Over the years, Inti Creates has solidified their place as one of my favorite 2D action platformer developers of all time. From the classic Mega Man Zero series, to the modern Gunvolt series, they have continued to refine and evolve their craft. You simply won't find their brand of high octane, arcadey, mastery-focused gameplay anywhere else.

I played iX1 on a whim a few years ago, and to my surprise, I loved it so much that it not only made me go back and play the other Gunvolt games, but it also ultimately led to me rethinking how I view rank, score, and other mastery-focused systems in other games, including the Zero games and their S-ranks. Copen's aerial based gameplay was just that great; bouncing off walls and enemies at breakneck speeds while maintaining my air combo to score as high as possible was so exhilarating.

So imagine my shock when iX2 was initially announced, and Copen's gameplay was revealed to be reworked. Gone are the days of dashing all around the level from the get-go, as he only has one air dash (outside of Overdrive). Now he has the Razor Wheel, complete with a 3-hit combo and other melee shenanigans. While I still had faith in Inti Creates' ability, I couldn't shake that feeling of apprehension. Yeah, it kinda reminded me of Mega Man Zero, and you could still access Copen's old gameplay with Overdrive, but the huge changes worried me. Fast forward to release; the moment of truth has arrived, so how is it?

It's a lot to digest, that's for sure.

First things first, Copen's new gameplay. As I said before, dashing around and cutting up enemies with the Razor Wheel in Copen's Breakshift really did remind me of Mega Man Zero, though not nearly as fluid as that or iX1/GV2's gameplay. The wheel doesn't do enough damage to kill most things in less than 2 slashes, so you almost have to stop and full combo every enemy, even the smaller ones. It's no biggie, since going from enemy to enemy as fast as you can to maintain your Quick Break combo for kudos is enjoyable enough, and you can even weave in Bullitshift and EX weapons.

However, that "weaving" is actually my biggest issue with the game. There isn't a cohesive marriage of the Breakshift and Bullitshift gameplay, at least not in scoreplay. You use Breakshift (and a little Bullitshift) to hit 1000 kudos as fast as you can to hit Overdrive, and from there you just rack up aerial combos like in iX1 since it's FAR more lucrative kudos-wise. It's still pretty fun, especially in Normal mode where emblems let you hit 1k kudos quickly anyway, but it just screams "missed potential". It was a really cool idea, and I REALLY hope they expand on it in the future.

What makes it even more disappointing is the fact that pretty much everything else about the game feels like a step-up from iX1. Thanks to consideration for the Breakshift system (I assume), iX2 actually has some of the best level design I've seen in a Gunvolt game thus far. Not only do they still facilitate that feeling of flow that we all know and love, but they individually have stronger identities, thanks to improved enemy variety and great level gimmicks. In addition, the presentation has noticeably improved as well. The soundtrack quality has gotten even better, with particularly strong normal level themes (an area where the series historically lacked), alongside some other great tunes like Ypsilon's boss theme. The visuals are also a lot more varied from level to level (especially compared to iX1, where levels would often visually blend together), further aiding that sense of identity I was talking about. This game's EX weapon selection blows previous games out of the water too. Unlike GV2 and iX1 where you'd be using Hailstorm Blade/Orbital Edge 99% of the time, you can find a useful niche for most of them. Rolling Ripper is the go-to aerial enemy killer, Cryo Flash for slowing down time, Whirling Chopper is great for animation-cancelling and gaining vertical height, and Optic Barrier is useful in quite a few boss fights. Speaking of boss fights, they're still as great as ever. Hell, at this point, it's hard to NOT take notice of how consistently good Inti is at designing bosses. There's not much to be said; patterns are fun to learn, and are hard enough to actually require learning. It almost feels like performing a well-choreographed dance, honestly, especially in the context of the scoring.

And then there's the difficulty.

The Gunvolt series' approach to difficulty has always been a point of contention. In stark contrast to the Mega Man Zero games, it opts to start you off with extreme power, and instead give you a plethora of tools to modulate the difficulty. At default, the previous games would make you immune to 99% of damage at the cost of an easily refillable resource, alongside a free auto-revive, a potentially large health pool, infinite lives, and so on and so forth. If you're an average player, and use all of these to the fullest, you're left with a comically easy game. Perfect for people that want to revel in the power fantasy and enjoy the charming, chuuni writing stress-free, but pretty boring for everyone else. However, as I've alluded to throughout the review, the games have consistently made it very clear that the REAL draw is embracing the arcade-style of old, and doing score runs. As in, running through levels as fast as possible, while racking up kudos by pulling off methodical combos; all without getting so much as a scratch. It's a difficult, but very rewarding road. All of the games' mechanics will truly come into play, your personal idol will sing J-Pop bangers for you, and you'll get a shiny S+ rank to show for it, but those are all secondary to the greatest reward of all: the fun.

But what about the people in the middle? What of the folks that don't want to bother with some silly ranking system or some self-imposed challenges and just want to run through the game once like a Mega Man game? Unfortunately, they're out of luck. Even if you disable all of the extra options that makes the games effortless, you're still left with a fairly easy game with seemingly milquetoast level design. This is where many fundamental misconceptions about the series arise, and it serves as a major stumbling block for many people.

In response, Inti Creates appeared to have doubled down. The default mode, Normal, has two major changes; an unlimited source of healing at the push of a button (with the only caveat being that it banks your kudos), along with Gutless as the sole kudos mode. The healing option didn't matter to me honestly. I just treated it like Prevasion and Anthem in previous games and simply never used it, and it actually resulted in a fairly decent difficulty curve in casual play. The forced Gutless mode was far more concerning, but in practice it actually worked out better than I thought, especially since there's an upgrade that boosts your damage in exchange for losing all kudos on hit. But that's not all.

Now when I say Inti Creates doubled down, I mean they DOUBLED down. For the first time in the series since the later releases of GV1, iX2 also has a Hard mode, complete with a multitude of changes. It removes the healing mode, disables all upgrades, capps your max HP, makes you lose all kudos on-hit (like Fearless mode in previous games), greatly buffs boss patterns, removes the emblems, and, most interestingly, introduces a lives system. There is little room (or no room when scoring) for error in boss fights, and mistakes are far more punishing, as losing all your lives will boot you out of the level. They even pulled a ballsy move and locked the true ending behind its completion. As you can imagine, this mode lies on the complete opposite side of the difficulty spectrum, and it's brutal, and it's easily the hardest Gunvolt has ever been. The final boss alone took me 40+ tries and almost 3 hours.

But you know what? This may be a hot take, but it was a WONDERFUL addition. THIS is, more or less, how hard Gunvolt should be. The Breakshift system works a lot better here than in Normal mode too, and Inti-Creates intended vision for it became a bit clearer, although it also makes the messy union between it and Bulletshift more apparent. My only gripe with it is that they didn't alter the level design at all. That's fine for scoreplay, but in casual runs the levels are still far too easy. It'd be better for casual AND scoreplay if the level design was slightly remixed (in the same vein as the special missions in iX1) and some checkpoints were removed, especially considering the lives system and the fact that you have to beat Normal mode first to unlock it. But beyond that, I hope they expand on this mode and include it in future games.

If you look at iX2's individual parts, you'll find that although it expanded on and improved many aspects of the previous games, the most important one--the Breakshift system and the related changes to Copen's gameplay--fell a bit short. Though ambitious, it's nowhere near as cohesive as the focused endeavors of iX1 and GV2. With that being said, however, when I reflect on my experience holistically, I can't deny the fact that I had a ton of fun, which probably speaks to how strong and unique the series' core design philosophy is. I can't wait for GV3, and I hope it doesn't take 4 years to get ported.

After the jam-packed send off to the 2nd gen that was AC2AA, AC3 came in to kick off the 3rd gen with all new stuff. A new timeline, new corporations warring, new parts and mechanics, and so on and so forth. Arena and normal mission structure has also returned, absent from the last game. My favorite new feature this time is definitely the advent of left-handed guns. Though in its infancy now, with only a few guns to choose from, it really sowed the seeds for it to become a fully fledged feature in later games. Other than that, I don't have much to say. Missions are great, customization is even greater, and the soundtrack is wonderful. I like the more orchestral, grand approach they took to the songs this time around.

And In My Heart is a fucking banger.

Easily one of my favorite shmups. Mechanically, it's fairly simple as far as shmups go; you shoot down enemies while avoiding fire. You got focused shooting and movements, bombs, etc. But there's something different about Mushihimesama that makes it so fun to play, I can't explain it. Weaving through dense bullet patterns while mowing down wave after wave of enemies feels so satisfying.

The soundtrack is great too. My personal favorite mode was Original 1.5 MAX, mostly because of the exclusive gameplay mechanics, but also because it's got the best arrangements of each song. Hearing "Like a Night of Falling Stars" for the first time is not a feeling I'll forget anytime soon. I also want to mention the aesthetic. The whole bug and nature theme it has is really unique, and cool too. Mushi is such a great game in every department.

FUCK Stage 3 though.

watched my friend play this, but it's a vn so that basically means i played it

overall it was quite a dreadful, pathetic experience. came off to me as serial experiments lain but without any of the interesting stuff and catered solely to people with profound mental illness. alas, the extent of my """neurodivergence""" is playing shmups, so i'm afraid there's nothing but pity for me to feel in response to the author's traumadumping.

would highly recommend if hanging around the venting channel in a Falcom discord sounds like fun to you. MC was cute though; I could fix her.

May this piece of complete dogshit be the Ark that delivers Capcom back into the hells of abject failure, full of horrors they haven't seen since the 7th gen. I want this bastard company dashed across the fucking rocks and scattered into the wind, just as they did with Mega Man. Inshallah the locusts will devour the flimsy goodwill they gained (certainly not earned) over the past several years, so that their cowardice will be layed bare to even the redditors that kiss their feet. Inafune was never the problem, just a symptom, and I want the disease GONE.

Similar to Project Phantasm and Master of Arena, AC2:AA is less of a sequel to AC2, but more of an expansion pack. Outside of new missions and some new parts, it's basically the same as its predecessor. But sheesh, it really is an EXPANSION pack. While the Arena didn't make the cut, there's a whopping 100 new missions to take on, which is more than the entire 1st gen combined.

Now you might ask, "but PK, if it's just 100 more missions of the same thing as before, won't it get boooriiing?" Listen, I've just played five of these games in a row in the span of a month, and I'm down to play five more. The mission variety in this game is great. From jumping from ship to ship, to dismantling planes thousands of feet in the sky. We got one-on-one (or, two, or three) enemy AC fights, and we even have fights against enormous MTs. Hell, there are even some returning friends from earlier AC games coming back to tear me a new one, for old time's sake. And at the end of the day, though the series has only been incrementally improving with each entry, the core formula is brilliant. I love building, customizing, optimizing, personalizing, and piloting ACs. I love decimating the enemy, whether that entails methodically combing through a large level, or frantically dueling with an enemy AC. I love getting my ass beaten by the same mission ten times in a row, and going back to the drawing board each time to change up my build. I've enjoyed every entry so far, and AC2:AA is no exception. It ended the 2nd gen with a bang, and it's my favorite game in the series so far.

Short and sweet dungeon crawler. The dungeons are a lot of fun to explore, the combat is straightforward yet satisfying, and progression (though not very involved) feels great, and there's lots of weapons and skills (magic especially) to fuck around with. The music manages to both complement the atmosphere of the game, and still be a joy to listen to. Much like the game itself, the story is also pretty simple, but still very engaging nonetheless. Speaking of interesting, I also appreciate the presentation of lore and backstory; unraveling the mysteries of Xanadu through tablets and memoirs was pretty intriguing.

Xanadu Next is a wonderful game, and I'm holding out for a proper sequel someday; Tokyo Xanadu looks like garbage. We need less Persona, and more Vagrant Story.

In a world where western AAA developers are so utterly risk-averse that they'd make Courage the Cowardly Dog look like The 300, and many indie developers are still infatuated with roguelikes, Soulslikes, and "Quirky Earthbound-Inspired RPG Maker Games About Mental Health" , I have nothing but respect for Steel Assault's devotion to the pure arcade style of gaming.

Of course, I'm being quite hyperbolic (and a bit unfair) here, but I really am glad a title like this exists. Steel Assault is a short, but very sweet run-and-gun with heavy arcade influence, reminiscent of Contra or Metal Slug. The controls are tight, the level and enemy design is both varied and spectacular, and boss fights are equally well-crafted. The game is satisfyingly hard (especially on Expert and Arcade), and never unfair. The spritework is a beautiful sight to behold, and the music is downright amazing, evoking strong Thunder Force vibes.

I'm not without a few grievances with the game, though. My main problem is that the zip-line mechanic felt really underutilized. I was expecting it's uses and applications to evolve more during the game (and it kinda did a few times, like during the conveyor belt part of Stage 3), but it just never wowed me. Similarly, I expected the subweapon mechanic to be a lot more fleshed out. It seems kinda weird to have an entire subweapon bar (that you can refill with melee attacks) only for a single weapon that you rarely get. Personally, I also think that the gap between Normal and Expert mode's difficulty is faaaar too big. Expert mode doubles damage received, increases enemy health, decreases health restoration, AND removes all checkpoints in levels, meaning that you have to restart the stage every time you die. In a game with five different difficulty levels, they really should have been able to smooth it out.

Despite the hiccups, Steel Assault, at its core, is still a great, tightly-designed, and focused game. I can wholeheartedly recommend it, and I do hope that the developers continue to make games and refine their work.

And make sure to completely disregard anyone accusing the game of being too short; that very sentiment of "length = price" has done irreparable damage to the state of gaming. This is very clearly and unabashedly an arcade-style game, and I can guarantee that any issues with length would be solved by playing Expert and Arcade mode.

But I digress; just play Steel Assault.