Oh My God it's full of stars

*baby floating in space to epic music*

The original doujin release of Crimzon Clover, which came out in Japan only in 2010, was nutso enough, with explosions and lasers galore, a shop where you had to buy continues, levels and even new ship types with in-game currency, and a punishing difficulty that set it apart from the other "bullet hell" shmups out there. WORLD IGNITION, a port of the later arcade release on NESICA coin-ops (again, only in Japan) takes that insanity and cranks it up to twelve - no, twenty.

Now, you don't need me to tell you how to play a top-down shmup, it's like sucking eggs, everyone already knows how it's done. What's different about CC is the Lock-On weapon radar, which locks on to any enemies within its radius and showers them with homing lasers/rockets/sniper bullets of Death (depending on the ship you're using) and the Break System, which amounts to filling a bar at the top of the screen by shooting down enemies. When it's full you can press a button to instantly power up all your ship's weapons for a few seconds, and the display of wanton laser-green devastation is nothing but impressive. But wait - fill the bar again while in Break Mode, and you can press the button again for (wait for it) Double Break Mode, which is like holding a lit match to Magnesium - the brightest lightshow seen in shmup history. It's also good for your score multiplier, too, which helps.

It's a pity that the original game's Shop mechanic never made it back in - it was one of the most original things about the game, and made it a meaty single-player experience, but this seems to be a faithful port of the arcade release, which obviously didn't have the shop, so I can see why it wasn't included. Ah well, the meat of the game is here, and oh so much more, so rest assured that you're getting your paltry entrance fee's worth and more. Better than Jamestown? Yeah, by miles. Better than Ikaruga, though?...I'll have to get back to you on that.