Recent reviews by Dolphin

disclaimer: i made the music.

game is really good and fun and it feels just challenging enough where it really makes me wanna try again. it doesn't take that many runs before you get a good sense of what weapons are your favourites, and i found that trying to have beaten all the stages at least once was a good natural motivator.

This game is fantastic and belongs in the library of any STG lover or anyone remotely interested in the genre. The balance between novelty in innovation, and familiarity in classic STG design, in this game is impeccable. There's something in here for almost everyone, so this game is highly recommended for beginners and veterans alike.

Favourite Aspects:
+ Innovative and clever design
+ Outstanding graphics and music
+ Many options for customization
+ Fun and interesting stages and bosses
+ Highly suited for STG newcomers, without mitigating the experience for veterans!

This game is a massive step in the right direction for STGs. One of my main concerns about STGs is that they rely too heavily on following a design philosophy that stems from the arcade era, which is now long gone. I personally do not mind that, but it makes STGs as a genre much harder to sell to people outside the niche, and it leaves very little room for innovation. To an outsider, every STG looks more or less the same. You shoot and you dodge. This is why I am extremely excited about Qute's approach to STG design. They are very keen on innovating on the format and try to challenge some of classical tropes of STGs. Instead of playing the entire game all in one go with very limited resources, the Story Mode lets play each stage individually, as well as choosing your loadout before entering the stage. Now many oldskool/hardcore STG fans will think this is very out of the line, so thankfully, there is also an Arcade Mode which lets you play every stage in succession, making sure as many people as possible are pleased. All in all, it's very refreshing to see a STG that is specifically designed around console/PC gameplay and exploits that fact, in the same sense that arcade STGs had to exploit the fact that they were on arcade platforms.

All the customization options for equipping your ship, combined with the experience points you get on the Stage Experience Level gauge and your own Player Level gauge, are amazing tools to get you hooked and to make sure you stay motivated to continue pushing forward. Even if you die at the very start of the stage, you get more currency every time you play which you can use to purchase and upgrade your ship in order to get the perfect loadout in order to beat the stage and its boss. It might seem like you're purchasing yourself to victory, but the truth is that it's just masking the boring practice, as you get better and more familiar with the stage every single time you play. Even if you go in with extra shields, you'll end up getting hit less often for every time you play. It's quite clever.

Adding bullet trajectory lines as a new age Quality of Life feature is great, even if some people find it to be quite distracting. It's a great tool for newcomers who are not used to predicting bullet trajectory, and people looking to memorize specific bullet patterns. Being able to see enable a spawn marker for enemies is also quite helpful. Normally in other STGs, you only see these sorts of markers when enemies will spawn behind the player, but not anywhere else.
These sorts of QoL features is something I feel has barely been experimented with in most STGs. Most of the QoL features we want in STGs are usually derived from emulation (i.e. save states, replays), rather than something inherent to the games themselves (i.e. hitbox marker). I think this game could've done with some more QoL features, like hitbox marker and quick restart for stages, but it's nothing that bothered me much.

The game looks stunning and is likely the single most prettiest STG I have seen, especially with 3D graphics. That's not to say there aren't other beautiful looking STGs, but this game is able to stay extremely vibrant with detailed landscapes in the stages without mitigating the gameplay or bullet visibility. One big issue I have with many shmups is that stages often feel weirdly flat (due to forced perspective) or the stages end up feeling a bit anonymous, as if they're not a real place one could visit.

The music is also extremely rad. I really love the "modern retro" FM sound that Yousuke Yasui has in his works. Not to mention Kobayashi's great sound too!

In conclusion, I think this game is the closest we have ever gotten to a high quality AAA-tier shooting game. The game does its best to provide stepping stones for people who have never played a STG before in their, while also providing an intense experience for veteran players. The game innovates by being designed from the ground up for home consoles and PC, instead of blindly following design sensibilities of the arcade era. The game looks very attractive, feels excellent to play, and has a lot of ways to keep you very hooked. I love this game, and hope you do too!