Caladrius Blaze is a pretty good shmup with a lot of contents.

There are different games mode (three story mode, a boss rush, a score attack) ; a large choice of difficulty levels allow all kinds of players to enjoy the game ; eight characters/ships to choose (all with different weapons and unique story), a gallery and replay mode.

The gameplay is good and graphics too. The weapons mechanic is interesting : each ship has four weapons, three can be upgrade, all of this three has its own specificity in battle.
The music is average but do its job.

Stages and bosses are enough challenging and so are they the three story mode with their own scoring mechanics in order to keep you busy a while.

And now, about the "shame break"... Or Caladrius the strip shmup ! All playable characters and bosses, when they are hit, will be striped a bit. Ok, we're not in Waifu Uncovered ! But in Waifu, at least, that was the core and the meaning of the game.
I'll not argue about the true value of it in a shmup that would be, without this, a classic and solid one .
If you like fan service it'll be a plus. Fortunately if you dont, Moss add the option to disabled it for those who just want a classic shmup experience.

Despite the "shame break" which may be discordant, Caladrius Blaze remains a solid and entertaining shmup experience.

What makes a good shmup? Honestly, I haven't played nearly enough of the genre to say, but whatever it is that makes games like Ikaruga or the Touhou titles stand out from the rest just isn't here. On paper, this game is really good. It has eight different characters to choose from, each with their own set of three different alt-fire attacks on top of their regular shot, character art by the excellent Suzuhito Yasuda, and a series of increasingly absurd boss fights. None of that did anything for me. The stages were bland, the music was just a generic rock soundtrack, and the bosses were all incredibly forgettable in terms of their attack patterns. The only thing this game did to stand out was actually use the black bars on the side of the screen for something. The game has what it calls a "shame break" system, where character CGs are swapped out with clothing damaged alternates as the player or a boss take damage, kind of like how FEH does things. I'm not someone who's put off by fanservice in games, but it just felt kind of weird to be fighting a giant eagle mech only to have splash art of an anime girl clinging to the last scraps of her clothing shoved in my face.

The splash art wasn't even that good.