The best games in the shmup genre always manage to make the player feel powerful, even when they're up against overwhelming odds. It's one of the best things about the genre, and is a crucial ingredient to the push-and-pull of game design that the best shmups manage to execute so gracefully. Grand Cross Renovation goes all in on this player empowerment, with the entire ~40 minute game loop being an insane power fantasy of sun blades, explosions and bosses being melted down to scrap metal in seconds. Although Grand Cross lacks the depth and replay value of its betters, the moment-to-moment experience of playing is extremely gratifying. Watching everything on the screen explode in ridiculous ways while trying to process what's actually going on mechanically is a good experience in its own way, and is one I'll definitely be coming back to every so often.

It's not like Grand Cross is all flash and no substance either. There's certainly some thoughtful design decisions and scoring mechanics here. The sun blade is devastatingly powerful, but using it drains your hp. However; being on low hp increases your risk multiplier, giving the game a risky, aggressive scoring playstyle. Some midboss and boss enemies can also be "overkilled", up to 300 extra hits after destruction, which is both risk vs reward and extremely cool conceptually. The manual aiming of the sun blade gives the player 360-degree shot coverage, which is a simple but effective way of bypassing a problem many "vertizontal" 16:9 shmups face, that being the issue of taking to long to move your shots across the screen.

Grand Cross is a solid game, but sadly also has missed potential. I like to compare this game to the Touhou fangame IKUSAAAAAAAN! (7 a's) - both are Treasure-inspired shmups which rely on conveying a power fantasy through over the top presentation. However; IKUSAAAAAAAN! is both even more over the top and has more engaging gameplay in the long term compared to Grand Cross. With some more adjustable difficulty selections and content, Grand Cross likely would have been able to reach the same heights. That said, GCR is still very much worth checking out just for how cathartic your first (and maybe only) hour of playtime is guaranteed to be.

Comes close to matching the blistering pace of Sin and Punishment, and makes the smart decision to reward players with enough credits to comfortably see the ending, while pushing veterans to stay on the razor’s edge by making your extra powerful “Sun Blade'' siphon off your health. It’s a weapon that changes the way you see fights, a line of energy that can destroy bullets and damage multiple enemies at once- in its best moments you’ll be fanning the screen to negate a wave of projectiles before repositioning to cut through the entirety of a boss. Use it long enough and you’ll get a critical bonus which causes new bosses and enemy patterns to appear, giving you even more of a reason to push yourself outside your comfort zone.

Suffers a bit from a sense of déjà vu throughout, with most of the encounters matching you against some jagged monstrosity that barrages you with lasers from the top of the screen- think the game could benefited from a few more curveballs in terms of stage and boss design, hazards that might force to you to more carefully track enemies and reorient yourself more often. This might be the downside of being such a thrillride, where a cool section or enemy might only get a few seconds of screentime before being deleted.

Good stuff otherwise, always glad to see a game carry on the lineage of having a stanza as the boss warning.

Pure fabulous id-scratching meathead spectacle. Rewards the same bullheaded daredevil style of play of a Ketsui with a significantly lower skill ceiling overall. Not one for those who come to shmups for strategy or "challenge" per se, but balancing how much of your regenerating life bar to use for your souped-up laser sword in any given situation is still thrilling enough to make up for it. Great entry-level title and definitely recommended for the curious.

EDIT: Echoing BeachEpisode's observation that this desperately needs an epilepsy warning up front btw

A kaleidoscope of explosion .gifs. Where this game fails at being a particularly mechanically engaging shmup, or even all that difficult, it excels(?) at festooning the screen with information laced with utterly extraneous action and special effects. To say this game puts its presentation above all else is an understatement, hardcore Heralds of the Shmup will no doubt be disappointed at the lack of precision-engineered scoring systems, mode variety or bullet patterns on offer here. I think that's what those guys care about.
More casual thrillseekers like myself are the target demographic for Grand Cross Renovation - the shmup genre for me is all about style and aggression, maintaining cool heads while the going gets rough and eeking through unfathomable odds, one small hitbox against every star in the sky. This game may not be particularly replayable, but it lent me a single unforgettable 50-minutes of wall-to-wall deus ex machina bull shit and I loved holding a controller through it with a face like a deer in the headlights. Features an incredible soundtrack that reacts dynamically to the action, too. It's all kind of a mess, but is crackling and pulsing with self-motivated enthusiasm, a freight train derailing and barreling through the setpiece factory.
I beg you not to play this game if you experience photosensitive epilepsy, it needs a fucking bright red warning at the cart.