There is no point having a billion ships without a good playgroud for them. RTF3 is maybe the final nail in the coffin that Granzella will never be to Irem what Cave is to Toaplan.

Kazuma Kujo was a lead on R-Type Delta, Metal Slug and In the Hunt and how he's te auteur of what is now two full game's worth of stages which are so poorly paced and full of blatant issues that wouldn't pass muster in game jam.

The RTF2/3 project in general has always felt a bit misguided but this final update (because yes, that's basically all this is, thank you misleading marketing, doesnt even come with all the DLC) is proof that the caretakers of what is possibly the best well known STG series haven't got a fucking clue.

This is one of those super rare cases where I prefer the remaster more than the original. This is an update of the Genesis game, which was more or less a euroshmup featuring a military meets steampunk aesthetic. The visual overhaul is very comparable to some of the Natsume remakes of games like Pocky and Rocky Reshrined- I definitely appreciated the brighter color palate and better bullet visibility. Some of the slower portions of the Genesis game seem to have also been sped up a bit, which isn't a bad thing.

I'd recommend changing the default button settings (too easy to slip when trying to switch firing sides and accidentally bomb) and maybe turning the sound effects down as they are LOUD and kinda detract from the music. Speaking of which, while these remastered tunes aren't bad at all, I definitely do prefer the Genesis tracks.

Still, I had a lot more fun with this than I expected considering I felt like steel empire on the Genesis was simply okay. Definitely a good beginner game and even on hard this was an easy 1cc the first time I played.

meh, there are more creative fishin horror games out there, and this one doesn't even focus on fishing, you catch 3 fishes then it becomes slenderman

it starts interesting but then it becomes ''oh no collect the 3 mcguffins or else slender-ish gonna get you ,oooooohh~'' which is so saturated not even the interesting aesthetic can save it from becoming rather meh, the story itself is really not that engaging

Spoiler :
bro goes fishing when people them him not to, ends in cursed swamp, says ''oh no i must collect 3 things to leave trademark'' and then leaves, all told through a black text.

it really is nothing more than okay

This developer never seems to miss no matter what breed of shm'up they decide to tackle next, and Missile Dancer 2 is no exception. I'm not the biggest fan of rail shooters like Space Harrier, but I still found myself enjoying this one immensely.

The game mimmicks Sega's classic super scaler arcade games and plays similarly to the aforementioned space harrier, after burner and super thunder blade. That being said, it's somewhat more forgiving due to having three hit points and waves that weren't meant to munch quarters. I feel like anyone with a passing interest in the genre could pick this up and play it without being frustrated too much, at least on normal. (There is of course hard and expert, so it's not like the people who live for these kinds of games are necessarily left out)

The only real issue with this game is the same issue I've had with the older quarter munchers in this genre- visibility. Even after multiple playthroughs, I still had moments where I'm not exactly sure what hit me due to the perspective. There are also white puffs of smoke that cloud the screen whenever you use your missiles (which you'll be using quite a bit) and they just so happen to be the same color as the regular bullets coming from enemy crafts. One other person actually pointed this out on steam, but the dev's response claimed that adding transparency would "change the design" of the game. Weird.

I do hope that issue gets resolved at some point, but as it stands, this is still another great game that provides an arcade experience sans the steep learning curve. If you enjoyed the dev's other games (raging Blasters, terraflame to name a few) you should enjoy this as well.

i had played the US version. i have fond memories of it as it was my first SHMUP.
i have a little emulating device called powkiddy v90, its cute and small, i super recommend, it run pc engine games with zero input delay, i played it through a hard time of my life but enjoyed it tremendously.
as for the japanese version, i don't see much difference aside from the narration of power ups and possibly some extra enemies, as i don't remember some of these being in the US version, most people say this is a good game for newcomers of the genre but i could disagree, as it gets quite cheap on some areas, and as you gain power ups your hurtbox gets bigger, making it hard to dodge projectiles without losing your powers

A terrible release all around. The core gameplay is still fun, but that's due to the work Pandemic did 20+ years ago. All Aspyr did was AI upscale the textures, add a few reflections to surfaces, and port former Xbox exclusive content to PC. Unfortunately, they screwed up nearly all of this. Thanks to the new textures, the game now requires 60 GB of storage space - that's 10 GB more than the 2015 Battlefront with all DLCs requires! Additionally, the new reflections look weirldy out of place in most locations.

Battlefront 2 now uses the menus of the console versions which look better, but also cut some of the more advanced functions of the original PC version. Multiplayer is straight up awful, even before you get to the gameplay part. The quick match functionality tries to connect you to password protected servers, meanwhile the server browser tended to not load at all for me most of the time.

There are bugs and issues no matter where you look - keep in mind I found everything I list here in less than an hour of playtime. Certain guns clip through the screen, cutscenes show heavy artifacting, even the movie clips that loop in the menu backgrounds are compressed to hell and back. Oh, and sometimes the game will just produce an ear shattering audio error sound - hope you're not playing with headphones!

I have seen this called a cashgrab and I disagree, because a cashgrab would actually make Aspyr money. I have refunded my copy, and I'm assuming others will do the same. As of right now, I see no point in playing this over the originals. Both are available on PC with functioning multiplayer support and tons of mods. In a year or so, this Collection might be patched to a point where it's worth buying, but considering the blatent lack of competence Aspyr has displayed time and time again, I wouldn't bet on it.