Recent reviews by Arcterran

Solid Double Dash inspired Touhou Themed racing game. A little on the short side unless you want to dive into a discord-populated Multiplayer. (FYI there is a second "Campaign" after the first that's about as long as the first campaign, it unlocks more tracks and characters).

Courses are (Mostly) fun (There's a couple minor spots in some maps that could use a little tuning and Misty Lake in particular is a little too kill-zone happy), The music slaps (It's Touhou Music, if it doesn't there's a problem!), The item balance is fine (and meter based so there's a bit more play and counterplay), and the "Driving" (Flying) mechanics feel great! Its fun to zoom along walls and ceilings, make tight street turns or catching some serious air!

It Might be worth waiting on a sale if game length is a concern to you, but its more due to lack of content than any quality concerns.

Fun game but its got some rough progression, balance, and performance when the screen gets crowded.

Co Op is planned as the first major update, it missed EA but to be honest Its not a dealbreaker as a lot of people are making it out to be.

The game is divided into two modes, A rougelike Kind-of-sort-of FTL and Orcs Must die but as a FPS.

For the former I like managing risk as you got to make concious choices on what risk is appropriate to take and deal with the amount of time left you have in a run, but Its rough going early on as you really dont have great tools to deal with every scenario (Protip, Dump your resources into the SMG early on before you get stuff like turrets and shock traps) and to be frank, I'm not sure I like the way it rewards you or at least how it leads you to believe things, First off Getting duplicates kind of sucks, especially after picking from a list of three and risking turns to get there. Secondly you can only save your blueprint progress by either uploading one at the gate (vs more slots for deployables/weapons) or making it to the end, which is rough early on.

Both issues are compounded by the fact that you don't have all the tools you really need when you fight of boarding parties. No turrets to cover the ends of Engineering and the end of Hallway, and no Physics traps to take advantage of all the pits and things you can slam enemies into or down bottomless pits. Even if they were super basic, they would go a long way to cutting a bit of the frustration you have early game trying to get the stuff you need rather than just random stuff that you might not need or having difficulty getting to the end because of a bad hand, the former is a rougelike thing but its especially punishing here due to the fact that actually securing these rewards takes quite a bit of effort. I think uploading all your blueprints at the first gate (instead of picking the reward), getting to choose an upgrade slot at the second, and either rerolls for resources or scrapping blueprints would fix this. That and give us weak versions of Physics traps (Maybe a ragdoll tripwire) and turret (Like a "Pistol" turret that fires weak slow ish bullets but is accurate)

My only other gripe with the FTL Mechanics is the fact that with how the game flows, you are more likely to lose by losing your sentries, rather than falling back because of the fact you will likely lose by getting into a failure cascade of trying to get to the end but the mass of enemies burst you down and blow through your lives (Also I wish repair costs scaled with damage rather than being Flat 600) so I've never gotten to "Last Stand" at the core and instead lose a room or two before then and just watch the enemies go past the rest of my defenses (Also waiting on rockets and ships is kind of annoying, I understand WHY its like that but sometimes I want to do things dangit!)

Ok gripes over, back to good stuff. The second part and the show stealer, the FPS Orcs must die mechanics

Its awesome! You get a lot of cool options from a good range of guns that all feel great. The traps are fun and varied, ranging from ceiling/wall shooters, Floor traps with various tradeoffs, to ammo and medical stations. The music SLAPS (Especially the mid-round prep music) and the pacing is perfect. There's also some very cool environmental interaction from blowing open grates to clear firing lanes, shoving enemies into pits, strategically closing and opening bulkhead doors, or the big one, shooting out the windows to suck the air out the room and causing enemies to get sucked out into space! (where the ship then after a brief period covers it in metal shutters, sealing the hole so its a one time trick per window).

Trap placement is handled quite well! Given the frantic pace of the game. The name of the game is thinking fast and improvising during waves while in between waves you want to slap down traps as fast as you can in the appropriate spaces for that sweet sweet 75 Scrap bonus (It adds up, trust me) while the bangin' OST hits its peak, highlighting the tension. Its awesome!

I spent most of the review complaining and truth be told most of my time was frustrating but when the game gets going, it all melts away and hopefully these issues will be addressed with time, The devs have been pretty responsive from the demo so far (I had some weapon balance complaints that have been addressed though where's my soundtrack? I want to pay money for it!), Co-op is coming and we'll get more traps soon hopefully!

Some people have complained about lack of content, I understand but respectfully disagree, this is a game that's meant to be played over and over so you unlock cooler stuff with each subsequent run, though perhaps some campaign variety would be nice (maybe take on a command ship as a potential end with its own rewards?)

Reccomended but know what you are getting into

Nuclear Option has the potential to be one of the best Simcade games out there. Its got some rough edges in regards to control and default mission difficulty balance that I think leans a bit too hard in too many instances but beyond that its a wonderful flight simcade

Its not as hardcore as something like GHPC or Helicopter Gunship D.E.X (which are both fantasitc survey sims) but you still need to know how planes fly, how to defeat various Missile guidance systems and how to properly employ ordanince, including the Nuclear variety. Making it in my opinion more interesting than something like Ace Combat or Project wingman.

The game checks off a lot of boxes. You got a solid variety of planes (and a Helicopter) that cover various roles, a VERY satisfying plane destruction system, Ground forces, some basic logistics and warfare progression mechanics. There's even a well featured mission editor and workshop support!

That said it hasnt reached its full potential yet and it still needs some more time in the oven, Mouse and Keyboard controls work but it can be awkward to target and fly at the same time unless you have TrackIR or some other equivalent and map panning with sticks is uncomfortable due to how you are only changing acceleration of the map.

Mission Balance also in my opinion leans a bit hard that requires in my opinion a little too perfect performance to actually win. Its not all bad but you'll notice it quick, especially because the missions are not ranked by difficulty, just by date added. The only mission that's too easy is that one interception mission the darkreach crashes itself. handing you a W that you didnt earn. Some of the more "Training" style missions don't have this problem and are fine.

Do note there are two kinds of missions here, the first is scripted missions. Basically, you are expected to take an aircraft and complete an objective, usually themed around the aircraft you are given this is where (most) of my balance gripes come from. The other is "Escalation" style maps that are essentially simulated battles and wars where you have to eliminate the other guy off the map and its the real meat and potatoes of the game, you level up and gain points for better planes and eventually...Nukes to end the game. You can even do co op!

All the updates so far have done nothing but good to the game, offsetting a lot of issues I had with the game before I wrote this review and the fact that its 15 bucks is a steal. Even with these issues I found myself coming back to this game every time an update drops and frankly being more impressed with it as time goes on.

Like how air defense and nukes are somehow balanced, each having their own guidance and counterplay thats interesting and fun to dance around but makes sense when you think about it. The planes initially do look a bit dollar toy store-like but they grew on me as time went on. The music also SLAPS, especially the Revoker theme, and well NUKES! They are appropriately devastating but because they take up more space and must be launched from range, thus they are far more susceptible to AA fire and thus being intercepted, meaning you have to somehow degrade or suppress defenses before you can get the potentially game ending nukes inside the enemy's field goal and what a field goal it is!

UPDATE 2: Sony Caved, Leaving the old updates here and re-flipping my review. Holler if you need the ammo again Arrowhead.

Some more nuance though

1) Arrowhead made the decision to disable linking due to technical issues, it was a thing at launch, they admitted they should have communicated it better.

2) Sony had control of the Steam Storefront and had all those countries that couldnt have a PSN account, they have for now locked purchases for countries that cant get a PSN account.

So it seems to be mostly an issue of accidents that blew up into a PR firestorm.

UPDATE: Flipping it to a "No" to give Arrowhead ammo vs Sony

Look I'm not as mad about this as the rest of the internet but it is still kind of a dumb move. Specifically because Steam worked fine for months before and only now is PSN required. I say this as someone who linked his PSN account when I bought it. If you were gonna go this route cause of contractual obligations you should have required PSN accounts in the first place and not sold it in countries that can't have PSN accounts. At the very least you'd only have about the same amount of people who were crying about anticheat complaining and they'd be ignored by the wider playerbase to be frank. However because the "Deal has been altered" for no real benefit to the Steam playerbase you got this backlash (especially since Arrowhead positioned themselves as an almost Indie darling in the minds of the greater playerbase). Again I'm not that mad about it, Personally I just rolled my eyes and soldiered on, but this doesn't make it a good move either and per Arrowhead, they arent happy about it either and the Not reccomend's give em ammo and leverage against Sony to push back. This last point is why I'm flipping my review.

Give em hell Arrowhead.

OG Review

Its still early in the year but I'm pretty confident this game should be GOTY 2024 for how Arrowhead has handled it's live service model alone. Nevermind the fact that the grind isn't too short but not too long, never-mind the generous helpings of Premium currency and the fact its all priced fairly (and nothing inside these warbonds so far is essential to success, poorly tuned in some cases maybe but has clear strengths and weaknesses). The ethics of it are to be lauded, yes but that's not why I think it should be this.

No, what makes this game truly special and why I think it should take it is the Galactic war and how Arrowhead and company have used it to dole out content. They didnt announce mechs in the patchnotes, We found it on Tien Kwan defending the production lines against the Automatons! Once we liberated it we got the mechs as a Level 25 Strategem, not as a patch announcing it, but because we finished an objective. And whats that Rumors of Flying bugs? Blue lasers from a potential third faction? It kind of feels like being on the playground again where kids are spreading rumors about how to Catch Mew or Find Luigi in Super Mario 64 AND I'M HERE FOR IT! Nevermind its a very cool way to handle player unlocks and keep a story going. Praise Joel!

It just helps that it has one of the most mechanically solid shooting mechanics out there that takes the right levels of Realism and Comedy. All the planets feel different enough, has that right level of Meme magic because of the movie SST its thematically based on* as well as a sprinkling of 40k. Guns feel great to shoot, Stuff is designed to make sense rather than be purely gamey (progression mechanics and weapon tuning aside), and Strategems all feel appropriately powerful and earthshaking.

*Not the book, which as an aside, the movie did incredibly dirty. I want my Mobile Infantry game dangit. Not the meme Imperial Guard-esque version that everyone knows. The REAL MI's. Well Disciplined Heavy Powered Armored Infantry with Tactical Nukes, grenades, flamethrowers and their powered fists fighting hordes of Bugs with Plasma weaponry.

If another game should take GOTY 2024 it better be as big of a Revolution as this one.

So...Palworld came out and it was a bit of a success to massively understate things. I was looking forward to this game for years partially because of the memes but also because Pocketpair seemed to have learned their lessons from Craftopia (Which is still in development, It aint dead, though the Xbox version has been giving them headaches) from what I saw of the trailers. I played a LOT of craftopia with the wife last December and wrote a review of it.

At this point Pretty much everyone has their takes on it and everyone more or less knows what It is (TL:DR A.R.K With Not-pokemon with guns). Personally I think the controversies are dumb and its bait for the terminally online twiterrati to be mad but Instead of droning on about it (and I nearly did for half the review before deciding its not productive) I'm going to shift this in a different direction

I'm going to directly compare Palworld to Craftopia since its Craftopia 2 in a lot of ways since that's where my perspective is mostly from and its something that at least contributes to the general conversation.

In short Its overall a better experience than Craftopia, Especially at the start and as a result it is one of my favorite Open World Survivalcrafts. However I think Palworld is a weaker Multiplayer experience despite having vastly better netcode. I recommend it but It does have some questionable design decisions.

Palworld is a quantum leap in terms of QOL and this is why the game had its massive initial positive reception. Its performant, mostly controls well and has far better menus. Nevermind far shallower crafting trees (which is a good thing coming from Craftopia), better Automation, and better onboarding makes it a far more accessable experience. Its not perfect and in fact I'll call out a few pain points but coming from craftopia, its a massive improvement.

The Better automation Is the signature mechanic of Palworld. Instead of doing the tedious crafting and collecting, you let pals do it for you! Craftopia Had automation but it was kind of awkward to set up and use well with various drones and machines you had to craft (often with multiple stages of crafting). It also lead to your PC chugging with the amount of entities involved, Palworld is FAR More performant and scalable given the nature of the game being centered around the Pals instead of the kitchen sink. Instead of a hilariously chaotic factory and house, you get cute "Not Pokemon" doing all your jobs each well animated with far more personality than your average Pokemon, Sure the designs may be similar, but Pocketpair gets more mileage out of em because of how much they can express themselves in each Animation state. The fact that its pretty darn painless to set up (Basically pop your pals with the appropriate skills and facilities in and go) makes it leaps and bounds over most everything else I've tried in the genre.

However it is still somewhat flawed, Pathing issues aside (which can be circumvented by popping your pal inside a box and back to work or just grabbing them and throwing them outside of the troublesome spot, there still sometimes is too much "Manual fidgeting" involved as you cant set up a full production chain, nor can you task pals on certain things (easily at least). This makes things a little annoying when you want to say...produce ammunition for your guns as that's a multi tier production line which is where things get a bit more tedious like in most other Open World Survivalcraft games.

Craftopia did have similar creature collecting mechanics with "Monster Prisms" though you instead caught Unity asset store animals that you could ride, fight alongside, and throw em in certain machines to work (which would eventually kill them) and to be frank, you were encouraged to be FAR more cruel and careless with them because of the fact that they were designed to be killed for you to get use out of them (with the exception of transport and combat). Here there's hand crafted assets (No I don't think the pals are stolen, fly too close to the sun for a couple of them though) that has an entire mechanic dedicated to their care, Sanity which makes Pals less disposable as low sanity doesn't kill a pal but instead stresses them and if not taken care of, develop injuries or mental disorders that you'll have to treat. You can work them to the bone or you can be ethical about it. The choice is ultimately yours.

You do lose out on what most gamers would call RPG mechanics (Magic and Mana is gone as well as several weapon types and the entire skill tree), Vehicles, and as mentioned before some automation options (as awkward as it was to set up a whole factory, you could set up a full production chain to anything if you had the appropriate inputs).

Whats gained however is focus, The experience is less ADD and frustrating to navigate. Menus are cleaner and easier to navigate than Craftopia ever was, and the tutorial is fantastic for getting you into the core game loop. This means going out and hunting pals and exploring is more rewarded by expanding options in your base and your base allows you to venture deeper into the world (and I still love Pocketpair's Environment art team). All of those mechanics are handled by your pals and how you manage them or by simple tech and stat progression. Everything is focused around pals, the aforementioned base building, how you approach combat (Using pals to flank a target so you can get a back-strike for a catch, using the pillars in the boss room to have them flank your target, Flying on a Vanwyrm to snipe foes from the sky, all great stuff!) traversal, and crafting all is focused on you and your interactions with Pals and its all wonderful.

Now I said this was a weaker multiplayer experience. I believe this is due to how bases are managed and progress. In Craftopia, you could build pretty much anywhere and were encouraged to find ore nodes and build extractors on them. Palworld requires you to slap down a palbox (which is limited) and then build within a circle, as you level up, you can stuff more pals and eventually place more palboxes in the overworld. If you guild up you share base progression more or less which means the leveling scale kind of breaks a little as your tech is progressing independently but your base levels up together. It feels awkward and with the new limitations I found myself sticking to my own base and my wife to hers once we unlocked the tech for a new base, nevermind we didn't share boxes. I think this game is better played solo and taken at your own pace so you can get around the awkward multiplayer progression.

In the end Palworld is an improvement. Its not perfect and craftopia can scratch a specific itch still, but its well worth the purchase if you are into the memes or the genre.

Like every review says, Ignore the steam warning, English is supported, you just gotta change it in the options menu (which is also in English)

I've casually touched on some bullet hell games (Bullet Heaven, Technically Undertale when wife needed help with some of the bosses and I'm dipping my toes into a little Touhou) But this was not only a good intro to the genre, not only teaching you all the little tricks of the trade but also some minor history lessons and WHY things are designed the way they are, making this a solid reference for any budding gamedevs.

The final test is a banger synced to a remix of Canon in D Major, and it SLAPS. Both the remix and the level, putting everything you learned to the test, even making you save your replay as a final reward.

My sole I do wish there was a little more feedback on what you did wrong (Especially the final test, I still dont 100% Have my head screwed on straight about restreaming, though I think the pattern the devs picked could have been better)

Its two bucks, sure an hour of gameplay give or take but worth it for the experience.

This is a rather bizarre game to review given the context I'm playing it in. I'm blasting through it with my wife and I am enjoying it hence the thumbs up but it is certainly jank since Craftopia wants to be the kitchen sink of Crafting games so I can understand if you want to pass on it.

Some context, I initially bought this after hearing about Palworld right around the time it was announced and thinking its hilarious and I decided to see what Pocketpair did before. Lo and behold, they had another Open-world survivalcraft. It was a good while before the seamless world update and while I didn't get too far It was kinda fun and seems to have progressed nicely from what I can tell. I've spent most of my playtime with my wife since we are both off for Christmas and she picked it up during the winter sale. I also have played BOTW and watched my wife play TOTK (though I did play a little of the beginning and the Fire temple or whatever it was called). I'm in the camp that BOTW is one of the best Open World games ever despite some rough edges and Tears...isnt as good because they tried to shoehorn in Fuse and Vehicles for an environment that was designed for BOTW, they wear out their welcome, the rest of the new stuff doesnt really justify itself. So jumping on Craftopia with all of this on the back of my mind has been...interesting.

Back on topic. for good or for ill Craftopia is a survivalcraft that on the surface wants to be Zelda/Genshin but survivalcraft (Wife thinks Genshin, which I haven't played but she has) but really deep down it wants to be the kitchen sink of survivalcrafts. I mean you can see the obvious Genshin/Zelda inspirations but there's a level of Factorio/Satisfactory, A.R.K, Farming Sims, MMOs and even freakin Age of Empires (No Really! You age up and get new blueprints)

Mind you it doesn't do any one thing as WELL as any of the others but its done competently enough...with a level of jank on top but the whole experience is at least worth checking out in my opinion

Now for the stuff it does well
-Content: The upside of being the kitchen sink of OpenWorld Survivalcrafts is there is a lot to do. Combat, Dungeon Diving, Automation, Vehicles, and even monster taming (Including Human NPC's you sick freaks)
-Overworld and Dungeon Challenges: To use the Zelda Analogy: Spirit orbs and challenge stones are basically more to the point Koroks, Caves are shrines and Dungeons are divine beasts. I think this is the one area I think Craftopia Exceeds its inspiration. It actually has more interesting puzzles than BOTW or TOTK's Dungeons. Granted they are all sectioned off and there's not really a "Meta Puzzle" that you solve like in many classic Zelda dungeons (They kind of feel like a halfway point between an MMO Raid and a Zelda Dungeon). They range from Platforming challenges, switch puzzles and even rooms that restrict your abilities and force you to engage the puzzle on its own terms and not break things. Something I think Modern Open world Zeldas really should steal.
-Art and Sound: Yes its ripping off Zelda, but truth be told, I think Pocketpair has a solid Environment team, Lots of cool little zones with some great scenic views that stand out from its influence (Brigadine Valley and Owatatsu Archipelago are the highlights to me) and the music is very pleasant! I wish they updated the DLC soundtrack for the open world zones though, its way out of date.
-Combat: The basic combat feels like a third person adventure game sorta similar to BOTW sans dodging but add in more melee weapon types...only to throw on top Pokemon or A.R.K, MMO's and oddly enough, Battlefield. There's a metric ton of perks and abilities you can use to spec your character to how you like (Though I recommend maxing jump and resource gathering early and picking one Combat focus at first and then branch out after you get maxxed). Sword And shields for a pretty standard BOTW experience, Two handed Spears for range, Katanas which turn you into a stance character (and has the most satisfying parry of all time, never-mind the useful Run stance) bows for stealth up to Firearms, from old school flintlocks up to Modern Assault rifles and shotguns...oh and Tanks and biplanes. Or you can go full Druid meets pokemon trainer and swarm the enemy with your own animal mobs that you mass produced while stacking buffs and casting spells. The ways you can approach a fight are absurd and half the fun is building up to something stupid. Sure the base feel is better in its inspiration and it does feel a bit cheap at times but the variety and hilarious endgame makes up for it.
-Mod Support: I haven't taken advantage of this but its there!

For the stuff that's not so good
-Its buggy and rough on the polish front. Granted I'm a Kickstarter era Star Citizen Backer with zero regrets and have been in the Gamedev mines for a couple years so my sense of "Buggy" is rather skewed relative to the average consumer but other than a CTD On save and exit to menu from multiplayer (which your character does save so nothing is lost!) and netcode derps (Quests can lock themselves out if you dash towards an NPC while trying to speak but a server restart fixes it and the enemy/NPC netcode is laughably bad) Its still playable, Its not like I gotta route around bugs to get what I want done (except of course the quest bug), but it does feel a little fiddly and cheap at times.
-Its overwhelming, especially to a new player: Given that there's a million things you can do in this game that means there's a million tutorials and a million quests and a million things to craft. Its all quite a bit to take in. This extends to the Game's menus as there's so much to parse through it can be a bit of a chore to get where you need (nevermind some rather deep crafting trees for higher tech stuff and again, so much stuff).
-It chugs, Especially when you get to automate all the things, your frames will REALLY begin to dip if you don't do that properly and not have your inputs consumed ASAP

I'm enjoying it, I get why people would turn their noses up at it but I've had a good time with it, Jank and all.

Now to wait for Palworld!

Best Game to break your HOSAS in with.

But for real its a pretty fun little space racing sim! HOSAS just makes it even better.

Probably my favorite game I've played this year.

TL:DR, Tony Hawk but its downhill biking and procgen levels that are spun up as small servers where you watch other players do their runs alongside you. Add in a banger of a Licensed soundtrack and it feels like a nice throwback/modernization of the Mid 2000's Extreme Sports Genre.

The Game nails two things.

1) Feel of the bike: It controls darn near perfectly, being inspired by Skate (which I never played but do want to at some point) and hits that perfect "Easy to learn hard to master" curve. The tricks even by themselves are fun (As much as I am not a fan of forest, Tweaked Firewatching never gets old) as they feel saucy to nail as Liquid Bass blares. In Fact I liken it to fighting game combos where they take some practice to get used to but the thrill of not only nailing them but your character (in this case rider) looking cool drives the appeal. The main difference is you aren't subject to another player's 720 Tweaked Nac-Nac's preventing you from performing a 180 No handlebars off the same ramp as that would be silly in this context. The game lets you learn and ride your own pace, not at others and rewards you for taking such risks, which leads me into point 2

2) Risk and Reward: While the procgen can pull things a little too hard at risk (I'm looking at you forest and peaks!), How the game rewards you for taking risks is how the game keeps you hooked.

First off, the game rewards you with doing more risky behavior and depending on your team, you get changes on how you are rewarded (Arboreal for near misses, Kinetic for High speed, Enemy for tricks). Once you hit a certain threshold of points, you unlock a crew member, which are basically themed perks usually altering the procgen in some way or improving bike handling which can help you on harder runs which gives you incentive to constantly be risky and flashy after you mastered getting downhill safley.

Secondly as the game is loading, the game gives you a challenge (From performing tricks, near misses, or voluntarily not using brakes/holding down on the accelerator) and rewards you with extra lives, this obviously puts you at more risk of bailing and losing lives (which once it reaches zero your run is over, harder bails can lose multiple lives!), if you take these, they force you to put your run on the line for more time and chances to keep your run going (or make that final Boss jump). This is where the ProcGen shines, as you are constantly weighing the risks of performing a challenge while getting through the downhill course and strategizing the best ways to tackle it, and then executing it with the near impeccable bike controls.

I have only two complaints

1) Sometimes the procgen can be a little screwy, mostly in terms of difficult stunts vs your approach speed, as in there's times where you have too little and cant get up to speed to hit them, this is especially problematic on very curvy tracks. Thankfully this is more the exception than the rule and the worst on peaks (Specifically those enemy flag jumps, but some boss jumps feel a little unfair)

2) Difficulty curve, Specifically I think Canyon (which is the best biome in the game) and Forest should be swapped, Forest has the hardest boss jump, some of the most difficult offroading with the amount of trees thats hard for your brain to process, and procgen curves can harm you. True Canyon has harder stunts but its more forgiving if I'm being honest. This is coming from a Team Kinetic Rider who was heavily leaning Arboreal until here. (Peaks is fine as a "Final boss" stage except for those darn Enemy jumps)

Regardless these arent game breaking, especially since in most cases you can simply go offroad to avoid rough jumps or control your speed enough to deal with the occasional derps with procgen and forest difficulty spike (which with experience and watching the pre-ride flyby will prepare you for).

One last thing, I recommend a controller over a keyboard, it feels better and makes more sense. Some people seem to have issues with bluetooth controllers but I find wiring in a Nintendo Switch Controller is fine.

Solid Recommend

Yes its a port of an iOS game, No I don't care and neither should you as the only monetization is you drop 25 bucks to play a solid but trippy rail shooter made by the guy who made Space harrier and Outrun back in the day.

Its certainly on a budget and likely restricted by its target hardware (iOS) but Yu and Co adapted it fairly well and it controls fine with mouse and keyboard (and apparently gamepad too, have not tested)

In Short: Take Space Harrier and bring it into the 21st century with some overhauls and Panzer Dragoon influence (The first one that got a re-release recently). Replace Radical 80's Spacedude with a Dress-up doll Space princess (Which more outfits/equipment is your reward for playing more than just once). Increase the drug intake of the development team and have them outsource music to dutch fans of Queen.

I dig the lock on mechanic where it feels like you are literally painting with a brush over the targets you want to explode but its not so overtuned where there are times spamming normal shots (or normal+homing taps which allow you to effectively double up on shots) makes more sense. They all have roles and appropriate times and places to be used.

The Story mode is more or less the intro to the rest of it which is challenges, new weapons and outfit unlocks so there's enough variety to play around more than once (especially with challenge modes and a reward board).

Only main complaint I got is I wish i could carry my unlocks into challenges, I get why for some of them (The Starburst cannon would break at least one challenge) but It is a little bit of a disappointment. The screen does get a bit overly chaotic in the latter half of the game too at times but because you generally have a lot of health (especially if you utilize the unlock board) Its not as big of a deal.