itch.io

This looks and feels so good! A wonderfully crunchy 8-bit aesthetic combined with contemporary fluid gameplay. What's not to love? Wonderful music too.

As someone who enjoys MSX-era shmups, I had a fun time and felt the difficulty was about-right. My score when I won was 44554, and I'd be curious to try again later and see how much I can improve. The patterns were clear and smooth to navigate, and returning fire was satisfying. The bombs are very cool, though I struggled to spot the best time to use one. I popped one in the middle of the game, but otherwise found them not necessary, and ended up just burning them on the boss. I also appreciated that the game rewarded me for firing accurately (with the charge) instead of holding the button, though I wonder if such steep damage scaling isn't a potential trap for inexperienced players.

Speaking of which, my partner wrynfyr really wanted to play as well, but she found herself constantly dying a few seconds in. The damage ramps up fast and so punishes small mistakes instantly: an exciting feature for me, but a stressful one for her. Maybe a gentler initial curve would help players warm up to the challenge. She still thinks the game looks and sounds fantastic, though. ;)

Thanks for sharing such a great game!

-mothgram