This is a SHMUP. Similar to the original Space Invaders, you can move side-to-side and shoot forward (and even do both at the same time!), but you can also toss a screen-clearing grenade with Y and spawn two shot-reflecting orbs with X (shooting them ricochets your shots directly to a seemingly-random enemy). EDIT: apparently, each character’s X-button move is different (I only played the game as one character, and the game doesn’t tell you their differences on the character select screen). You shoot faster if you tap the shoot button than if you hold it, but your rate of fire is still limited; you can tap the button faster than your character will shoot, which lets certain fast-moving enemies slip between your shots. EDIT: To clarify, these enemies normally just slowly shamble towards you, and it isn’t until you shoot at them when they abruptly bolt to the side before immediately going back to shambling; it’s not like the original Space Invaders where you can time your shots despite their speed. Also unlike the original Space Invaders, you don’t lose if an enemy reaches your side of the arena; instead, you can still attack them by dodge-rolling into them with L or R. As a dodge-roll, though, it kinda sucks; you don’t get much distance and it’s tough to figure out when the i-frames are (or if certain attacks just hit you regardless). Plus, you can’t move for a bit when it ends, making it extra difficult to avoid even regular attacks (especially since there are some attacks that can only be avoided by dodging, but they can happen among other, asynchronous attacks).

Side note: Wikipedia says that there’s “limited movement both into and away from the screen,” but I tried pushing up, down, the D-pad, Z, B, and the C-stick, but none of them seemed to do anything; I still could only move side-to-side. I even tried looking up scans of the instruction manual so I could find out what I was missing, but couldn’t even find that.

There isn’t much level design aside from the walls on each side of you and the destructible barriers that block both your and enemies’ attacks, but the game makes up for it with enemy variety. On top of having different shot patterns, there are even different bullet types: yellow ones can be shot and destroyed, blue ones split into two yellow ones when shot…and I think all the others just go through your shots. There are still issues, as it can be difficult to discern hitboxes, especially with the purple lasers and the wavy ground electricity (and maybe partly because of the camera’s forward perspective). Plus, the boss of level four has purple shots that are somewhat transparent and hard to track.

There are also a bunch of times where the enemies’ projectiles move faster than you can react, so you have to rely on foreshadow animations. Problem is, those animations can happen off-screen since most levels scroll far enough to the side for it to happen. What especially irritated me is that the second boss has the foreshadow+fast shots at you, but then right afterward it moves to the side and immediately fires the fast moving projectiles again! No second foreshadow; it just happens. The only way to dodge the second volley is to know that’s coming ahead of time. Other fast attacks, like the cars in level 2, rely on audio cues, which can be tough to notice among the explosions and other sounds.

There were many times where it really felt like attacks couldn’t be dodged, but I still wasn’t sure if it was the game or if I was just missing something…but then I made it to level 6. See, before this level, there’s an enemy that has its shield up, and if you shoot it enough, it drops its shield and charges at you. Normally, you can kill it before it can hit you, but in level 6, all the enemies are giant and have more HP, so you won’t be able to kill the enemy before it reaches your side. So yeah, I’m convinced the game has unavoidable attacks now, but the game’s continue system also respawns you right where you died, even stunning/hurting all enemies (merely resetting your score), so you’ll never have to worry about losing progress.

At the end of level 6 (the final level), you have to fight the bosses of level 1, 2, and 4 again, in a row, which is especially annoying since bosses have a bit too much health (and the level 4 boss has two phases). They do have slightly different attacks than before, though, so it’s not all bad. The final boss changes things up by the arena being circular, with the boss in the center and you always walking around, always facing the boss. Now, you won’t get trapped between projectiles and the wall again since there is no wall, but there are still a few fast shot patterns that’ll get you. The boss of level 3 also shows up here, but you don’t have to re-fight that boss; you can just keep running away from it since the arena is circular. The final boss’s final phase took me a moment to figure out because I thought I just had to shoot the shield like I did with the enemies from before, but you actually have to shoot and destroy one of the little orbs at the vertices, as they’re what’s powering the shield.

Overall, this game is hard to recommend. There are some neat ideas, and it’s easily better than a lot of other games I’ve played, but I can also see why it didn’t review so well. Don’t pay more than a couple dollars for it.