If the original Sin & Punishment is Evangelion, then this is Gurren Lagann: sort of a similar thing, but in a more fan-appeasing/pleasing form; a little louder, brasher and self-aware, a little less thoughtful, meaningful and aware of its surroundings - though still leaps and bounds ahead of its contemporaries.

The price paid for this bigger/badder/better package is a bunch of time spent flailing the dodge button to try and get through ambiguous hitboxes of pure particle that obscure your entire view. At times it feels like you’re the victim of a practical joke by Treasure, playing a part in a parody of their shmup excess and the “faster, more intense” aesthetic choices that ruled anime of this era. The decision to give the player unlimited continues and generous moments of invincibility feels like an outright admission that a lot of this is pure bullshit, but it’s hard to feel bad about slotting in another quarter from your boundless pocket when you’re going up against a pod of cybernetic dolphins who’ve decided they’re sick of jumping through hoops and bouncing balls on their noses. While there’s a few too many bosses here who exist to pad this to a longer length than the original, there are still some really memorable baddies and associated cutscenes - big fan of the one where Isa just starts idly blasting a baddie during his big “rule the world” speech.

I approached this via the Dolphin emulator with some trepidation, expecting that using my mouse as an emulated Wiimote pointer would kinda suck, but I was pleased to discover that Dolphin’s a much sturdier creature now than when I last tried to do this sort of thing in the early 2010s. Playing through Star Successor with half an Xbox pad in one hand and my mouse in another was super pleasing, and I actually felt like some crazed cyberpunk badass... I can now empathise with those sickos who play PC FPS games using the same setup…