This game was made when Takumi took the phrase "I'm rubber, you're glue, whatever you say bounces off me and sticks to you" too seriously.

A reflect bomb is such a crazy idea but Takumi took that idea and ran with it. This game is a bullet hell, but that twist allowed them to create bullet patterns where using your reflect was extremely advised. The best part of it is that this game has been cleared without using the reflect, so they even took self-imposed challenges into account when designing this monster of a shoot 'em up.

If you're unaware, you have a special sort of bomb in this game that allows you to reflect bullets and gives you a few seconds of invulnerability. It's on a cooldown, but it's pretty short, and you'll be using that reflect a lot during your play through. As the stages get harder, due to the ranking system where bullets get faster and the distance between them gets shorter, the density of the bullet patterns become harder and harder to micrododge, further reinforcing the use of your reflect. You'd want to anyway. Do you have any idea how good it feels to send hundreds of bullets hurdling back at your enemies?!

Your choice of four characters comes down to preference since all of them are pretty strong, except for that one guy who's really bad, but even he's good enough to get a clear with. The first 3 stages are random based on that selection and, much like ESP Ra.De., Strikers 1945, and several other shmups, have different difficulties based on the order of the stages.

The real game starts at Stage 5, however, which was the bane of my existence. Routing it was difficult, as a small mistake could easily extinguish one of your lives. I saved almost all my bombs for that stage, as I felt the penultimate boss and the final boss (only accessible if you're going for a 1CC), were easier to route. That stage has fast bullets, and tons of enemies. It's a big step up in difficulty. But man, is it fun to play.

I could go on, but a game to me has to play well to even be considered a 5/5, and this one plays too well. The music is probably a sticking point for some as I felt it was samey, the artwork is really nice on the eyes, and the visibility of the bullets is clear. I never felt like one snuck up on me, unless I just was not paying attention. If you care about presentation, you'll still get your fill, with some big explosions and spectacles coming from the bosses. The final pattern in this game is just hundreds of bullets that create an excellent feeling of slowdown and you ram them up the final boss's ass for stalking you the entire game.

Fuck you, man, I got a reflect bomb, and it makes reflect noises. 5/5. 10/10. Capcom, why the hell did you stop funding shoot 'em ups?!

My 1CC: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_aBpaB7r5S0

My 1CC (1,354,660): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pufTnOK3E6M

I don't know why I haven't heard of this game before. It's an excellent cabal shooter, a genre with already very few games in it. It looks cool, sounds cool, has some sick art and is really addicting to play. I'm not going to take the time to fully explain what a cabal shooter is, but it includes games like Sin and Punishment and Wild Guns where your character and cursor move in unison. Though in those games, you have a few more mechanics to play with. Here, you can also duck and move around while ducking.

Similar to those games, you go through each stage trying to destroy everything in sight for points. You have collectibles such as ammo, health and bombs. You get one bomb at 120K points and every 100K points there after. In addition, there's a boss at the end or close to the end of each level. You are graded on 3 criteria, how much you have destroyed, how fast you have killed the boss, and how much health you have left.

This allows for a lot to master. Sure, bosses have strategies where you can cheese them, but as you can see from my run, you will not get max score this way. You lose a hell of a lot of points. You also get 100K points at the end of the game for each bomb you don't use (for a max total of 8 bombs or 800,000 points), so here's a ton of optimization in this game, where I can't even begin to describe what a perfect route would look like.

All this makes for a high replayable romp that I could not put down for just over a couple of days of grinding. I spent around 9-10 hours on this one. A clear, IMO, is not hard to get if you use all your bombs and know how to cheese the bosses (which may sometimes be necessary), but that's not the point of this one. Play well and score well. My score here is quite modest, as the world record is around 1.7m points, but the optimization and routing are very, very strict the higher you want to go, making for a wonderful time.

A great remake of the original Outrun.

There's some changes here that are good and bad, though.

Negatives; I think the game is easier. I can't really figure out why, but my guess is that they grant you more time to complete the course as my times were longer than in the Sega Ages Outrun version on the Switch and even more than in Cannonball. This is my main complaint. It's certainly not a dealbreaker, however. There's also the possible that I've just played way too much Outrun over the years, so my opinion of the difficulty may be skewed. I'm not going to knock off any points due to that.

Neutral; I think the larger vehicle sizes will make this version of the game harder for some. You can zip through some smaller spaces in the original but you will almost definitely clip vehicles when you race in this version. It's a bit more RNG for that reason but it didn't bother me much.

Positives; I think the biggest change, however, is the addition of Arrange mode. This mode legitimately rules. It is definitely the reason to play the PS2 version. It's now 7 stages long, though they converge (1>2>3>4>3>2>1). You have new courses like the Canyon and Vegas which are awesome, and you have to race against a rival per stage, and they stack. The tension of accidentally slowing down can cause a rival to speed up past you and even knock you off course. It's a very good mode. You have to play really, really well. I've read some people also didn't like the remixed music? They're good remixes. They don't touch the originals or the Switch version's music, but I enjoyed them.

I think this version of Outrun is worth playing. I beat it in 5 hours with the base settings (I played on Normal; I can't figure out the difference between Easy, Normal and Hard, but I think it's like the original's dip switch which just adds more vehicles). I cleared every original race, and the Arrange mode while beating all seven rivals. Upload here: https://youtu.be/GZGMK2XoL-8

Definitely recommending this one. It's only a 4/5 instead of a 5/5 because I do think the original game is just superior in nearly every way. If this game did not have Arrange mode, I would see no reason to come back, but the Arrange mode is worth returning for.