4/5 overall. The game has some wonderful elements of gameplay. We played it for lots of hours trying to unlock every ship. Once every ship was unlocked...nothing left to do. I was excited to get like 7th in the world on a 2 player game! I played almost entirely 2 player, with my kids, so it aht regard it was fun for us. Once you master dodging the heck out of things it gets more enjoyable. So on the one hand, enjoyable and difficult and good for 2 player Co-op. Highlight of the game is the Epic Bosses which are extemely well done graphically and mechanically. My hat is off to the developers in that regard.

The rest of this review is the things I didn't like:

The game relies heavily on the three (or 4) randomly generated upgrades between levels. Some games you hit all the right stuff each board and dominate, other games you get all the wrong stuff and die off in the fourth level-quickly. In this way, the later boards seemed more about luck, than skill.

Some upgrades are a must have (which is frustrating) in order to survive the later levels. Battering Ram, for example, you need because it allows you several seconds of invincibility and cool down is like 6 seconds. Without it, you just die fast.

Some of the ships are useless unless they get their ship-unique upgrades (homing), which makes it frustrating if they don't show up in the random cycle. Wish they would make them default, or just offer them every level as an option.

The Digit ship actually has an upgrade that lowers the ships effectiveness (auto-aiming), which makes you wonder if they completely play tested them.

The hardest ship to get (and last one we unlocked) is a rail-gun shooting mistake that has nothing going for it. We tried, we had other player carry it to later boards to make sure we got all the upgrades and it simply sucked in so many ways, weak defense, weak offense, i don't know what they were after on this.

Would like the Ultimate shots to come more often, maybe change the mechanic that drives them (like using combos to earn your ultimate meter instead of the orange orbs).

But, for all my complaining, we did get 34 hours of fun time with me and the boys as we struggled through to unlock the ships.

4/5 overall. The game has some wonderful elements of gameplay. We played it for lots of hours trying to unlock every ship. Once every ship was unlocked...nothing left to do. I was excited to get like 7th in the world on a 2 player game! I played almost entirely 2 player, with my kids, so it aht regard it was fun for us. Once you master dodging the heck out of things it gets more enjoyable. So on the one hand, enjoyable and difficult and good for 2 player Co-op. Highlight of the game is the Epic Bosses which are extemely well done graphically and mechanically. My hat is off to the developers in that regard. The rest of this review is the things I didn't like: The game relies heavily on the three (or 4) randomly generated upgrades between levels. Some games you hit all the right stuff each board and dominate, other games you get all the wrong stuff and die off in the fourth level-quickly. In this way, the later boards seemed more about luck, than skill. Some upgrades are a must have (which is frustrating) in order to survive the later levels. Battering Ram, for example, you need because it allows you several seconds of invincibility and cool down is like 6 seconds. Without it, you just die fast. Some of the ships are useless unless they get their ship-unique upgrades (homing), which makes it frustrating if they don't show up in the random cycle. Wish they would make them default, or just offer them every level as an option. The Digit ship actually has an upgrade that lowers the ships effectiveness (auto-aiming), which makes you wonder if they completely play tested them. The hardest ship to get (and last one we unlocked) is a rail-gun shooting mistake that has nothing going for it. We tried, we had other player carry it to later boards to make sure we got all the upgrades and it simply sucked in so many ways, weak defense, weak offense, i don't know what they were after on this. Would like the Ultimate shots to come more often, maybe change the mechanic that drives them (like using combos to earn your ultimate meter instead of the orange orbs). But, for all my complaining, we did get 34 hours of fun time with me and the boys as we struggled through to unlock the ships.