ZeroRanger really delivers in both being a great entry point into the genre of shmups while also being a fantastic game in its own right. It's such a love letter to older shooters and mecha anime while also defining itself from the rest of the pack due to its presentation, moments and story. The music is fantastic and the visuals are clear, making the presentation only enhance it's gameplay and offering some great set pieces.

It's story and narrative has so much heart, full of sincerity. It's the kind of experience that can only be done via a video game, and it's just good elements get raised to be so much more than the sum of their parts. The less you know about the games structure and story the better, it's one of the best indie games ever made.

Extremamente interessante, comecei a jogar pelas incontáveis referências ao conteúdo mecha e afins, mas o jogo não se baseia só nisso nem de perto. O jogo é um trabalho de perseverança, e que te ensina a realmente lutar pra completar ele, os continues são uma grande fachada, onde o jogo repetidas vezes mostra como eles são um utensílio fantasma, e que se você quiser realmente buscar o verdadeiro final do jogo, terá que se desprender desse utensílio.
O jogo faz com que você, de certa forma, valorize cada espaço e ambiente dele mesmo, analisando cada pequena coisa, porque o jogo te incentiva, quase indiretamente à isso. Fazendo assim com que você tire extremo proveito do jogo mesmo sem perceber.
Confesso ter um pouco de dificuldade com Shoot 'em ups, sou simplesmente horrível nesse tipo de jogo, mas esse conseguiu me prender de uma forma absurda, onde erros não me deixavam extremamente frustrado, mas sim motivado. Esse jogo é um constante aprendizado, e você praticamente estuda ele a cada vez que você joga, te dando doses incansáveis de conteúdo constantemente, de alguma forma.
Se você nunca jogou um Shoot 'em up, e tem algum interesse em começar a experimentar coisas do gênero, creio que esse jogo possa ser uma boa parte de entrada.

Just when you thought you finally beat the game, you realize it's just getting started.

It's got the soundtrack, the art style and satisfying gameplay. I couldn't ask for more from a shmup. Learning how to get through the levels and improving slightly every attempt to finally reach the end was incredibly rewarding.

Zero Complaints... hehe

I really enjoyed my time with ZeroRanger. I don’t quite have the lexicon built up to talk about Shmups (I haven’t played that many), but I feel pretty confident that ZeroRanger excels in comparison to most of its competition. The structure of the game gives a large focus to elements that often feel tacked on in these types of arcade-y games, namely the scoring and continue systems. It should be noted that it's not just that these elements are incorporated in a way that incentivizes players to engage with them, but they are also used in interesting narrative ways. It feels elegant in a way that most games' core design isn’t.

It's especially noteworthy that these changes are implemented so well because of how many games simply copy older games’ design. Lots of old games have systems built in place because they were common at the time. This isn't a shocking revelation, but a whole lot of design trends have become outdated. Yet at the same time, if you were to make a modern Shmup, you would be heavily criticized if you didn't include a score system, or a limited continue systems, etc. ZeroRanger sidesteps both of these grievances by being cleverly built to accommodate the best parts of arcade-y games, while still feeling modern with its approach by elevating each aspect.

My favorite part (to no one’s surprise) was the presentation. Such a bold color palette is used expertly to create vastly different atmospheres throughout the four levels. Really incredible stuff visually. But it's not just that it's well executed, it's that it's unique. A lot of games can have excellent visuals by most metrics, but they don’t tend to stand out in my mind the way that a Green and Orange color palette does. It’s bold, and it’s all the better for it.

The music is of course the highlight. Sky XXXX Days, The Sea Has Returned, It May Be Greenish, Despair, the list goes on. I couldn’t do justice talking about them here, just listen to them. A lot of the music hit especially close to home after playing Void Stranger, since the games share a lot of motifs.

I couldn’t recommend ZeroRanger enough. I tried not to touch on the spoiler stuff because you should play it for yourself. Between ZeroRanger and Void Stranger, System Erasure has solidified themselves as one of my favorite developers. I heavily anticipate whatever they release next.

(Bear with me this review might be all over the place. It's my first. Also fuck you lmao.)

I had not much experience with shoot 'em ups prior to picking this one up. ZeroRanger immediately caught my eye on the steam store due to it's striking color scheme which I later found out was inspired by a game called Gux, made by none other than Daisuke "Pixel" Amaya, the guy who made Cave Story.

Only 4 colors are predominantly used throughout the game those being green, orange, white, and black. However even with this palate limitation, everything in the game is extremely readable which is fucking crazy?

So the game looks amazing. But how does it play?

That's easy. It plays like a fucking dream.

This game is at its best when you're forced to deal with shit filling up your screen. Every movement counts. If you fuck up, you lose a life. Lose all your lives and you're done. Classic shit.

There are slight rougelike elements in this game too if you can even call them that.

So basically, every time you game over, your score from that run gets added to a bar. When filled, the bar grants you a continue. These continues can stack up to 8 times. But filling this bar takes time. So earlier on, you may not have a lot of continues to work with while you tackle the easier levels and learn the mechanics. But by the end when things get really hard, you get more chances to try again.

I think that shit is fucking genius.

Speaking of genius, there's the OST. Can we please talk about the OST? I'd like to fucking talk about the OST. It's really good goddamn it.

Some of personal favorites:
1. The Sea Has Returned I cannot properly explain what this song does to me. It's triumphant and nostalgic all at once.
2. Unstoppable Pure hype. You're the main character of this mecha anime and this is YOUR main theme.
3. Despair HER theme.

These are just some of my favorites though. The whole soundtrack bangs.

The game is incredible and believe me, I've left so many moments out for the sake of keeping you away from spoilers. It is baffling to me that a game sold at $11.99 has this much love, thought, and effort put into it when some AAA games are sold now for $69.99 and are dogshit.

This game is a generational masterpiece that wears its inspirations proudly on its sleeve.

Lock the fuck in and buy this shit at full price. Go in as blind as possible.

MAY YOU ATTAIN ENLIGHTENMENT

Wonderful to start the new year, after one filled with me delving into the lunacy of shoot-em-ups and becoming acquainted with them, with ZeroRanger; a meticulously crafted STG filled with love towards the genre and the general aesthetics of sci-fi anime; while it's common for me to be put off by references like these because they usually feel very surface-level, the wide variety of things it pulls from feels as if the devs know the variety in the medium and the core appeal, and are able to take these concepts and merge them together flawlessly while topping it off with undertones of buddhist mythology and philosophy.

But even outside of its parts, the sum shines even brighter; extremely well balanced, with a very forgiving continue system that also rewards committed players with its scoring systems, bosses that seem tough at first with complicated patterns but can be easily annihilated with knowledge of their kits, and a wide variety of weapons that lets players express themselves. When viewed outside of the pure mechanical judgement, it's also an audiovisual feast; an excellent soundtrack with perfect use of it and visuals to create setpieces that get you hyped, and visually beautiful with its green and orange palette. Extremely forgiving yet merciless in difficulty, created with so much love to the genre but crafted well enough to be great for newcomers, ZeroRanger is the definitive contemporary STG in a genre that's had less and less new, notable entries without feeling like a simplification of the titans it is inspired by.

I can forgive its Gurren Lagann reference but I can't forgive that Mido and Dori are sisters instead of gay, do better.