Got the Expert 1CC during a shmup kumite. Really awesome game, you have the fixed axis movement of Space Harrier with weapon pickups and lock-on missiles ala Rayforce or SA2 mechs. Nice blend of speed, chaos and control. My only personal gripe is the length, it's 16 levels and a lot of that is re-cycled environments and enemy sprites - new patterns of course, but it looks samey. I think an 8 stage game with unique art for each level would've been the tighter choice.

Like the deck building structure but the fact battles have no actual player interaction means the game's one big grindy trial and error against walls of generic enemies with no storytelling, no exploration, no customization, none of the sauce that makes a BN game a BN game. Feel like there's so many better ways they could've handled this core conceit.