Galactic Refugees
this is a really nice game with pretty widely varied difficulty settings and all original artwork and music. imo it’s simple, easy to pick up and go, and a lot of fun :3
a lot of the characters are cute and quirky, and there is plenty of solid shoot em up/bullet hell content.
– Real player with 0.3 hrs in game
Read More: Best Shoot 'Em Up 2D Games.
Zone of Lacryma
Quick but sweet SHMUP with a simple but engaging leveling system in which your Score is your Experience to level up and get bonus stats such as bullet speed or recharge rate.
Took me around 3h to beat with a lot of retries on the last few missions, but there was absolutely no filler, no stages where I actually knew what was going to happen, it was exclusively good content from start to finish.
Might be a bit overpriced for the time you’ll likely spend on it but it’s really fun to replay as levels have are many separate parallel paths to complete.
– Real player with 8.6 hrs in game
Read More: Best Shoot 'Em Up Pixel Graphics Games.
It’s a nice little shmup.
I love upgrading and having the choice to invest and change my playstyle, it has that. That’s nice.
I like the graphics, the color pallete isnt a rainbow mumbo-jumbo like most titles of this genre and the pixel-art is from the better part of pixel-art, not from the lazy-ugly-Undertale group.
The soundtrack is there, nothing special, it fits the industrial-space theme of the game.
It has some bugs, but they arent gamebreaking nor do they destroy the playthrough.
Dev is friendly, gib him some monies. Have fun.
– Real player with 3.7 hrs in game
TCSTRIKERS3
Don’t ask me why.
– Real player with 12.4 hrs in game
Read More: Best Shoot 'Em Up 2D Games.
Typhoon Unit ~ Butterfly Requiem
Typhoon Unit ~ Butterfly Requiem is a bullet hell shooting adventure where you swap between a trio of heroes on the fly!
Take control of Gale, Fia, and Casey, three flying fighters with their own unique abilities! Through strategic character swaps, and the power of Synergy Boost, you can overwhelm your foes with tactics and style!
In a land where fantasy and technology intertwine, cities across the world are under attack. The only thing connecting these incidents is the Steel Butterfly, a sword wielding butterfly woman who brings destruction in her wake.
The Typhoon Unit, a small but capable band of airborne heroes, have been called in to put a stop to the threat. Can the Typhoon Unit halt the Steel Butterfly’s conquest, and discover her secrets?
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Heart pounding bullet hell action!
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Blast, dodge, and punch as a team of three unique heroes!
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Switch on the fly, and use the power of teamwork to make your heroes even stronger!
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Battle a blade wielding butterfly, a rock star siren, a gadget powered puppeteer and more in challenging boss encounters!
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Experience a world of magic technology and cute monster girls!
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Pursue the mysterious Steel Butterfly, in a Story Mode spanning 7 chapters!
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Test your skills, and go for the highest possible score in Arcade Mode!
DANMAKAI: Red Forbidden Fruit
Cute little STG that feels like a nice and huge love letter to Touhou (especially PC-98’s vibes). I will write my pros and cons with the expectation that the reader is at least somewhat fond of Touhou.
Pros:
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4 difficulties, 6 stages with an extra stage. Very Touhou-style
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Mechanic is simple enough to understand. The tutorial video helps.
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The difficulty is generally digestible. You can go ham on resources once you master the mechanic, but isn’t that true of most STGs and Touhou games anyway…
– Real player with 22.7 hrs in game
A hilariously unbalanced game with a bomb mechanic that can be spammed to hell and back. Once the player has figured out how, where, and when to bomb graze, its difficulty becomes trivial, and the game becomes a fun novelty. A veteran shmup player should be able to clear Lunatic in under 10 credits.
While there is little challenge to be found in the main game, there’s plenty of extra content to keep yourself busy with. There also seems to be a hidden condition for what I think is a TLB or something equivalent, but I’m too lazy to confirm it.
– Real player with 16.8 hrs in game
Ex-Zodiac
Ex-Zodiac is a fast-paced rail shooter with a stylized look reminiscent of early 90’s 3D games. Join protagonist Kyuu as she fights to free the worlds of the Sanzaru Star System, overrun by the intergalactic terrorist organization known as Zodiac.
FEATURING:
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A retro, colourful, low-poly visual style
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12 main levels (plus secret areas and side-paths)
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Multiple routes to complete the game
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Major bosses at the end of each level, each piloted by a member of the Zodiac
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A 16-bit style soundtrack by +TEK combining FM and wavetable synthesis
TWINKLE STAR SPRITES
so is this game a good game? hell yeah, this game is super fun. a competitive shmup with puzzle elements which works like a charm. its colourful too and has a nice aesthetic, and a good soundtrack. each character plays a bit differently too, different shot and movement speeds, of course each character has a different charge shot and bombs, standard affair with a shmup.
is this port a good port? absolutely not. this port has slow down and that ive never had happen when playing this on fightcade or supercade (when it was still around). like, the game does have slow down naturally here and there when theres a whole bunch of projectiles on screen, but with this port it happens a lot more frequently. it even happens when some characters throw out a bomb, especially with memory. and when i say slow down i mean the game chugs to like, 5 frames a second, basically unplayable until the slow down decides to stop. it’s also got a weird issue with sound where certain instuments will sometimes not sync up with the other ones.
– Real player with 9.3 hrs in game
This is one of the best versus shoot’em ups ever made.
However, what you get with this re-release is an easy to use ROM+emulator bundle with some additional features. The game ROM is not even openly accessible so you cannot use it with the emulator of your choice and are stuck with the given configuration options and the given launcher.
Besides, the Neo-geo original version is not the absolute best version of the game (the Saturn version had more content).
The additionnal features are a leaderboard, multiplayer and achievements, but every one of them is flawed:
– Real player with 8.6 hrs in game
BorderCollie Blaster
Kira is back! In this arcade style shoot ´em up you´ll encounter different foes, defeat big alien bosses and collect power-ups and new weapons to fight your way through exciting stages and find the holy bone Kira (the star of the game) is looking for.
This game features hand placed enemy waves throughout the game, a digitized Bordercollie and bossfights at the end of each stage.
Pretty Kitty Fuzzy
Pretty Kitty Fuzzy is a fast paced “bullet-hell” shoot-em-up! Travel through nine imaginative stages and defeat the evil snake witch Anguis. With nostalgic graphics and an awesome soundtrack this game is the prettiest experience around!
STORY CAMPAIGN
Join Fuzzy on her adventure to defeat the evil snake witch Anguis through 9 intense stages with multiple endings!
HI-POINT HERO!
A score attack mode where you try to get the highest score you can in one shot. Think you have what it takes to be the Hi-Point Hero?
MEANIE MAYHEM
Meanie Mayhem is a Boss Rush mode for PKF! Revisit all of the boss fights you’ve encountered and get a high score. Try the many difficulties for the extra points!
LEADERBOARDS, EXTRAS AND MORE!
There are leaderboards to keep track of your high scores, unlockable skins, difficulties and endings to keep even the most hardcore players busy!
Steam and Metal
Context
Steam and Metal is a shoot ‘em up/bullet-hell game, set in a Steampunk universe, with a Grieg-inspired soundtrack!
This is a very good example of an amateur, yet very solid game! I was happy to play it, and it doesn’t have too much that’s wrong with it, which is surprising, as many people tend to ignore crucial details. This game does not.
However, it doesn’t add anything to the genre, and while it’s a solid game, it pains me how similar it is to Jamestown! Not just in setting and general vibe, but also in the way it fills the screen with little cogs, and some other details. In the credits, the developer says the game has been slowly “baked” in 4 years, and looking at his youtube channel, there were prototypes as far back as 2010, so it doesn’t seem to me like a rip-off.
– Real player with 5.5 hrs in game
An enjoyable bullet hell game, not unduly hard on the normal setting, with aparodic, self-referrencial steampunk setting/plot. The dialogue is outrageously histrionic and hilarious–whomever wrote this has a great command of the English language and 19th C. style. there are eve nods to shoot-em-ups like Zero Wing and Star Castle and some referrences that I know I’m not getting. Graphics get the job done nicely; there’s even a stylishly illustrated intro and ending sequence.
The biggest frustration is the controls, and I’m kind of miffed at the developer for not giving us the option to reassign keys. Space bar is always shoot, and on a lot of laptops, whether you use the arrow keys or WASD, at least one will be on the same circut as the space bar. In other words, you can simultaneously move up left, you can move up and shoot, and you can move left and shoot, but if you try to move up-left and shoot the keyboard won’t acknowledge the last key you pressed. The simple solution would be to use the mouse, only this game’s mouse movement feels imprecise, sluggish and then erratic. The best way to play it, then, is use WASD/arrow keys to move and the mouse button for your primary weapon. You’ll loose the odd life by accidentally moving the mouse, is the only downside. I imagine playing it with a gamepad would be fine.
– Real player with 3.1 hrs in game