Decidedly better than Gate of Thunder, though there a couple of unhinged design choices:
Having limited continues is the work of a maniac considering the gameplay loop, where you repeat a stage but keep your money to improve your shit.
Powering up your weapon takes forever because each power pickup (of which not every enemy drops btw) gives you a tiny bar on your meter. Taking a single hit however removes THREE bars. Are you kidding me.
No i-frames. It's very easy to lose all your life in like 2 seconds.
The final boss is highly questionable, felt like I bumbled my way to victory.
But beyond those, this is cool as hell. Being able to touch the floor and ceiling felt strangely liberating. When I died on a stage boss and thought "oh no, I'll have to replay the whole stage", then the game continued me on the boss, my joy was unspeakable. Same when I saw them giving me full health, power and bombs in the final boss, and infinite power. Weirdly generous for a shmup, thank you.
An unlimited continue cheat is a must however. The fuck were they thinking.
Having limited continues is the work of a maniac considering the gameplay loop, where you repeat a stage but keep your money to improve your shit.
Powering up your weapon takes forever because each power pickup (of which not every enemy drops btw) gives you a tiny bar on your meter. Taking a single hit however removes THREE bars. Are you kidding me.
No i-frames. It's very easy to lose all your life in like 2 seconds.
The final boss is highly questionable, felt like I bumbled my way to victory.
But beyond those, this is cool as hell. Being able to touch the floor and ceiling felt strangely liberating. When I died on a stage boss and thought "oh no, I'll have to replay the whole stage", then the game continued me on the boss, my joy was unspeakable. Same when I saw them giving me full health, power and bombs in the final boss, and infinite power. Weirdly generous for a shmup, thank you.
An unlimited continue cheat is a must however. The fuck were they thinking.