WARNING
MAY YOU ATTAIN ENLIGHTENMENT:
1: BLAZING BLOODLINES
2: TOUCH THE UNTOUCHABLE
3: BREAK THE UNBREAKABLE
I'll preface that I've never been one to completely grasp the appeal of a shmup. That genre in general can get too masocore for me especially from the touhou games I've sampled. That being said, ZeroRanger comes along and blows any expectation I had of the genre altogether. The green orange aesthetic is excellent and it is positively gorgeous in artstyle and music. It borrows heavily from buddhist philosophy to generate a strong NEVER GIVE UP energy the likes of which I haven't felt genuinely since Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann. The gameplay is stellar, featuring intensely strong bullet patters and tight enemy and boss designs. Best ones of note are 1-2's claustrophobic danger zones, 1-4's grueling maze that requires pinpoint positioning and on-the-fly routing, and literally everything about 2-3's boss. For those experienced with shmups the exemplary mechanic here is your ability to use the gundam version to slash/drill away bullets and clever use of swapping between gundam and ship format gives interesting strategy for top score runs.
Since I also suck, this game throws me a bone with an increasing amount of continues, which is justified by encouraging score-heavy runs and a final final boss that your continues won't be enough to save you if you're not ready. There are however a couple issues, specific really to the bullet patterns having a very clear cap on complexity and that it doesn't get nearly as hard as shmups of its ilk. There is a hard mode on the way and some sort of second campaign in development which could in theory fix this issue but for what it is right now it hits my standard. I absolutely adored my time with it.
MAY YOU ATTAIN ENLIGHTENMENT:
1: BLAZING BLOODLINES
2: TOUCH THE UNTOUCHABLE
3: BREAK THE UNBREAKABLE
I'll preface that I've never been one to completely grasp the appeal of a shmup. That genre in general can get too masocore for me especially from the touhou games I've sampled. That being said, ZeroRanger comes along and blows any expectation I had of the genre altogether. The green orange aesthetic is excellent and it is positively gorgeous in artstyle and music. It borrows heavily from buddhist philosophy to generate a strong NEVER GIVE UP energy the likes of which I haven't felt genuinely since Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann. The gameplay is stellar, featuring intensely strong bullet patters and tight enemy and boss designs. Best ones of note are 1-2's claustrophobic danger zones, 1-4's grueling maze that requires pinpoint positioning and on-the-fly routing, and literally everything about 2-3's boss. For those experienced with shmups the exemplary mechanic here is your ability to use the gundam version to slash/drill away bullets and clever use of swapping between gundam and ship format gives interesting strategy for top score runs.
Since I also suck, this game throws me a bone with an increasing amount of continues, which is justified by encouraging score-heavy runs and a final final boss that your continues won't be enough to save you if you're not ready. There are however a couple issues, specific really to the bullet patterns having a very clear cap on complexity and that it doesn't get nearly as hard as shmups of its ilk. There is a hard mode on the way and some sort of second campaign in development which could in theory fix this issue but for what it is right now it hits my standard. I absolutely adored my time with it.