(Note: Finished twice, once on Novice with 0 continues, another on Arcade with around 14 continues)
I'm not really that great at shmups but Crimzon Clover is a real delight to play. Ridiculously fast and intricate bullet patterns with an awesome encouraging score system. The strategy between breaking and doing just enough damage to cause the own enemy's break is a great ebb and flow that makes the dance between flurries of damage zones more interesting than just a general 2hou bullet hell. Going for optimal score just so you can give a safety net with a life or cruising between double breaks by perfect positioning and minute movement is a satisfying and excellent craze.
The boss battles are all interesting too, ranging from absolute damage areas, slowly weaving around the boss in a clockwork fashion, to entire bullet layers. The secret boss especially comes to mind at the absolute dance I tend to crave from these kinds of games, even countering some of your own strategies.
On top of the gameplay side, it also has a marvelous aesthetic with great art for the enemies, backgrounds, and effects like explosions. The music kicks ass as usual for this genre and it never lets up. In terms of visual clarity, bullets all have very distinct shapes for you to see, to a point where it's very hard to blame any of my deaths on that kind of issue.
It's not perfect for me unfortunately, Novice is so incredibly easy (I 1cc'd it on the FIRST TRY) and Arcade kicks my teeth in too much for me to be satisfied. It goes so hard into almost masocore territory with so many bullets on screen and intricate moving parts that my eyes and head started to hurt after a bit. Even though this isn't really the game for me I can still say it's one of the better shmups to pick up and try. If you're new to the genre there's no reason you can't get past Novice and if you're looking for something ballbusting you've of course got a lot here.
I'm not really that great at shmups but Crimzon Clover is a real delight to play. Ridiculously fast and intricate bullet patterns with an awesome encouraging score system. The strategy between breaking and doing just enough damage to cause the own enemy's break is a great ebb and flow that makes the dance between flurries of damage zones more interesting than just a general 2hou bullet hell. Going for optimal score just so you can give a safety net with a life or cruising between double breaks by perfect positioning and minute movement is a satisfying and excellent craze.
The boss battles are all interesting too, ranging from absolute damage areas, slowly weaving around the boss in a clockwork fashion, to entire bullet layers. The secret boss especially comes to mind at the absolute dance I tend to crave from these kinds of games, even countering some of your own strategies.
On top of the gameplay side, it also has a marvelous aesthetic with great art for the enemies, backgrounds, and effects like explosions. The music kicks ass as usual for this genre and it never lets up. In terms of visual clarity, bullets all have very distinct shapes for you to see, to a point where it's very hard to blame any of my deaths on that kind of issue.
It's not perfect for me unfortunately, Novice is so incredibly easy (I 1cc'd it on the FIRST TRY) and Arcade kicks my teeth in too much for me to be satisfied. It goes so hard into almost masocore territory with so many bullets on screen and intricate moving parts that my eyes and head started to hurt after a bit. Even though this isn't really the game for me I can still say it's one of the better shmups to pick up and try. If you're new to the genre there's no reason you can't get past Novice and if you're looking for something ballbusting you've of course got a lot here.