Recenzii recente de Giodyne

I’m one of the biggest fan boys of grev ever. A legendary shoot em up such as under defeat has arrived on steam.

Let me tell you, this game is absolutely peak. Whether you played this on dreamcast or played the xbox 360/ps3 version you know that this game's music is amazing and the mechanics were very unique for its time. Some compared it to zero gunner in terms of maneuvering your helicopter. For those who are unaware, you essentially pivot your helicopter at certain angles to be able to hit enemies. You use your special options to be able to hit ground enemies or remove certain parts of bosses. These will be essential things to know when you truly want to clear the game. From a 1 credit clear perspective personally, the original arcade mode is hard as nails in fact might be one of the hardest shmups i've cleared. Took me a while to get used to the game but that's mainly a skill issue. In the original arcade mode you have no power ups and no extends. So its difficulty mainly derives from you having to pretty much no miss half of the game lol.

As you can see, there are new modes like new order which i believe was in the previous iteration and new order plus which offers a wider screen with different rules. There's also different helicopters to fit your style. Honestly, this is probably my most favorite grev game next to border down. ( I love some strania too). This isn’t really a proper review as I’m super biased about it but please try this game. Every person who loves shmups should play this game at least once.

Oh, I almost forgot to mention... playing this feels more smooth than I remember. This is really the best iteration of this game.

Red Blue Cell is an old school inspired shoot 'em up that focuses on polarity.

Pretty much from the start you can see this game has such beautiful art. From the developer that created Ganablade, comes Red Blue Cell. This game is pretty simple if you’ve ever played a polarity game like Ikaruga, you’ll see that the game's mechanic revolves around you absorbing bullets that are similar to the color your ship can switch into. Besides that, You have your shoot button and special shot that can be built up by collecting mini gauges.

There's great difficulty options for those looking for a casual or more challenging experience. I got a 1cc from the retro mode they have which essentially removes the polarity part of the game and gives you the challenge of playing it like an old school shoot 'em up. Just raw dodge and muscle memory lol. If you’re someone that cares about score, there are hidden extra tokens that you must shoot and obtain similar to what a caravan shmup would do. Bosses even have what's called a “perfect kill” where if you remove all parts of the boss you will get more score and also more extends in exchange.

The game's length is typical for a shoot em up which is about 20-30 mins. The game is very generous by giving extends after obtaining a perfect kill. The music is pretty fitting for the old school theme and honestly, there's very little negative feedback I can say about this one. When you have time please give it a try. It’s a cool little experience.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5aCG2opSnds

Varyznex is a horizontal shmup that gives me some darius vibes.

You got your laser to clash with the bosses and you have Taito lasers every now and then. This game has about 5 stages with banging music. There's more to explain about the game's mechanics but to summarize you are essentially building a meter by killing enemies, using that meter to have both a shield and a laser to be able to farm even more energy off enemies and bosses. If you are able to collect more energy while using the laser you will be able to enter a double hyper mode.

The game has a setting to be able to change the way you switch your options and I honestly recommend changing it to something else other than the default. The reason I mention that is because switching between options in order will kinda punish you as some stages have enemies coming from behind and in front causing you to switch fairly quickly. The game has its own practice option once you are able to reach the stage and also has replay options.

The game is fairly easy to clear as you have a shield helping you out and can easily recover if you build enough meter. My only gripe with the game is that whenever I wanted to restart a run the only option was to exit the game or kill myself over and over. I’m probably blind and missing something. All of Zakichi’s shmups are awesome and truthfully I don’t know if I ever disliked one. The game looks like something from the PSX era, feels smooth to play and has great music and has leaderboards. I really enjoyed clearing this shmup. Please check out Zakichi’s other games as well!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TrRIZRStSVY

Jumping straight into the gameplay you notice its a bit dodonpachi inspired with its hyper mechanic, hit counter and collecting stars. The game has about 8 stages with suitable difficulties for beginners and veterans. As you can tell, the game's story is mostly about being put into another world where you are now in a shmup. The anime style fits quite well with it and the guitar music throughout the stages is pretty awesome. I will say that I originally didn’t like the vibe of the game, I don't know what it is but I couldn’t get into it as much as I’d like. Nonetheless, I still gave it a triple try.

The game offers 4 different ship types. You have your main straight shot with good speed, wide shot with slower speed, and your special shot types with your shot facing the direction you might be going in or a shot type with different advantages in shielding. The core mechanics of the game offer a hyper that can only be used when focused and you cannot unfocus to move around when activated. I’m assuming the devs wanted you to commit when you are using hyper. You can also use bombs to clear a wave or when you are in a sticky situation. I would be careful though, the bombs don't give you any invulnerability whatsoever which is a little disappointing. Shielding is a barrier that allows you to block bullets for a short period of time, after you run out of shield you must collect more crystals. Throughout the stages you’ll collect temporary shots like spread shot, homing and bouncing.

One issue I had with the game is that even though I turned down the voice volume it didn’t turn it off fully when obtaining a different shot. As mentioned earlier it would have been preferable to have a small invulnerability when bombing, especially when all enemies can clip you from behind. Personally, the game's tempo even in the maniac difficulty felt a tiny bit slow. It felt like the bullets were somewhat floating. The game is not bad. It's actually pretty decent but I wouldn’t say it's my most favorite either. Even though the game is not for me, I would still recommend it to those who are looking for a casual shmup experience.

Holy crap, this game is great. I have a soft spot for twin-sticks and have been itching for a game similar to nex machina and well damn this is it. It’s Gorey, flashy and downright intense.

The game has about 5 stages but each stage is relatively long (about 10 to 20 minutes or so) and just throws everything at you. You can customize your shot type and armor. Unlocking it all afterwards is similar to a rogue-lite. Most of the load outs come down to personal preference which can make someone else's run seem unique and fresh. You have to actively reload at the correct time to get a better shot, you can also melee to reset the ammo while simultaneously gaining meter for your second shot and lastly you collect blood gems to get your special shot out. The game will throw countless waves and everything fits so well.
I legit got a blister on my thumb the first day because I was playing for such a long time.

Another cool thing is when stunning enemies with your special shot you can just straight up melee their back dark souls style creating this cool animation. The game has a variety of difficulties but make no mistake even the first difficulty can get intense on stage 5. The main appeal of the game is speed and how fast you can kill an enemy. Always encouraging to challenge you and your friends on the leaderboards for fun. I love this game. Please try it!

COME FORTH THY ROYAL SOUL

USG, a hand drawn vertical shoot em up made by Pollapee, the same dev that made F.L.E.S.H.

The gameplay is pretty quick and for lack of a better term “crunchy”. The shooting and killing sound effects are pretty satisfying which stayed consistent from their previous game. The gameplay is simple but can also be a bit of a challenge later on. Two buttons, one being your shot and the other being your bomb. In traditional mode you can choose a power up of health, bomb or after defeating a main boss you can choose a different shot type. It’s important to note that shooting enemies for score will not give you an extends (1ups) like in other shmups. This is why the upgrades are important. There is also a freestyle mode that allows you to stack these upgrades for more chaos.

The game offers a focus setting for those who are used to the traditional “hold for slow shot” style in most shmups. If that's not your thing, the default is without it. A nice touch is allowing the player to have either less or more visibility of the hitbox in the settings. The game is a bit on the short side for a shmup (15 mins) but that's fine with me, as long as the shmup is good. Take it with a grain of salt but there is only a minor issue I have with this game. When overwhelmed with enemies, the in game music and the sound effects will effectively break. I couldn’t tell if this was just my computer being weird or the game doing it on purpose? Who can say really.

Overall, the game was pretty enjoyable to clear. Check it out :)

If you would like to check out my clear of the game here as well!
https://youtu.be/7ce4388_jhM?si=_OfUaqelcnYd8zng

SocerialBladeCannon is a vertical shoot em up where you fling around a sword.

The gameplay has you choose between 3 different shot types. You have your traditional forward shooter, wide shot and laser. The game focuses on switching between your first and secondary shot to be able to break certain parts of an enemy. These parts will give you sword badges to build your sword meter. Depending on how long you want the sword to be out you can hold the sword button to charge it. It’s really good in tight situations but make sure not to get hit or else it will use your sword automatically and waste all of your meter instead.

The game has two difficulties AC-MODE and EX -MODE which are essentially normal and hard.
I did a clear on the normal mode this time around and did a couple runs in the hard mode. The game also offers practice mode which is always nice in a shmup. The artstyle is nice and the music is quite fitting. By the way, when you throw around your sword in this shmup prepare for some crunchy ass noises when destroying ships.. It's hilarious. It reminds me of every doujin shmup that just blasts their sound effects over the music.

My main issues with this game is just personal preference but I feel like in EX-MODE (hard mode) the shot types are all a bit too slow for my taste, it’s probably cause I'm so used to shmups having a focused and normal speed in one shot type but all of these characters have one fixed speed. Not only that but it feels like you can barely do any damage if you don’t play NELPHA. Again, probably just a skill issue from me lol. I am definitely not a fan of shmups that display as vertical but when you move far left or far right it displays more of the playfield. This causes for turrets or grounded enemies to be able to shoot you slightly off screen. I’m also probably just getting old and blind but I wish there was more of an hue or indicator about your hitbox. The developer probably wanted to stay true to how the hitbox actually looks in game but i don't mind having a hitbox look bigger than it actually is.

Overall, I’d give this one a thumbs up despite feeling a bit indifferent about it. Why? Personally I enjoyed playing this game and getting the clear but beyond that I’m not much of a score guy so there could be something there. I’ve seen others enjoy it and therefore I can tell it can be something for both beginners and veterans to partake in. Check it out if you like.

UFO50 is a collection of 50 games that give off an 8 bit aesthetic with a variety of genres to play from.

I’m only writing this because this game deserves an applause from me. I originally was just buying it cause I saw that it had about 4? Or 5 shoot em ups in there and I had to know how long or how good they were. Turns out these cute little games are pretty decent. I have yet to try every single one of the games but it's so cool that some of the “epic” games they have feel like full-fledged games. Some games even have multiplayer as well.

I’ve played and cleared through two games in the shmup category called Star Waspir and Caramel Caramel. These two games, while a little short for a shmup, made me appreciate the effort they put into each category. The music in those games are pretty banger. I’d imagine it's the same for the others as well. I have a video if you would like to see the game.
https://youtu.be/pM-CjOJldLU?si=4GqyHqgtxKQz2r8d

I’m a sucker for these kinds of games with 8 bit aesthetics and will be dumping more hours.
Excuse me.

If you have time please check out the game :)

life in the fast lane

EDIT: I think it's time I write something more serious for this game. I've gotten to level 66 which is the max level and got all the achievements. The game is a pretty cool racing game but it honestly suffers from lack of marketing/ it's price point to newer potential players. This turns the game into something niche where despite the active player base being low it still gets full lobbies during active hours.

I'm no stranger to games that turn into "discord lobbies" but to others that's not the case. The devs heavily state that they won't put any microtrasactions or future paid content into the game. Quite rare these days to not have that which i respect but I wonder if it's a little bit why the price point is sorta high for some. I believe they were trying to go for the way games used to be back then, just a straight up good experience. I'll still continue to play it from time to time but I feel like they don't mind if this game "dies" as it was a passion project anyway.