Cycle Chaser H-5

released on Mar 31, 2023
by PD_CGT

Mysterious Aliens have occupied a scorched Earth. A lone pilot seizes the skies. What is it they're after? Cycle Chaser H-5 is a horizontal arcade-style shoot-em-up. Burn through waves of impenetrable foes with a sleek arsenal of weapons. Defeat foes to harvest their energy, then activate the powerful 'Super Tatsujin' system for maximum power and defense!


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Never gotten to properly play through a shooter game in this style before but I think this was a pretty great game to start with. Good entry point for the shmup genre!

idk its kind of hard to write this knowing the person who made this game could very well be reading, so I'm just gonna stop before I embarrass myself. Congrats on making a game!!

If I had to point out a flaw about myself as a player, is that I don't give enough videogame genres the fighting chance they deserve to win me over. Strategy games, card games or even shooters, I've played quite a few over the years, but beating only some of them and the quantity pales in comparison to the amount of platformers, fighting or metroidvania games I've played; but without a doubt, shoot-em-ups are the ones I have avoided the most. It isn't a matter that I don't necessarily like them, but rather I just couldn't find one that ''clicked'' with me, most of the one that were recommended from friends and random people on posts online were just too hard and frustrating to me, mainly because they were catered to seasoned players, which I was anything but.

And then I saw this game. I'm always on the lookout for games developed by people that are on here, considering this is a site entirely dedicated to videogames and releasing one is, you know, a pretty big deal, and this time it was also developed by a person I follow! I know I wanted to play this game from the moment I saw it on visuals and sound alone, but I also went in hoping that, maybe this was time, the time I finally got into the genre, and I actually had fun with one of these kinds of games...



...and it actually happened!


Time to destroy some fish shaped ships

Cycle Chaser H-5 is probably the best entry point to the shoot-em-up genre I could have asked for, but calling it ''simple'' would be undermining a lot of clever decisions in play here. As I said before the game immediately catches your eyes and ears: the simplistic yet clear and distinct visual style and the up-beat yet oddly calming music work really great together, creating some unique enemy design and levels (The enemy ships shaped like fish actually act like fishes and I LOVE THAT SO MUCH), and when even in the most hectic of moments nothing was lost one me, 'cause believe me, this game does get hectic at times. The screen gets submerged in the chaos, yet where you or the enemies are is never up for debate: this game's priority is for you to know how to act at any given moment and it actively helps you staying alive, with a really permissive checkpoint system and with the hitbox of your ship being smaller than the ship itself, which is a deliberate designs decision and it makes you do much cooler plays and dodges without even noticing.

But perhaps the smartest design decision in the entire game is without a single doubt the percent bar. This one is filled as you attack and destroy enemies, and ounce it has 100% of energy you can perform a special attack, with the limit of energy you can have being 300%. This is all pretty normal stuff, but then there's the fact that this can also work as a shield, so at many points thought-out the levels and in many boss battles I was deciding if it would be better to save up energy in case they hit me or to use it to clean the screen of enemies and bullets, and that little mental puzzle added a lot of depth, and alongside the three different types of shots made this a constant dance of bullets that made the part of my brain that likes to shoot things in space go nuts.

There are still a few things that didn't really end up falling in place for me tho: mini-bosses are surprisingly easy to beat it, they all look amazing, but I can't really talk about their attacks when they die 10 seconds after I encounter them, and I found really peculiar considering how good the main level bosses are; some things aren't communicated as well as I hoped too, some bullets are able to be destroyed by your normal attacks, but it sometimes felt random, and specially in boss battles distinguishing which attacks can be destroyed by normal means is where things can get a bit confusing. And perhaps what really rubbed me off the most by the end: the story was told in a really weird way, there's a really interesting subversive narrative here that I do quite like, but I didn't even know that until I killed the final boss. I understand the narrative isn't the games priority but with the amount of incredibly detail the levels and enemies have in the logs in the menu, it's strange to me that so much of the storytelling is either done without words or done just after you are done with the game your first time around.

But saying that these flaws make Cycle Chaser H-5 something that's not amazing would be a complete and total lie: it's a hour long adventure that with which I had so much fun. I never felt frustrated when I died, I was always excited to pop back in and beat the level I was own and getting this sensation from a vertical shoot-em-up just... just made me really happy.

If someone ever asks me a good place to start with these kinds of game, I will point them out this one, is that good and welcoming to newcomers that I really can't think about another game that checks all the boxes like this one does. while at the same time a memorable experience and one of the biggest surprises of the year by far.

When I write a review, I always do it with the creators and developers in mind, and as such I always try to be as nice as possible, even tho they will never read them. But this time, there's a real possibility that the creator is reading is, and if you are, I just have one more thing to say to you... Congrats man! You really did a dope ass game, and I hope you enjoyed this review even a little, 'cause I sure had a fun time with Cycle Chaser H-5, to the point I might do multiple runs, which I barely do with any game in general!

See y'all battling aliens... in the year 68XX

A great thing about meeting people with different tastes is you get to try stuff you otherwise wouldnt have. So when your friend tells you to play GDarius for the meme and cause they think you might enjoy it, you do it. That was the first and up until today only real shoot'em up I had gotten through and I somewhat enjoyed it, even if I really only got through it by save scumming to hell and back. That being said I wasnt exactly sold on the genre, it just seemed really stressful and requiring a lot of practice to even start to enjoy it in any capacity.

So I was a little hesitant when the same friend told me their shmup was coming out this week. "Oh god, what if it just pisses me off and I have to tell him it was too hard for me?". So far I've seen people here echo the complaint that the game is too easy for the shmup veterans, and that is probably true, cause I am really bad at these games and it was only mostly kicking my ass.

Practiced a bit with the casual mode (infinite lives) and then beat the game on the basic difficulty after lets say, 6 or 7 game overs. Unlike with my previous experience though, I'm left thinking I might try out the advance difficulty soon, I slowly started to get into the patterns of dodging and reaching that much talked about 'flow' state. The feeling of beating the final boss evoking that familiar sense of victory I remember from say, defeating false king allant in demon souls.

I did get killed a bunch of times in the later areas and I think the "cacophony" level is the weakest point in the game.

The artstyle is appealing and I think the colour scheme is done very well to make every projectile very readable, I don't think I ever wondered about what had hit me. I don't really know how to describe the art direction but its very distinct.

The writing and lore is interesting and maybe after a few more trips to the ingame sort of wiki I'll have a better understanding of it, though I wouldnt have minded a tiny bit more exposition before the final stage, maybe after the first or second boss? Sound design is punchy, I quite liked the final boss music, though I found it kind of distracting that the sound that occurs when you fill your meter sounds eerily similar to the "join call" sound on Discord?

Nitpicks aside I can say from the perspective of a newcomer to this type of game that its a good entry point. That doesnt mean I'm going to start playing through Ikaruga as soon as I finish this review, but I'll definitely play some more of Cycle Chaser and I'm open to playing more of what the genre has to offer.

It's a difficult ordeal to review a game from someone you know, especially if they're among the first friends you made on BL. After all, what good are my thoughts if I don't give a concise look without being biased? I never want to potentially hurt anyone's feelings, and I feel like I'd be pulling their leg if I gave them five stars just for being someone I talk to on the regular.

I'll try my best to be constructive with this shmup, while also being as uplifting as possible.

The presentation hits me as hard as the Mega Drive instruments in the soundtrack, where I play an inner game of "I heard that sound somewhere" as vocal soundbytes from The Hybrid Front ring out. Gendy Tartakovsky-esque style of art that reminds me of cartoons I watched overnight back in ye olden times, as I was being assaulted by bullet patterns both familiar and new to myself. I adored the little enemy logs with in-character excerpts and pencil sketch artwork that I viewed after completing the game, letting me know of the care given to crafting this universe that Cycle Chaser H-5 resides in.

I imagine that difficulty balancing is probably one of the hardest things about game development, especially when you playtest your own game so much that you must rely on others and gauge from there. It's even a tad difficult for me as someone who just played this, is it a bit easy? Well, for someone like me who was commonly brutalized by Super R-Type during their childhood, I ended up never getting the game over achievement in my two runs in Basic and Advanced. Suffice to say though, I think everyone aside from the most masochistic of sweaty humans will agree that they would rather have something that was fun than agonizingly unfair and difficult. Personally, I would say it's a lovely shmup for someone who is generally scared of the worst that STGs have to offer and are looking for an entry point. I do quite look forward to your own version of "DEVIL" difficulty in the future, you don't need to call it that, but well ya know.

...and after all this, all I can say is that the game might be easy for veterans of the genre? Well, if that's the only complaint that I have for something I only needed to lay down eight dollars for, then I think you succeeded. I knew you knew your stuff with these kind of games. All I recall asking was that you make a better shmup than Gaiares, and instead you made a shmup I liked more than Thunder Force III. I appreciate how much you overdelivered on that, and I look forward to more of your work.

Just let me know when I can buy your soundtrack, okay?

I was given the honor to playtest this by the developer (known on this very site as MagneticBurn), a good friend of mine who shares a lot of interests with me and sounds like the evil bird from Rio when he laughs.

Rather than a more ambitious first outing, he opted for a simple shmup that presents itself as accessible even for people inexperienced in the genre (or savescummers such as myself). It gets the job done very nicely. Proudly wearing influences such as Thunder Force and Darius on its sleeves, it still remains distinct with its much more forgiving difficulty and its striking visuals. I've been a fan of his art ever since I'd seen some of it and it shines through very nicely here, maybe at its brightest yet.

One thing I really like about this one that I don't see much in other games is the "free run" mode. This essentially allows you to just waltz through the game with infinite lives at the cost of score and achievements, which sounds a bit silly at first but it provides a great way to practice some trickier bits if needed. It's interesting to see a shmup that holds your hand a little, and in my opinion it's quite welcome as someone who just isn't very good at games. If free run sounds lame to you, fret not! It's always entirely optional and you can just go straight to basic or advanced mode if you please. Everybody wins! (I'd assume so).


I don't really have many complaints. Call it bias, but I think this is great in all the important regards. The only thing I can really think of is that the character portrait in the top left feels a little expressionless after I was spoiled by Pizza Tower earlier this year. Nothing totally necessary, but would make for a nice finishing touch. I did mention this in testing, though, so maybe it'll be updated a little if he feels like it.

At the end of the day, it's very exciting to see this out and I'm glad I could help in some form leading up to release. I hope you guys enjoy this as much as I did.