the chance of being hit was high, but so was the ability to make massive chains. Alas, E4 (XBLA) allows you unlimited Quickens – each speeding the music up a tiny amount until it caps at a certain rate. Not only is the skill involved lost, but also the feeling of speed and pressure.

Featured elsewhere on the list of ‘stuff that is much worse’ is the lack of bosses. The levels just go on and on indefinitely – more times have I actually paused and quit than have I died in game. What is the point of even playing if there is no real objective? OK, the game has added a new mode, Revenge, where you can fire shots at enemies and some small bosses in a level by level structure. But to be totally honest, it’s not what E4 is about and furthermore, it’s boring. The music is poor, the progression slow and the speed lacking.

Another flawed addition is the functionality to put your own tunes in the game. It should have been an incredible extra, but as it turns out the game’s ability to detect BPM rate, or indeed make any connection between music and gameplay, is quite simply atrocious. And again – no bosses, no objectives.

On the upside, it certainly looks pretty .Explosions are full of sparks, the bloom (though ridiculous) does give it a sheen that the PSP couldn’t ever manage and the vector artwork is sharp and clear. It’s also fairly cheap – at 800 MS points it’s good for a 10 minute blast of lights and colour. Then again, Rez HD is 800 MS points… and you really should own Rez HD over this.

There, I think, lies the main issue. E4 is a game that I want to love, like the rest of the Mizuguchi family. However, with every positive point I can think of, there’s a negative. E4 does something, and E3 or other Q games do it better. Without the ancestry, E4 itself is a fun, fast, blast of a game that you can dip in and out of for plenty of explosive japery. But it does have ancestry, and unfortunately its elder brethren far outstrip its own merits. If you’re a bit of a rhythm shooter diehard and like this sort of thing regardless, then fire away. That said, if you’ve a choice between this and the PSP version, then it would definitely be E3 for me.