Ikaruga
From Treasure, the developer behind classic games like Guardian Heroes, Radiant Silvergun and Gradius V, Ikaruga is the game that really stands out.
Initially launched for arcades, Ikaruga found most of its success on the Nintendo GameCube not only because of its extreme difficulty, but because of its excellence in game design. You can move your ship in 2D, shoot bullets and charge your special shot like any other shoot ‘em up (shmup). But there’s a single game mechanic that changes everything: there’s two types of enemies, black ships that shoot black bullets and white ships that shoots white bullets, and you can change the polarity of your ship to black or white. Simple enough, this latter fact is what made the game be considered a groundbreaking masterpiece among shmups: you absorb enemy bullets to charge your special shot if your ship’s polarity matches the color of the enemy bullet, and you do double damage if your ship’s polarity is opposed. So, as you skillfully change polarities to do damage you also find yourself taking enemy bullets instead of avoiding them. And every single bullet is beautifully coreographed with the stage, with the pacing matching the rhythm of the music, something that seems basically impossible given all the chaos on the screen. It’s absolutely genius.
– Real player with 258.3 hrs in game
Read More: Best Shoot 'Em Up Classic Games.
Ikaruga is a harsh mistress. She is a love you cannot conquer, she is a complex beauty who demands perfection. Your best will never truly please her, she will make you feel inadequate at every moment, and yet you cannot stop trying to win her heart. When you are with her, any mistake you make will sting a thousand times worse. And she will make you furious, she will make you cry, she will drive you crazy, but you cannot stop loving her, because there is nothing else in the world that can compare to what she is.
– Real player with 74.6 hrs in game
RADARjAM
What a good little game!
Thanks for making this! Looking forward to more releases from Hamra 3
– Real player with 1.0 hrs in game
Read More: Best Shoot 'Em Up 2D Games.
this game makes me go uwu
– Real player with 0.2 hrs in game
Warships On The Halloween Night
Actually the game is kind of fair for what it is , which is a rather poor version of Raptor/Tyrian 2000 -
That said then I think that the game needs better customization options for settings, including ability to turn off music without turning off other sound, custom keyboard settings option , and last but not least a sensitivity setting for the sideways movement , at least sensitivity for short time key press to allow to better position adjustment without banging into side walls or other stuff.
– Real player with 0.2 hrs in game
Read More: Best Shoot 'Em Up Pixel Graphics Games.
Warships on the Halloween Night is a 2D top down vertical scrolling retro pixel bullet hell shmup. Control a warship with 4 different weapon types (and limited ammo) and shoot warships and evil pumpkins, because I guess those were the only game assets the developers could rip off from wherever.
Gameplay here is on par with the graphics and delivery… extremely bad. They chose to use obsolete retro pixel “art” as a substitute for contemporary PC graphics. It’s unclear if this is due to lack of budget or talent, regardless, the overall visual quality of the game is extremely low as a result. Resolution and controls are locked. These flaws push this game far below minimum acceptable standards for PC.
– Real player with 0.1 hrs in game
Grand Brix Shooter
“A bullet hell game that’s familiar but never experienced before."
+ Point : Instant judgment, fine control, and your luck determine the whole play.
[1] Intro
Grand Brix Shooter. This is a hyper arcade shoot’em up game made by Intragames. The developer, Intragames has been primarily a game publisher so far, but they also have taken part in making the games. so this game is one of their in-house project games. One of the main developers said that his dev team stayed up countless days all night long to bring up the characteristics of original thrilling action arcade scrolling shooter. Developer effort and game fun aren’t necessarily proportional, but let’s take a look at what it is. ;)
– Real player with 10.8 hrs in game
I personally really enjoyed playing it. The game is very direct, simple to understand with a really reasonable price. I would definitely recommend the game to my friends. There is a leaderboard at the end, the scores from other countries can be viewed and that was one thing that made me play over and over again.
– Real player with 9.6 hrs in game
P.3
edit - pending rewrite. recommended if it is not crashing, lol.
– Real player with 2.6 hrs in game
Great little shooter with a fantastic retro soundtrack!!
I bought this ages ago, but only just played it properly.
I have heaps of games in my library that I haven’t played lol ,,, go figure.
It’s a difficult game, but definitely has that “one more try” quality about it.
The only thing is I couldn’t get my mouse to work properly.
It’s easy enough to play with keyboard controls, though.
Hope to put some more time into this one.
Recommended!!
– Real player with 0.8 hrs in game
Beat Hazard
Before reading: this review is about Beat Hazard Ultra, meaning the basic game + dlc. While I still recommend Beat Hazard on its own, it is more simplistic and lacks online co-op that the Ultra version provides, so I strongly recommend this game to be played with DLC.
Beat Hazard Ultra is a fast paced space shoot’em up with bright colorful graphics. At first sight it does not look like much, however it has several features that have made it one of the most pleasant surprises in my library.
The graphics look amazing at first, they tend to tire out your eyes pretty easily however, so it is not recommended to play for long sessions. There is an option to scale them up (!) or down inside the game menu though.The battle is fluid despite the abundance of color, enemies and the genral chaos that takes place on your screen especially on the higher difficulties. I have even played this on a linux netbook -yes it plays on linux and mac as well- with minimal capabilities and I was honestly surprised at its smoothness. Gameplay is fluid as well, regardless if you are playing with a controller or a mouse and keyboard. In fact, I even find myself preferring the mouse and keyboard mostly because the mouse provides more precise aiming than thumbsticks. The difficulty curve is just right, meaning you can choose from 5 different difficulty settings (easy, normal, hardcore, insane, suicidal) and play in whatever mode you feel comfortable with. This makes the game equally enjoyable for both hardcore shmup players as well as people who are new to the genre, or not particularly skilled. There is also a nice “perk” system implemented, where you can buy upgrades, such as a few special attacks, more multipliers, etc.
– Real player with 56.8 hrs in game
I have played Audiosurf for a long time and I was not sure if Beat Hazard was a game that could stand out for me as a music-based game. I finally decided to give Beat Hazard a try after it was available for several years on the market. It feels like a game inspired by the classic game Asteroids, but with songs from your music library playing while you control your spaceship. So the basic premise of the game is you maneuvering a spaceship while avoiding asteroids and many enemy spaceships of varying types and sizes. There are many games of this genre in a crowded market, but Beat Hazard carves out its own identity with its challenging action and allows you to take on numerous enemies and other hazards as you enjoy the rhythm of the songs of your favorite artists and built-in songs.
– Real player with 46.3 hrs in game
Proxy Air Force
A functional but quite baisc vertically-scrolling shoot-em-up. I’ve tried the developer’s platformers and top-down horror games, so I was curious what they would do with this genre. It deserves a neutral rating but, since Steam doesn’t have that, I can’t really recommend it because there are better games out there for the same price.
Proxy Air Force has responsive controls and plenty of enemies and powerups. You could almost call it a twist on the bullet hell subgenre. Seems like there are dozens of bullets on screen, too many to dodge them all. To comensate, the game gives you a generous lifebar and fairly regular health refils. What this means, though, is the game doesn’t require as much skill as most shoot-em-ups. There’s a little strategy to positioning yourself to avoid the most destructive enemies and making sure you last until (and pick up) the next health item. It is accessible to casual gamers because of this but doesn’t have the complexity, the pacing variations, or the overall excitement that classic shmups do.
– Real player with 0.8 hrs in game
Proxy Air Force is exactly what it looks like - a poor man’s 1942 with an iffy geopolitical-war plot, the kind of simplistic, no-frills, ultra-low-budget affair usually reserved for freeware websites and built-in game selections on dodgy clone consoles. There is exactly one plane to choose from, no options to speak of, and the assortment of enemy aircraft and structures to take down is not particularly varied, either. Gameplay is a simple one-button affair, and, with some skill and a generous heaping of luck, the entire thing can be completed in around half an hour. At times, even 80 British pence seems too hefty of a price to pay for it, considering one might expect something similar to be available for free.
– Real player with 0.7 hrs in game
Sky Force Anniversary
90 / 100
Sky Force Anniversary (SFA) is a prime example of how to do a proper shoot ‘em up! It’s not a super frantic, reflex driven, seizure inducing affair you find in some bullet hell shooters, rather it’s more subtle, focusing on precision & perfection.
This precision & perfection reminded me more of the older school shooters like 1942, where placement, timing & learning the waves were key. In SFA, it is implemented by several gameplay mechanics including medals for completing the level untouched & collecting 100% of the stars, or 100% civilian rescues. These offer a greater challenge than simply completing the level alive, & only when all challenges are complete will you be able to unlock the next difficulty tier (Normal, Hard, Insane). Each of the nine levels progressively unlocks as you earn more medals, with your high score being persistent between play throughs as a total of all your highest individual level scores.
– Real player with 39.5 hrs in game
I really don’t like this game, and I’m usually quite fond of a bit of arcade inspired shoot-em-up action. It’s not that the production quality is lacking in any way, as the whole thing is quite well put together in terms of design and basic gameplay. But I would much rather play a game like CounterAttack, Blue Revolver or Wolflame (just to name a few of the top of my head If I were to have a quick glance at my Steam library and maybe my wishlist I could probably name at least half a dozen titles which are superior in almost every aspect). All of which offer a much more fun, arcade like experience instead of the tedious ‘grind-fest’ that this title offers.
– Real player with 26.0 hrs in game
Hyper Simon X
I GIVE THIS 4 of 5 TURDS!
– Real player with 13.1 hrs in game
This game is a mix of space shooter and memory game. You need to memorize the correct sequence of ships based on it’s color. Destroy them and earn many points as possible. You can also earn points by playing as a normal space shooter but you will get less points than destroying the enemies following the correct sequence.
Controls feel very solid, pixelart is nice. The sound track is very good.
– Real player with 3.5 hrs in game
Bullet Hell ADVANCED
this game looks great it sounds great it plays pretty good but I have some problems. The game is fun but when there are so many bullets on screen at the same time it is a little hard to see the enemies though I got used to it pretty quickly. the controls were horrible at least at first. It reversed left and right so it was hard to remember my directions while moving but you can swap the controls in the settings menu. Now my two biggest problems,repetition and game errors. so talking more about the “repetition” so when playing the game you have four unique secondary abilities and three primary fire choices. I enjoyed trying the different abilities but the primary fires are not great. the primaries called plasma and kinetic are the same or extremely similar I couldnt tell which. That leaves only two real options for primary fire hitscan or a projectile and I always use laser. The second major problem is the framerate dips(very uncommon but happened) while I have a high end computer may just be my settings though and the game crashing/freezing which really ruined my expierence though it never happened mid game. the game is fun but with all these problems I wouldnt recommend this.(edit this game has made many improvements since I reviewed it and I think its a whole lot better now I still encounter some glitches here and there but overall its a very good game.)
– Real player with 12.1 hrs in game
it is a very fun game, and very engaging. it takes a bit of time to find the controls, and needs a tutorial, but is fun once you get the hang of it. some functions I would add would be a high score, a multiplayer (that would be very fun) and for all the stray bullets that hit the enemies to do damage. once you figure out the containers that carry weapons, it can be very hard to grab the weapons, so maybe an asteroid or junk floating around the weapon to provide cover while picking it up? the game overall is very fun, but could use difficulty levels. I found myself not really ready for a hard mode when I didn’t really know the functions of the game. also switch the defualt a and d keys for left and right movement, it is confusing. I feel that too much of the game revolves around finding a good weapon at the start without taking too much damage, but once you get a good weapon, it is very fun. if you found some means to extend the game length, that would be awesome, because I always die once the big thing comes out (don’t know what it’s called).
– Real player with 3.5 hrs in game