System Erasure had a whole thread of shmup recommendations, most of which I'd already played and they absolutely kicked ass. So, I picked up one of the couple I had not played, trusting that it would also kick ass.
Reader, it kicked ass.
Eigengrau is in no way a """traditional""" shooter, and could easily spark arguments I don't care about regarding what counts as a shmup (I don't care if you're talking about this game. If you count Star Fox I'll get into a fistfight over it) and might be more like a twin-stick shooter except it's not one of those either. You can shoot in four directions is what I'm saying. The game is broken up into a normal number of levels, and each of those levels has 6 subsections: the first five all have some kind of gimmick. A twist on the controls? Some new kind of obstacle? A particular kind of enemy? One of the joys of Eigengrau is that you really never know what's going to happen in the next 60 seconds, and it's always entertaining when you find out. The sixth substage in each group is a boss, which serves as an exam on all the gimmicks you were just introduced to. It reminds me of some bad games I made in Game Maker Studio 1 some years back, which adds to my sunny opinion on the thing.
The visuals are just serviceable, and there's not a lot of real oomph in the presentation. No real plot here. The soundtrack is great, though, and you can interact with the game all at once like an arcade game, or piece by piece. Each substage has one or more special goals to achieve, which seem to unlock a few new weapons and features once you get enough.
Eigengrau is just great, and I only really shy away from calling it a real shmup because I know people who are shy of shmups who would still love this. It's an action game for people who like their action games to have lots of bite-sized nooks and crannys to explore. The kind of joy you can only get when you're not tied to anything less abstract than "I dunno, spaceships? shapes?" for your flavor. A video gamer's video game. Great stuff.
Reader, it kicked ass.
Eigengrau is in no way a """traditional""" shooter, and could easily spark arguments I don't care about regarding what counts as a shmup (I don't care if you're talking about this game. If you count Star Fox I'll get into a fistfight over it) and might be more like a twin-stick shooter except it's not one of those either. You can shoot in four directions is what I'm saying. The game is broken up into a normal number of levels, and each of those levels has 6 subsections: the first five all have some kind of gimmick. A twist on the controls? Some new kind of obstacle? A particular kind of enemy? One of the joys of Eigengrau is that you really never know what's going to happen in the next 60 seconds, and it's always entertaining when you find out. The sixth substage in each group is a boss, which serves as an exam on all the gimmicks you were just introduced to. It reminds me of some bad games I made in Game Maker Studio 1 some years back, which adds to my sunny opinion on the thing.
The visuals are just serviceable, and there's not a lot of real oomph in the presentation. No real plot here. The soundtrack is great, though, and you can interact with the game all at once like an arcade game, or piece by piece. Each substage has one or more special goals to achieve, which seem to unlock a few new weapons and features once you get enough.
Eigengrau is just great, and I only really shy away from calling it a real shmup because I know people who are shy of shmups who would still love this. It's an action game for people who like their action games to have lots of bite-sized nooks and crannys to explore. The kind of joy you can only get when you're not tied to anything less abstract than "I dunno, spaceships? shapes?" for your flavor. A video gamer's video game. Great stuff.