Game is awesome once you understand the mechanics

[matrixagent555]

Give the game an hour or so. Read some tips. Once you understand the basic mechanics along with the upgrade system, the game becomes a lot of fun.

I really only bought this to support one of my favorite game genres getting a big budget, graphics showpiece. Maybe it was because I had read so much negative feedback that my expectations had lowered, but I think this is a worthy entry into the shmup universe.

It took me over an hour to beat the first level on easy. Once I got over that initial difficulty hurdle and upgrades opened up, the game clicked. Now I use the first two levels to farm upgrade points.

It seems to chaotic to the point of being poorly designed at first, but once you continue to grasp the speed and flow of the game, you realize that you are actually able to dodge all those bullets on screen. Once you have the drone side guns and can customize the weapon spread via 6 different slots, you will be switching on the fly as you are able to mow down packs of planes taking up half the screen.

Learning to balance shield power and weapon power is probably the first hurdle that many people seem to find confusing. Here is the one most important thing to know: When weapon energy is full, all the health/energy pickups will go towards filling the shield. However, the reverse is not true. So if your shields are full but weapons aren't, then the pick ups go to waste (although they will go towards upgrade points). I have found that keeping weapons at max energy until I want to fire off missiles is the best strategy. As soon as I fire the missiles, I hit R1 (RB on xbox controller) to slide a slot of shield power back to the weapon energy. Then I simply pick up the shield/energy left over by the ships that are destroyed and now I'm back to full shield power.

Long story short, if your shield is full the energy pick ups will go towards upgrades but not towards your weapon bar, so if you want more weapon power and slots available, always try to keep the weapon energy bar full.

As far as upgrades, I think getting the homing is good as well as radial damage, but more important in my opinion is the different gun angles. This allows you to approach different enemies and enemy clusters in smarter ways. You can have slots dedicated to large weapon spread or concentrated fire. After level 3 you can unlock drones, which are really just two extra guns that give you more options on bigger spread or simply more straight on fire power.

The other thing people get hung up on is ground enemies. To me this is much more straight forward. L2 shoots ground enemies with a laser via auto lock on. You use the right stick to switch between targets when auto locked on. Don't over think this one.

The game does not explain itself well, but it isn't rocket science either. Taking a few minutes to watch a youtube video or read some tips should be enough to get on the right track if my advice here was not enough.

All in all, I really like the game. The graphics are unbelievable, and the 60 fps cap does not bother me considering the lack of free camera movement. MSAA for anti aliasing is always a plus too. The scale and design of the levels and enemies is at times breath taking. It feels like a next gen game in every way, while retaining the old school style gameplay.

I highly recommend fans of the genre to buy this game, not just to support these game so more get made in the future, but simply because it is a really fun game.

[Charles Pierce]

I've failed at the first level a few times (on normal) and did the tutorial. My only real gripe so far is that there doesn't seem to be a continue option. Making it to what I assume is the final boss of level 1 just to die and have to start from the beginning is very brutal. I'm sure i'll enjoy the game more once I overcome this hurdle, but it's a pretty big first hurdle.

[Stargoat]

Originally posted by Charles Pierce:

I've failed at the first level a few times (on normal) and did the tutorial. My only real gripe so far is that there doesn't seem to be a continue option. Making it to what I assume is the final boss of level 1 just to die and have to start from the beginning is very brutal. I'm sure i'll enjoy the game more once I overcome this hurdle, but it's a pretty big first hurdle.

You get 3 lives on easy. I highly recommend doing at least one 'farming' run on stage 1 easy - it'll help you learn the ropes and put you in a good position to buy some upgrades.

With regards to farming/generating currency, you do this by collecting the energy pickups that power your shield/weapons - but only if your shields are already full (your weapons can be powered down, however). Essentially what this means is missile spam is counterproductive while you're still powering up. But don't not use your missiles - instead use them tactically to clear waves that you wouldn't otherwise be able to.

This applies to larger ground enemies as well (your missiles can target them if the skies are clear - press 'a' by default with xbox layout when using your AtS weapon), and is more or less required in order to deal damage quickly enough to destroy the large walkers in stage 1 without upgrades (also, make sure you destroy their little buddies, as they regenerate the big guy's shield).

[Mnm]

Definitely play on easy, after buy upgrade make weapon shoot more than play Normal.

[lordprenderhue]

This is interesting. Thank you for sharing that. I'm curious if you've considered recording yourself playing so we could see what all you're talking about above in action. I think it would helpful for a lot of us to see. I too like you bought the game to support Konami, but found it so confusing that I gave up after a few hours. I did play on easy a few times, but still never understood what was going on even after playing through the tutorial. Maybe there's some existing YouTube clips of someone already playing through and explaining things as you are. I'll have to have a look, but regardless, thank you for posting this. I'll have to give the game another go.

[matrixagent555]

Originally posted by lordprenderhue:

This is interesting. Thank you for sharing that. I'm curious if you've considered recording yourself playing so we could see what all you're talking about above in action. I think it would helpful for a lot of us to see. I too like you bought the game to support Konami, but found it so confusing that I gave up after a few hours. I did play on easy a few times, but still never understood what was going on even after playing through the tutorial. Maybe there's some existing YouTube clips of someone already playing through and explaining things as you are. I'll have to have a look, but regardless, thank you for posting this. I'll have to give the game another go.

There are a few videos of people playing on youtube. I unfortunately do not have a capture card. My main piece of advice for you is change the hud so you can see the shield and energy power at the bottom of the screen. Then play the first mission (on easy) and focus solely on switching power between your shields and weapons.

Don't even worry about dying. Do this for about fifteen minutes or so until it is second nature. Once you understand the balance between the shields and the weapons, the game should click for you.

Once you beat the first mission and can upgrade, the game gets much easier. It is unfortunate that the initial difficulty put a lot of people off the game, but I personally like when these kinds of games are tough.

[^;..;^ | ViralOmega]

Agreed and its super easy to understand. Just keep a good balance of weapons and shields to handle getting hit. Having a blast with this game so far

[usa423]

Originally posted by Charles Pierce:

I've failed at the first level a few times (on normal) and did the tutorial. My only real gripe so far is that there doesn't seem to be a continue option. Making it to what I assume is the final boss of level 1 just to die and have to start from the beginning is very brutal. I'm sure i'll enjoy the game more once I overcome this hurdle, but it's a pretty big first hurdle.

Agreed, the recent update did help it allowing you to skip cut scenes and more than 1 craft a level. But it definitely also needs the continue countdown like classic arcade games of this flavor.

[usa423]

Originally posted by matrixagent555:

Give the game an hour or so. Read some tips. Once you understand the basic mechanics along with the upgrade system, the game becomes a lot of fun.

I really only bought this to support one of my favorite game genres getting a big budget, graphics showpiece. Maybe it was because I had read so much negative feedback that my expectations had lowered, but I think this is a worthy entry into the shmup universe.

It took me over an hour to beat the first level on easy. Once I got over that initial difficulty hurdle and upgrades opened up, the game clicked. Now I use the first two levels to farm upgrade points.

It seems to chaotic to the point of being poorly designed at first, but once you continue to grasp the speed and flow of the game, you realize that you are actually able to dodge all those bullets on screen. Once you have the drone side guns and can customize the weapon spread via 6 different slots, you will be switching on the fly as you are able to mow down packs of planes taking up half the screen.

Learning to balance shield power and weapon power is probably the first hurdle that many people seem to find confusing. Here is the one most important thing to know: When weapon energy is full, all the health/energy pickups will go towards filling the shield. However, the reverse is not true. So if your shields are full but weapons aren't, then the pick ups go to waste (although they will go towards upgrade points). I have found that keeping weapons at max energy until I want to fire off missiles is the best strategy. As soon as I fire the missiles, I hit R1 (RB on xbox controller) to slide a slot of shield power back to the weapon energy. Then I simply pick up the shield/energy left over by the ships that are destroyed and now I'm back to full shield power.

Long story short, if your shield is full the energy pick ups will go towards upgrades but not towards your weapon bar, so if you want more weapon power and slots available, always try to keep the weapon energy bar full.

As far as upgrades, I think getting the homing is good as well as radial damage, but more important in my opinion is the different gun angles. This allows you to approach different enemies and enemy clusters in smarter ways. You can have slots dedicated to large weapon spread or concentrated fire. After level 3 you can unlock drones, which are really just two extra guns that give you more options on bigger spread or simply more straight on fire power.

The other thing people get hung up on is ground enemies. To me this is much more straight forward. L2 shoots ground enemies with a laser via auto lock on. You use the right stick to switch between targets when auto locked on. Don't over think this one.

The game does not explain itself well, but it isn't rocket science either. Taking a few minutes to watch a youtube video or read some tips should be enough to get on the right track if my advice here was not enough.

All in all, I really like the game. The graphics are unbelievable, and the 60 fps cap does not bother me considering the lack of free camera movement. MSAA for anti aliasing is always a plus too. The scale and design of the levels and enemies is at times breath taking. It feels like a next gen game in every way, while retaining the old school style gameplay.

I highly recommend fans of the genre to buy this game, not just to support these game so more get made in the future, but simply because it is a really fun game.

It must be the shield thing I am not getting.