#shmup
#shmup
by Amr (@siegarettes)
It’s hard not to feel underwhelmed by Thunder Force AC. Based on the arcade version of Thunder Force 3, and releasing after the much flashier SEGA AGES release of Thunder Force 4, AC can’t help but feel less polished, and incomplete. Despite its significance in preserving a rare arcade game, the changes made for the game don’t always result in a better game than the console title it’s based on, just a different one.
Unlike other titles like Columns II or Tant-R, the original console version isn’t included either, which is a shame, given that its previous AGES release on the 3DS never made it out of Japan. Together Thunder Force 3 and AC could have felt like a complete package, giving players a chance to not only play a hard to find arcade title, but directly compare it to its console counterpart. Without it, Thunder Force AC feels slim alongside the other AGES titles.
by Amr (@siegarettes)
Take the elaborate bullet patterns of modern STGs, give them to adorable fantasy monster girls, then combine them into a fighting game and you get Maiden & Spell. A niche within a niche, Maiden & Spell is part of a line of surprisingly varied shooter-fighting game hybrids, following in the mold set by G-Rev’s Senko no Ronde. As you might expect from a combination of such obsessive niches, Senko no Ronde was a maximalist game, one with highly detailed mechanics and obtuse nuances that required serious effort before you could begin to understand what you were playing.
Compared to its contemporaries, Maiden & Spell is stripped down, focused on immediate communication. It turns an intimidating genre into an inviting one, one you can show to your friends and immediately have them understand.
by Amr (@siegarettes)
Compiling six shooters from developer Psikyo, Shooting Stars Bravo follows an evolution in their philosophy of creating shooters. Shooting Stars Bravo is split between two series: the mythical Japanese themed Sengoku Aces, and the colorful fantasy of the Gunbird series. Each series follows a similar trajectory, with a no-frills first entry, peaking at the second, then going to wildly different places with the third. They each get to that point in unique ways, with wildly varying results.
by Amr (@siegarettes)
“A game ultimately based on capitalism”. That’s the way SEGA producer Yosuke Okunari described Fantasy Zone, in an interview on its 3DS remaster. Given its roots as an arcade game, that’s not too far from the truth. Amidst its cute aesthetics is a game not scared to play rough, to rob you of both your quarters and the in game currency you use to keep yourself capable of fighting back. The SEGA AGES release gives you ways to adjust how rough you want to play, but it’s still that same arcade game, and it’s gonna make you work. Instead it finds an interesting new way to rebalance the game: creating generational wealth.
by Amr (@siegarettes)
Made in the mold of CAVE’s DoDonPachi shooters, Ghost Blade HD takes on its familiar shooter staples, and replaces its anime schoolgirls with cheesecake pinup girls in lingerie. But that’s about as much color you’ll see from Ghost Blade. The problem with imitating the best in the genre is that you’ll be judged on the same standards. By comparison, Ghost Blade can come off as the bar top touchscreen version of a game you already know. Its fine–entertaining and solidly made, but otherwise aggressively average.
by Amr (@siegarettes)
Charming and inventive, Sky Racket’s synthesis of cute-em-ups and Arkanoid immediately won me over. There’s still nothing quite like the arc of a tennis racket, or the escalating tension of long rally, and Sky Racket builds on both beautifully. The crack of a racket and shatter of barriers is satisfying enough on its own, but the game builds on these with inventive mechanics and level design that kept me dancing across the screen.
by Amr (@siegarettes)
Pawarumi
Developer: Manufacture43
Publisher: Manufacture43
Switch, PC, Xbox One, PS4
Sporting a multiple weapon system and three color polarity system, Pawarumi might immediately bring to mind Treasure’s shooter diptych of Radiant Silvergun and Ikaruga. But while it clearly draws inspiration from the two, Pawarumi is both simpler and more complex. It frequently overwhelms, but is balanced by allowing some messiness. Pawarumi might be balanced around a triangle of weapons, but it’s often a game of dichotomies.
At the heart of Pawarumi is its three color weapon system. Red lasers home in on enemies, the green wave beam hits a wide area directly ahead, and the blue laser inflicts direct, steady damage in a small area. At first, Pawarumi seem follows the usual STG weapon balance, trading off between covering wider angles and doing direct damage. This is unfortunately undercut by two factors.
by Amr(@siegarettes)
Rolling Gunner feels like it stepped out of a time machine. Starting it up, there was something about the interface that immediately made me feel as if I were playing a doujin shooter from ten years ago. The interface, the very specific pixelated edges its pre-rendered sprites, down to the story sequences and between level transitions–all it felt right at home with my expectations of old doujin works. It was almost surprising to be playing it on the Switch, and in widescreen–if it wasn’t for the sheer density of projectiles this could easily pass for something you’d find on a 4:3 CRT monitor in some corner of a fan event.
That’s not to say Rolling Gunner feels, outdated. Rather it combines the sensibilities of latter year shooters with their modern design, and feels aware of the way people engage with the genre today.
