Schmups are a genre I’m so entirely ignorant about that I’m not even sure I spelled schmup right? Is it shmup? Neither of these look right to me. Does this game even count as that? Is this what a shmup is? Or are like scrolling shooters their own thing? I have absolutely no idea. I think it’s short for shoot ‘em up and while you do certainly shoot ‘em up in this game I also spend all my time shooting ‘em up in like, Breath of the Wild or Dragon’s Dogma or one third of Sonic Adventure 2 so who can say if I know what the fuck I’m talking about. I think by now it should be obvious that I’m playing this game because it was recommended to me by MagneticBurn.
I’m trying really hard to recall if I’ve ever played a game in this genre literally ever before and I think the answer is actually “no,” and as I was going through this one I started to suspect that I was being really spoiled by being started here. So please forgive my statements and opinions here, they’re those of a true neophyte to the genre, I genuinely don’t know what I’m talking about. But the game has a gentle difficulty curve, not really bringing a real challenge until after the halfway mark I think, and although dying weakens you so much that it can basically ruin the run after a certain point, that did encourage practice and get me a little more dexterous maybe a little more quickly, even if I wished that powerup progress would be retained across continues. I appreciate that every level had a strong mechanical gimmick in addition to an aesthetic one; “level design” isn’t something I had really considered as a thing one might be terribly playful with in this kind of game but here you have levels where there are fewer and less dangerous enemies but much higher import is placed on dodging environmental hazards, you have levels where your field of movement is really restricted, you have a level where you’re in a car instead of on a jetpack and that completely changes the way you interface with basically all of your controls and weapons. Every level has a strong theme but they all play notably differently too which really helps them stand out from each other in memory and keeps the game from every getting monotonous or letting you get into too comfortable a groove.
I also liked that rather than picking one jetpack and sticking with it for the entire game, you get to re-equip before every stage. You get a little hint about what kind of stuff might be coming up in the next level (sometimes they even straight tell you “do we have a weapon that shoots vertically???”) and matching your special attack to the circumstances you’re anticipating can really make or break a run. There are a lot of small customization options that have big ripple effects, in fact. One of your stages of powering up is that you get a little drone thing and you can set it to rotate around you in a circle, shoot with you, or shoot in the opposite direction you’re facing, covering you in certain directions better or maximizing DPS (which becomes extremely important later one!). Similarly there are three completely distinct control schemes that totally change the feel of the game. None of them make it easier or harder, they’re just like, different ways to make the girls shoot? And they change how you’re able to interact with enemies, it’s a really cool inclusion and it adds a lot of replay value on top of the already high incentive to just run this bad boy because it’s so obviously, inherently well-designed and fun.
I didn’t mention the story, or the incredible girls you play as, or the sick ass music, or that it’s cool that all the enemies are yokai themed instead of just like airplanes or mecha or whatever, but that stuff’s all cool too. Really just immaculate vibes. Entirely unrelated to all this, I’m gonna go watch Dirty Pair, apropos of nothing. Thank you MagneticBurn for the recommendation this is probably not gonna be My Genre but this was an incredible time!
I’m trying really hard to recall if I’ve ever played a game in this genre literally ever before and I think the answer is actually “no,” and as I was going through this one I started to suspect that I was being really spoiled by being started here. So please forgive my statements and opinions here, they’re those of a true neophyte to the genre, I genuinely don’t know what I’m talking about. But the game has a gentle difficulty curve, not really bringing a real challenge until after the halfway mark I think, and although dying weakens you so much that it can basically ruin the run after a certain point, that did encourage practice and get me a little more dexterous maybe a little more quickly, even if I wished that powerup progress would be retained across continues. I appreciate that every level had a strong mechanical gimmick in addition to an aesthetic one; “level design” isn’t something I had really considered as a thing one might be terribly playful with in this kind of game but here you have levels where there are fewer and less dangerous enemies but much higher import is placed on dodging environmental hazards, you have levels where your field of movement is really restricted, you have a level where you’re in a car instead of on a jetpack and that completely changes the way you interface with basically all of your controls and weapons. Every level has a strong theme but they all play notably differently too which really helps them stand out from each other in memory and keeps the game from every getting monotonous or letting you get into too comfortable a groove.
I also liked that rather than picking one jetpack and sticking with it for the entire game, you get to re-equip before every stage. You get a little hint about what kind of stuff might be coming up in the next level (sometimes they even straight tell you “do we have a weapon that shoots vertically???”) and matching your special attack to the circumstances you’re anticipating can really make or break a run. There are a lot of small customization options that have big ripple effects, in fact. One of your stages of powering up is that you get a little drone thing and you can set it to rotate around you in a circle, shoot with you, or shoot in the opposite direction you’re facing, covering you in certain directions better or maximizing DPS (which becomes extremely important later one!). Similarly there are three completely distinct control schemes that totally change the feel of the game. None of them make it easier or harder, they’re just like, different ways to make the girls shoot? And they change how you’re able to interact with enemies, it’s a really cool inclusion and it adds a lot of replay value on top of the already high incentive to just run this bad boy because it’s so obviously, inherently well-designed and fun.
I didn’t mention the story, or the incredible girls you play as, or the sick ass music, or that it’s cool that all the enemies are yokai themed instead of just like airplanes or mecha or whatever, but that stuff’s all cool too. Really just immaculate vibes. Entirely unrelated to all this, I’m gonna go watch Dirty Pair, apropos of nothing. Thank you MagneticBurn for the recommendation this is probably not gonna be My Genre but this was an incredible time!