wow. this is definitely the most impressive game-on-its-own-merits I've played in this jam. It is shockingly polished and complete for the timeframe. The weird mix of Arkanoid/Gradius gameplay really works for me. I beat 27 levels and I'm dying to know out of how many, but I found that the difficulty of what I played lined up exactly with the sweet spot of the upper limits of my skill level at this kind of a game (filthy casual),
I'm not a Nier fan (tried it twice, years apart, bounced off it pretty hard both times) so any inside joke or easter egg there was, I missed it, but this seemed to really capture its frenetic bullet hell energy and color pallete. I was impressed verging on shocked by how many levels there were. I was impressed when the game didn't end after 10 or so and once I was past level 25...how many levels did you make!? the level design is good, too, good ramping up of difficulty, good playing-the-game-teaches-you-how-to-play-the-game sensibility