Sanvein, released in the States as Shooter: Starfighter Sanvein, is a highly stylistic 3d shooter that feels like a game built to run on the computers from Neon Genesis Evangelion. It looks amazing, and it's a lot of fun even just to get through the menus. If you're an Evangelion or shooter fan, absolutely worth checking out, though you might only stay briefly.

Developed by Success, who is more well-known for the Cotton series of shooters, for D3's budget Simple 1500 series, this is an arcadey, time attack 3d shooter with super fast micro levels. Each stage typically has less than five enemies to kill, and often you'll pop into a stage and pop right back out before racing over to the next one. There's a constantly ticking clock, and taking damage lowers how much time you have left. While the game is really fast paced and looks amazing, the sheer amount and lack of variety in the stages makes the game feel really repetitive. It's not that the core loop isn't fun, but that it isn't fun enough to sustain itself. Still, for me this is a "hidden gem" just because of how unique and cool it is look at.

Reviewed on Feb 19, 2023


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