i want to preface this by saying that my knowledge of shmups is pretty marginal. i've never beaten one (until now) and only know the classics and a select few recent ones, but not in depth at all. i mention this because the only other review currently seems to make a lot of valid criticisms, but they also seem much more knowledgable about the genre! this is my opinion as a team ladybug fan, not a shmup head.

i get it now! i had a blast playing this. visually it's a delight, which is to be expected from team ladybug. it does feel a little cluttered at times, though i feel it's largely due to inexperience. i think attacks are largely choreographed well enough, i was just mistiming things. the sprites and models are all super sharp and crisp. the soundtrack is also a banger, high-octane and adrenaline pumping. what was most surprising was the story honestly. i didn't expect much from a retro style shmup story, but it definitely had me interested and popping off at moments, though it is a tad trope-y.

i played on normal and struggled a lot, largely towards the end of the first half and most of the second half, but it was never frustrating due to the generous checkpoints. a 1cc is probably not in my future lmao. i could definitely see a more experienced player breezing though it, as the absorb mechanic does seem super powerful if used well.

the game definitely has me wanting to finally dive into the classics i've seen and heard so much about. maybe then, after i'm a 1cc god i'll look back and think it's a little lacking, but it also got me started on the path to tackle an entire genre, so i have to give it props.

After playing the game for around 6 hours and clearing both loops on arcade mode I finally feel confident in giving Drainus a review score.

Drainus is a surprise dropped, weirdly-named horizontally-scrolling shmup released by Team Ladybug - the studio which you may recognise for Touhou Luna Nights. Ladybug's works are known for extremely high quality sprite art and polished presentation, and Drainus definitely lives up to the studio's reputation in this regard, if not raising the bar even further.

Seriously, this game looks great already in screenshots and it's even better in motion. The mix of highly-detailed sprite art and 3D effects gives Drainus a distinctive visual style, and the game is just filled with spectacular setpieces from beginning to end (such as the stage 1 intro sequence, which truly does not get old no matter how many times I see it).

I've seen some people complain about the soundtrack being bad which is a complaint I don't understand. While the music isn't quite as good as the visuals, it's still a very strong soundtrack (good enough for me to have purchased the soundtrack on steam, in fact). Many of the songs are catchy and overall the composition nails the Gradius V-inspired progressive techno, semi-orchestral vibe they were going for. Maybe I'm just a shallow person, but the utter glory and confidence of the presentation is enough to make me overlook the many flaws within the moment-to-moment gameplay experience, at least to an extent.

Another thing to note is that Drainus has quite a hefty amount of storytelling (at least, for shmup standards) if you aren't playing on arcade mode. While the story in Drainus is a fairly generic "underdog hero defeats the big evil space empire" kind of narrative, and the main characters involved are quite one-dimensional, it's still communicated to the player pretty well through stage intermission cutscenes and discoverable audio logs. There are some moments of genuinely good foreshadowing and emotionally-satisfying narrative payoffs for those paying attention. The trend of modern shmups developed by indie/doujin and other smaller studios dabbling further into storytelling without disrupting the flow of gameplay required for the genre to work is a trend that I think is healthy and should be encouraged.

Now to talk about the actual game mechanics of Drainus, which is where things get a bit more dicey. The main gimmick of Drainus is that you have a shield which can absorb all non-physical projectiles and reflect them back against enemies for more score and/or damage. This shield is tied to a guard meter which recharges when you aren't using the shield. This mechanic works quite well and the creative stage designs and bosses do a good job at mixing things up in regards of where and when to ideally absorb bullets. It kind of reminds me of the much older doujin shooter RefleX or maybe even something like Mars Matrix.

You also have a ton of other resources besides the absorb shield, which is where the game's balances takes a big hit. As well as the absorb shield, you have an Axelay-style health system where the amount of hits you can take before dying is equivalent to the number of power-ups you have equipped, powerful i-frame bombs tied to a separate also recharging meter, conventional shields which can soak up extra hits for you without losing any power-ups, and more extra lives than you can shake a stick at since you get a score-based extend every 100,000 points without exception. This makes the game feel way too forgiving and most of the time you feel close to unkillable when you're fully powered up.

It's not much of a surprise that many genre veterans are dismissing this game as being too easy even on the highest difficulty. Although I think the lack of difficulty in Drainus is being kinda exaggerated by some, it is true that the mechanics are balanced way too much in the player's favour here.

The way the powerup system itself works is also a cause of contention. Throughout the game you'll be acquiring power-up modules by absorbing bullets and destroying enemies, and you can use these modules to purchase upgrades and change your current loadout in wait-for-it a PAUSE MENU. Yes, at any point of the game you can pause the game and spend your time buying powerups and equipping them in a kind-of cumbersome loadout menu. This kills the flow and feels quite "euroshmup"-ish, doing a disservice to the otherwise very tight and focused design of the moment to moment gameplay.

Arcade mode mixes things up a bit by limiting you to one visit to the upgrade screen per stage and limiting your selection to 90 seconds, but it still doesn't feel like enough. I appreciate this kind of upgrade system as a way to make the game more approachable for beginners, but I would have preferred it if arcade mode used a more traditional or even Gradius-style powerup system instead. The game already takes enough inspiration from Gradius V as is so this kind of mechanic would make a lot of sense to me but it just isn't there.

There's also some stuff in Drainus that's just weirdly broken. For example in story mode (which includes the highest difficulty called Ridiculous mode) bosses can't time out which makes the scoring system pointless as certain boss patterns could theoretically be milked for score infinitely. Another broken thing is that there's an "emergency power up bomb" which you can use instead of a more conventional bomb. This bomb will, as the name suggests give you a single power up refill instantaneously. Since shields are tied to the power up system. You can just emergency bomb the moment your shield is disabled, restoring the shield back up to full power for free. Good use of this would make even Ridiculous difficulty a joke once you have the perfect shield unlocked.

In conclusion, Drainus is a good first shmup from Team Ladybug, and is just a few balance patches away from being a great or even fantastic shmup. Despite all the flaws of Drainus, there is a genuine love for the genre expressed in this game, which can especially be seen in the title screen for arcade mode, which looks very authentic as an arcade game and even has multiple attract screens. At it's finest moments, Drainus feels like the closest we're ever gonna get to Gradius VI or some other new Treasure shmup, but unfortunately those moments are at least for the time being buried under some questionable design choices.

Waking up on a sunday and finding that Team Ladybug, out of nowhere, have released a brand new shooting game, is quite a nice surprise. And what's more it's really, really pretty, with an excellent combination of 3D and 2D sprites that works so well.

And the game's gimmick is pretty good - it's effectively Gradius meets Mars Matrix, with the player having a rechargeable shield that absorbs bullets and releases a blast the more is sucked. It's pretty fun and works particularly nicely with the bosses, but it's extremely lenient. Even un-upgraded it comes with about twice the energy you will ever need.

Though, in general, the game is really easy all around. Not easy by shmup standards, mind, just by game standards. The shield suck ability alone is overtuned, but on top of that, instead of dying when hit, you only lose power ups (unless on the unlockable "ridiculous" difficulty which still isnt that bad) on hit, which can allow you to take upwards of 25 hits per 4-5 minute level, even on hard and the also unlockable Arcade mode. Easy and Normal are outright insultingly easy outside of some occasional spikes in boss fights.

I've no objection to easy game, but Drainus' sheer lack of challenge feels contrary to it's other design principles - hell, after you max out your upgrades, you can get a shield like the Gradius games which feels very pointless on top of the sheer beating you can already take.

I almost feel it's an overreaction to this game's horrible feedback and some occasional visibility problems. It is often very unclear when you are actually hit, when invulnerability from your shield actually ends, and especially which parts of stage backgrounds are collidible terrain and which you can fly by freely. When actually playing on that "ridiculous" difficulty, it's sometimes hard to tell what exactly killed you at all.

The other key issue is the game's weird upgrade system. It's a fine idea on it's own, allocating resources to whatever thing you're most into is a fine evolution on the Gradius formula, but the upgrades are exceptionally poorly balanced (Laser+bits+hurricane bomb completely trivialises the game even more than it already was), and the game bizzarely doesnt constrain this upgrade system to a natural place like stage end, but lets you upgrade and reconfigure your ship at any time in the pause menu. This absolutely murders the flow of the game, but if you want to min-max you'll want to! It's a good job the game is so easy you can basically just use it at stage end but wow its a bad idea.

As mentioned, the game's core strength is its aesthetic. Boss sprites in particular look fantastic, embodying the look of something like Battle Traverse with the intricacy of Radiant Silvergun's bosses, folding and contorting as they're broken apart. The boss fights themselves are also quite good, especially the final boss and a very blatant shoutout to Gradius.

But overall the game is more a well of potential than something actually fulfilled. It's very pretty, sure, and the mechanics have good prospects, but that doesn't quite cut it. I actually think of Team Ladybug go through the effort of refining it, increasing the difficulty for some modes and sort out the issues regarding visibility, it could be a very good game. For now though, I can't reccomend it.