First of all: yes, I beat the game in only 50 minutes. The game is that short.

• Steam and Metal
  

  50 minutes playtime

  16 of 28 achievements

This is a vertical shoot ‘em up. You can move your plane anywhere on the screen as the level scrolls by, and you shoot upward at enemies as they come in from various directions, usually from the top of the screen moving downward. You also have missiles, but unlike other shmups, they aren’t screen-clearing, or even activated with a simple button press; rather, you have to hold the right trigger until a gauge is filled and makes a very subtle, muted sound, and then you can fire your missiles, which move straight upward (just like your normal bullets). Another change this makes from the usual shmup format is that you have a health bar, so you can take a few hits before losing a life.

One of the first things you’ll notice about the game is that it’s a rather amateurish work. This is probably most exemplified by the fact that the ominous intro music also plays during the epilogue, which is otherwise a standard “happily ever after” affair (and the fact that said music doesn’t loop properly, resulting in an audio seam). However, this bleeds into the game-play as well: there are obvious borders on the sides of your screen (and no resolution options, so they’re always there), but despite this, the game shoves your UI onto the game-play area! It does become translucent if you fly under it, but did nobody on the development team think to move it just a bit further left so it wouldn’t potentially block enemy projectiles? Did they not at least see screenshots of Blast Wind?

Also, maybe this was just me, but I found it a bit difficult to figure out what killed me at times. This becomes more apparent with the stage 3 boss, which is one of those giant, multi-part battles. In other shoot ‘em ups, like 1943, you can fly over most of this type of boss without taking damage, but for this one, the entire sprite is a hazard. What’s more annoying is, around the boss’s third phase, you’re behind its exhaust, and the smoke can kill you (at least, that’s what it looked like). How is that intuitive? The issue is exacerbated by the fact that your invincibility frames aren’t visible (your plane isn’t flashing or anything), so it can sometimes be hard to figure out what’s dangerous and what’s a hazard (or how long your invincibility frames last).

Lastly, there’s a few miscellaneous issues I had. The difficulty curve isn’t properly implemented (the final boss, despite having two phases, is easier than the stage 5 boss), and the story also seems shoehorned in at times, like with the exposition dump about the rebels at the end of stage 4.

The game does let you continue from the last stage you reached, so there’s something in favor of it that other shmups I’ve played don’t do. It also has very obvious warnings for when enemies will appear from a direction that isn’t the top of the screen, so that’s nice.

Overall, this game is okay. It has its annoying parts, but I did have some fun with it. If you’re a shmup fan, I recommend checking it out on sale; even if you don’t like it, you can always refund the game after you beat it.