- Accessible STG gameplay for all skill levels.
- Unique, striking, and grotesque art style.
- Deep replayability with extensive progression.
- Exceptional tutorial system aids new players.
- Poor bullet visibility hinders gameplay.
- Excessive grind leads to repetitive gameplay.
Emotions
Emotion: satisfaction
Emotion: excitement
Emotion: appreciation
Emotion: joy
Emotion: surprise
Verdict
Mostly positive
Summary
Positive 96% · Negative 4%. Score: 4 / 100
Positives:
- The game is highly praised for making the challenging STG/bullet hell genre accessible and enjoyable for beginners and players with varying skill levels. It achieves this through forgiving mechanics, a reasonable difficulty curve, and a design that encourages engagement rather than frustration.
- Reviewers consistently highlight the game's distinctive and often bizarre art style, described as Giger-esque or erotic-grotesque. This unique visual identity is a major draw and contributes significantly to the game's captivating atmosphere.
- The game features an incredibly detailed, comprehensive, and beginner-friendly tutorial. It is praised for its encouraging tone, humor, and effectiveness in teaching both game-specific mechanics and broader STG genre fundamentals, making it stand out among other games.
- The game offers extensive replayability through its Chronicle mode with branching paths, roguelike elements, and a rewarding weapon/ship upgrade system. This addictive progression loop, combined with numerous unlockables, keeps players engaged for many hours.
- The game's soundtrack is highly praised for being mesmerizing, fitting the game's themes, and enhancing the combat experience. Coupled with satisfying sound effects and a first-class combat feel, the audio-visual presentation significantly contributes to player exhilaration.
Negatives:
- Many reviewers found the game's visual design, including chaotic effects, overwhelming light pollution, and specific color palettes, made it difficult to distinguish enemy bullets and hitboxes. This visual clutter, combined with off-screen enemy fire, significantly impaired gameplay and caused eye strain.
- Many reviewers found the game's progression, especially the leveling system and 'Chronicles' mode, to be overly grindy and repetitive. This led to tedium and a feeling of limited content, diminishing long-term appeal.
- Players report a lack of essential quality-of-life features, such as a quick restart option after dying, and frustrating UI prompts. Additionally, issues like limited controls, a large player ship obstructing view, and missing in-game galleries detract from the user experience.
- The game features significant and often unfair difficulty spikes, particularly in later stages, higher difficulties, and specific boss encounters. This makes the game overwhelming for new players and frustrating for others, leading to a sense of discouragement.
- The game suffers from frequent crashes, poor stability, and critical issues like inexplicably lost save files. There are also reports of the game being unplayable on Steam Deck, severely impacting player progress and experience.
Gameplay:
- Chronicle mode serves as a substantial, extensive progression system with branching paths and a significant grind. It allows players to unlock story elements, customize weapons, and explore a rich world, greatly extending the game's replayability and content depth.
- The game features a very thorough tutorial that guides players through both basic STG mechanics and the game's unique systems. Despite the initial "VERY HARD" label, this difficulty is designed to be an accessible introduction, making the game less daunting than it appears.
- The game offers a wide array of unlockable ships, each with unique characteristics and loadouts. Players can further customize their ships with different weapons and attribute bonuses, providing significant replay value and strategic choice across various game modes.
- The game includes a distinct Arcade mode offering a more traditional bullet-hell experience with balanced difficulty settings. It features multiple campaigns, unique levels, and bosses, providing a classic STG challenge separate from the main progression.
- A key combat mechanic is the charge shot, which is primarily used for bullet cancellation and creating safe zones. While it has a wind-up and low damage output, its ability to clear bullet patterns is crucial for navigating intense encounters and setting up close-range attacks.
Performance:
- Players attempted a common troubleshooting step, verifying game files, but it failed to resolve an underlying issue. This suggests that the problem is not due to corrupted files and requires a different solution or developer intervention.
- Players experienced intermittent periods of performance degradation, characterized by sporadic slowdowns. This highlights a need for further optimization to ensure consistent and smooth gameplay across all scenarios.
- This point indicates a general positive sentiment regarding the game's overall technical execution. While positive, it lacks specific details about which technical aspects are strong, making it less actionable for developers.
Recommendations:
- Reviewers overwhelmingly recommend the game, often calling it a masterpiece and worth its full price, citing its fun gameplay and overall quality. It's considered a strong entry in its genre and a worthwhile purchase.
- Players are advised that a demo is available to try before purchasing the game. This allows potential buyers to experience the atmosphere and gameplay firsthand.
- For a more balanced difficulty and a standard firepower experience, players are advised to play Arcade mode. This suggests it offers a different, potentially preferred, gameplay flow compared to other modes.
- Reviewers suggest that interested players can either wait for a discount or purchase the game at full price, indicating that its value justifies either option.
Miscellaneous:
- Despite being a bullet-hell shooter, the game offers surprisingly rich and detailed lore, exploring complex themes of a future apocalyptic "perfect society" where humanity has eliminated intellect and desire. While some plot elements might be predictable, the overall world-building is a significant and appreciated aspect.
- The game's most striking feature is its highly unique, grotesque, and sometimes lewd art style, characterized by detailed gore, bizarre creature designs, and explicit imagery. This aesthetic is a primary draw for many players, who appreciate the option to disable censorship and often request art books.
- Players have expressed interest in additional features such as a multiplayer mode, a music room, and future DLC or art books. Specific requests include a triple laser cannon for tower climbing mode and merchandise like figures.
- Reviewers acknowledge that the STG (Shoot 'em Up) genre can be challenging to attract new players in the current market. Some personally find these games difficult, but express hope for the genre's future.
- The game features passionate and intense heavy metal background music, composed by Sakaba Haruo. This distinct musical style significantly enhances the game's atmosphere and is a notable positive aspect for reviewers.
