I am no expert when it comes to the shoot-'em-up genre. I have played a few games like Ikaruga or Galactic Attack in the past, but my experience overall with the genre is pretty limited. That said, Einhänder is now my absolute favorite of the bunch.

The story follows a war between the forces of earth and those of the moon. Though the game is less than three hours long, the world and conflict are surprisingly fleshed out.

The gameplay consists of flying around a limited space, blasting anything and everything in your path with a sub-boss and boss fight in each stage.

Depending on the player's ship chosen at the beginning, they can pick up weapons dropped from enemies and cycle through their arsenal using L1 and R1. This adds a big layer of variety, customization, and adaptability in the combat. Weapons range from your standard strong Canon and Spread shots to more unique weapons like the Sword and Riot weapons. The latter require the player to maneuver themselves closer to enemies for a risky gamble that pays off with very powerful attacks.

Movement feels precise and tight, and the player can actively increase or decrease their movement speed with the L2 and R2 buttons respectively. This is great for situations in which the screen becomes a chaotic mash of enemy ships and bullets.

The action is presented in a 2.5D format with the player, backgrounds, and enemies all comprised of 3D models with movement on a 2D plane. This is changed up, however, when the camera angle shifts throughout the stage. Despite the mobility of the camera and the inability to control it manually, the shifts in perspective are never to the detriment of the gameplay. They are always used to great effect, and I was genuinely surprised by how cool and fresh it felt every time it occurred.

Aesthetically, I love this game. It mixes general late '90s to early 2000s Japanese sci-fi with some hard cyberpunk style. The result is awesome to behold. For a PlayStation game, this definitely holds up among other heavy hitters on the console. This aspect boils down mostly to preference, but for me, I wouldn't change a thing.

The music is a very y2k electronic mix of adrenaline-filled mayhem and fun. The music is ready to pump up the player for every subsequent stage, miniboss, and main boss with a great sense of atmosphere and general rhythmic bliss. The music could work well on its own for anyone's electronic playlist.

My only real complaint with the game are a small handful of 'gotcha' moments that result in the player dying simply because they could not have known something was going to appear in a specific spot on their first playthrough. I understand this is an issue with many shoot-'em-ups, but I felt it necessary to bring it up regardless.

Einhänder is absolutely worth your time (the game is only under two hours) if you are a fan of the genre, of late '90s and early 2000s Japanese sci-fi, cyberpunk, or visually creative and engaging video games in general. Highly recommended.

Shoutout to Chandler for bringing this game to my attention.