I initially thought this game was too hard. Now i'm a scrub gamer. I suck at videogames, but i'm a sucker for fun videogames. This is what that game is. Hella fun. Thank god it's optimizable because I was able to continue max all the way through. However, for those who want a hardcore approach, It's totally present and super rewarding. It's a Schmup, so your shooting enemies and avoiding bullet hell damage. The designs are pretty good and i'm not even a guy that likes fantasy. Especially the bosses, they look like something outta Backugan, it's really badass. The shooting is great. You have 3 different types. First is standard shooting, second is sending your dragon out for a stronger shot while your still mobile (you can also let the launched dragon do a special in this mode, and lastly the Schmup staple of blowing shit up with da bomb button. It's a whole lotta fun and all the levels are creative whilst providing a fair challenge. All the difficulty in this game I had was a skill issue. So, as a noob I had plenty of skill issues lol. However, improving in this game really feels great because the longer you live the stronger your weapons get, so going on a streak makes me feel like The Fist of The North Star just tearing through his enemies. This game is challenging and a whole lotta fun. Throughout this week, Dragon Blaze was a constant game I would pick-up and play.

I went in expecting a pretty cut-and-dry shmup, and was pleasantly surprised to learn that there's a little more under the surface, even with an incredibly narrow range of difficulties for having 6 options, down to "child easy" and "monkey easy." The complexity comes in with the Dragon Shot mechanic, where you launch your dragon forward, temporarily separating it from the rider in a burst of damage and then making it into a sort of stationary turret until recalled. To survive Dragon Blaze, you need to use the Dragon Shot frequently, but this becomes a challenge when now you need to keep track of the location of two entities instead of one. Provided, the dragon will not take damage, and will continue to shoot while it's separated from its rider, but the game provides bonuses for using the Dragon Shot at opportune times, extra coins drop from enemies, some enemies drop special point boosts when hit with the DS, and every boss has a very brief animation where they're prone to being one-shot by the DS, usually in the midst of a cloud of bullets that make navigation even more difficult.
Mechanically, it can feel a little dry compared to other shmups, especially with more modern advances in the genre, but it's charming in its simplicity, its art style is great, and goddamn it it makes me think of Panzer Dragoon just a little bit so call me biased if you must.
Its one very very noticeable flaw is its absolute terrible UI, it feels right out of a mobile game port and reminds me of the early days of the Steam Chrono Trigger port that was just straight up the iphone port with shitty default fonts and all

In the realm of SHMUPs where shortest range attack is maybe a lock on attack, melee abilities are rare, and even then, frankly unsatisfying. examples of this are Radirgy, Soldier blade and Radiant Silvergun but all of them feel very limp as much I love RSG. even Psikyo tried melee attacks multiple times before.

but this game gets it. each character has a dedicated melee button which when pressed, launches the dragon the player is riding, a short distance forward with great force which is strong enough to kill pretty much any stage enemy and deal great damage to the bosses and whatever enemy killed with it spawns numerous gold coins instead of the few silver that is normally released from killing enemies. and it feels so satisfying, your dragon stays there like an option from r-type dealing damage by its own and collects whatever item that touches it until called back to you. the feeling of hitting an enemy with the melee attack and having all the excess gold coins collected by the stationed dragon afterwards never gets old and it ties the attack and the quick-killing playstyle of Psikyo games perfectly to the scoring system of the game.
bosses have brief moments where they expose their weak point and unleash a very brutal pattern against you and if you manage to climb through the deadly pattern and get close enough to hit it with the melee attack, it gets killed instantly and you get a Technical Bonus Which is even more satisfying because Psikyo bosses are such mean pieces of shit.
I get it now...

A couple months ago I wrote a really fucking mean (and undeserved) review on Sengoku blade not seeing the appeal of Psikyo games but this game has really eased me into them. being able to zoom around the screen while dodging these lightning fast patterns is something very sweet and the games generally shower you with a lot of resources like meter attacks and it helps you route around all types of difficulties you're facing in your run. the bosses are so well animated and expressive which adds to the charm of the games. and honestly think I'm gonna give a few of their games a second chance like Striker 1945 II because I want more now.

first time seeing a necromancer named Ian.