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ElkinFencer10
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Games Beaten 2023

by ElkinFencer10 Sun Jan 01, 2023 11:47 pm

Welcome to the Games Beaten 2023 thread! In this thread, we list and discuss what games we've beaten this year.

Per Racketboy tradition, this thread is not a competition, not a place where we hold to hard and fast rules about what games can count, when, or why, etc. The only expectation is that you perhaps talk a bit about what you've beaten: What were your thoughts? Why did you play? Would you recommend it? This thread is about sharing our personal accomplishments and engaging one another about the games we have played!

Are you curious about what kinds of reviews people like to read in this thread? Take a look at this poll and discussion from 2017.

If you are new to this thread for the year, feel free to jump in any time between now and the end of the year. If you have questions or need help, feel free to hit me up! For reference, here's a couple of past threads so you can see how people have approached their participation, their list making, etc.

2022 2021 2020 2019 2018 2017 2016 2015 2014
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Re: Games Beaten 2023

by Note Mon Jan 02, 2023 8:44 am

Thank you for creating the Games Beaten thread for 2023, Elkin! I'm hoping to finish a few more games than last year, so I'm glad to be off to a quick start.

Games Beaten 2023:

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1. Kirby's Dream Land (GB)

I brought my modded Game Boy Advance SP with me while traveling to visit my partner's family for the holidays. Mostly to use on the flight, but figured I could get some gaming in during any down time. Well, unfortunately I got sick the other day (luckily tested negative), and have been resting up in our room with plenty of down time today. Last year, I used the Nintendo Switch online service to play through Kirby's Adventure on the NES and have wanted to play through some of the other titles in the series as I really enjoyed that experience. Originally, I had played this game when I was young, as my cousins who I usually visited in the summer had a copy.

Kirby's Dream Land is the first game in the Kirby franchise and is a light hearted and on the easier side platformer. It's noticeable that Nintendo was still figuring things out, as Kirby is depicted as a white puff on the box art for this title, as opposed to the light pink character we're used to seeing nowadays. Another noticeable difference, if you were introduced to the character through Smash Bros. or a later Kirby title, is that the main character does not have the copy ability that we all know Kirby for. That did throw me off a bit, but once I quickly got over that lack of ability, I didn't find it to be much of a setback.

Gameplay wise, Kirby is able to jump, fly, suck up an enemy or item, spit out enemies as a star shape, and swallow enemies or an item. While Kirby can not gain additional powers from sucking up an enemy in this early entry, you can find a few different items that can give you additional powers to help you throughout the game. Some of the items include a leaf, which gives you the ability to fly for a long period of time and spit out more air pellets than you normally could, another helpful item you can come across is a spicy curry which gives Kirby the ability to spit fire pellets for a period of time.

The game is quite short, coming in at five levels, and a gauntlet of bosses you faced in the previous stages, before you're able to go up against King Dedede. All of the bosses, including the final boss have pretty basic patterns that I think most gamers would figure out pretty quickly. Also, Kirby's Dream Land does not have a save feature, which is not a deal breaker, IMO, as the game is so short, but just a heads up.

Overall, I had a very fun time playing Kirby's Dream Land while on my trip and I would like to track down a copy of the sequel for the GB to play later this year. Check this one out if you haven't already!
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Re: Games Beaten 2023

by MrPopo Mon Jan 02, 2023 1:48 pm

Previous Years: 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022

1. Void Destroyer - PC

Void Destroyer is a game I backed on Kickstarter a while back and am finally getting around to playing. The elevator pitch was a space sim/FPS hybrid. Having played through it I would use the phrase "Homeworld with Urban Assault influences". It accomplishes what it sets out to, but there is a lot of amateur elements that stick out and reduced my overall enjoyment.

So let's start with that descriptor. Homeworld is a space RTS series that involved a persistent fleet across levels; you had the ability to decide when to trigger the next mission and it behooved you to make sure you built up as far as you could before doing so. Urban Assault was an RTS that had the innovative feature of letting you jump into any unit and control it directly; this would give you a passive boost to the unit's stats and allow the player to presumably handle the unit more efficiently than the CPU, with the CPU taking over everything else to act reasonably. This game merges the two concepts together; take a Homeworld base and add in being able to control any ship you own with a space sim engine with Newtonian physics and no velocity cap (though you have to opt into both and can revoke that at any time).

The story is fairly sparse, but it involves a revolt by the miners that accidentally uncovers a hostile alien force. You have a choice of endings based on how you approach things near the end of the game, and it will directly affect the forces you encounter in the final mission. The story is told through text dialog in mission and the occasional cutscene that focuses on a particular ship or structure that does a thing. These cutscenes also tend to rearrange the battlefield to bring you into threat ranges when you might have been safe otherwise, which is annoying.

Like Homeworld, you build a fleet and upgrade your flagship and these stats carry over from mission to mission. You have a cap towards the number of ships you can build in each class, but importantly this cap is only consumed when you directly build a ship in your base. If you capture an enemy ship (which is an ability your flagship has) you can go over this cap, and this ability is quite important. There are a few points where you are bereft of the support of a base, so you'll want to judiciously use the capture ability to both remove threats and augment your fleet before an upcoming major engagement. The space is fully 3D, though like Homeworld there isn't actually much advantage to be gained by taking advantage of the third dimension; the controls aren't good enough to be able to generate a proper pincer that would take advantage of enemy firing arcs. I think this is a fundamental limitation of trying to engage in 3D space using a 2D screen and a mouse; if you've ever used modeling software you know that there are a lot of tricks to get a good interface, but it also means you need a specialized skillset to really handle 3D manipulation on a screen.

Most of the time you can get by with the RTS interface, but there are a few points that you want to take advantage of being able to jump into a ship; specifically your flagship. There is a mission midway through where you need to clear static defenses with a minefield; this minefield is invisible on the map and your ships won't target mines with their point defense. You're best off taking your flagship solo, eating several mines, blowing up a turret, then bugging out and regenerating health (one of your abilities). Rinse and repeat. The second instance is in the late game; at this point you no longer can capture enemy ships and the enemy starts getting nasty, so you want to take advantage of your flagship's ability to pump out some real damage at the player helm. In this sim everything is modeled Newtonian; there is a thrust gauge for all six directions and you'll notice counter thrust being applied when you stop applying thrust so you'll come to a stop. You can turn off the automatic counter thrust which lets you do the "spin while going in one direction to do a strafe" attack. The game has no velocity cap, though by default there are safe thrusts for each unit that they don't try to exceed, as those are optimal maneuvering velocities.

The game definitely shows its status as an indie project beyond your standard slew of graphical compromises and middling UI choices. That Newtonian physics can have some hilarious results when collision occurs. There is no collision damage in game, but it can generate some insane impulses; I'm guessing due to ship geometry it applies force additively for each minor hit as part of the overall collision, with a net result that a collision can cause a ship to fly off into the void and completely beyond the bounds of the tactical map (there's a grid that only extends so far). The game allows for infinite distance (or at least MAX_INT distance), so it doesn't crash in these circumstances, but the AI doesn't handle it. Enemy ships will just hang out in deep space, and since so much of the game is trigger based on wiping out enemies you need to send a force to chase them down. In one mission they would wide up so far that I would self destruct the task force when it was done and rebuild it so they would be back for the next wave faster than if I had them fly. Another thing that stands out is the game's economy is both basic and unbalanced; only the fact the AI doesn't try to hit unit caps allows you to prevail in one mission where you are fighting against two bases. There are units that exist but are underexplored; one is a ship for capturing enemy bases, but this really only serves as an alternate to just triggering when all enemy ships are destroyed. You're not going to be able to scoop anything early, so unlike Command & Conquer's engineers there is no tactical purpose and this is just busywork. Similarly, there is a tug for moving asteroids and miners for getting additional ore from these asteroids. In one mission this is required until you can get transfers from other bases (locked by story events) and the other mission this is available it doesn't materially improve your resource situation, as you are capped by supply, not resources. With a longer game that didn't revisit the same three maps multiple times (even the dialog lampshades this) you could see more interesting considerations, like needing to send a task force to secure some asteroids without losing too much, but as it stands it just is some tedium.

Overall it's a very ambitious game for the team size, and frankly it doesn't rise to the heights it strives. It's not BAD by any stretch, but the rough edges are a bit too rough to be really enjoyable. Many of the maps end up taking too long due to how the scripts are written combined with the aforementioned bugs that artifically stretch things out. I ended up averaging almost 2 hours per mission, and that includes a couple of early missions that were 10 minutes each because you hadn't yet gotten the base and fleet stuff unlocked yet. As a first effort by an indie studio it's impressive, but taken as a "should I try this", I would say pass.
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Re: Games Beaten 2023

by MrPopo Thu Jan 05, 2023 12:21 am

Previous Years: 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022

1. Void Destroyer - PC
2. Ender Lilies: Quietus of the Knights - Switch

Ender Lilies is a Metroidvania with some Souls influence. It's not just 2D Souls like Salt and Sanctuary is; rather it's more like Hollow Knight or Blasphemous. It shares a lot of the tone, and it presents challenging enemies that can quickly kill an inattentive player. That said, I would say that overall it is easier than both of the aforementioned games. And it has some gorgeous artwork and animations.

The game begins with a mysterious white-haired girl waking up on a stone altar. A ghostly knight bids her awaken, for she is the white priestess who must help him save the world from the Blight. This manifests in a constant rain that spreads the disease and mutates all it touches, except for the priestess. So begins your journey as you purify the souls of the blighted and seek to heal the land.

You have a dodge with i-frames that you will make heavy use of through your journey, as well as a handful of healing charges that refill at save points (doing so also respawns all enemies). You can equip up to three spirits of key purified souls at a time; these serve as your attacks. Some of them are intended to be your primary weapons, like the knight you begin the game with. Others are intended as a supplement and have limited ammo that will refill at save points or from pickups in the world. You can freely switch between two sets of these abilities. You'll also get some mobility skills from beating the major bosses which help open up the map.

The game is dripping in atmosphere, which is realized through the backgrounds and the enemy sprites. Everything is extremely well drawn and has just the right amount of animation frames. Combined with the right level of particle effects and you have a truly lovely game. The map is filled with nooks and crannies to hide items and notes that give backstory on the world. You piece things together Souls-style, but everything is far more straightforward, making the story a bit more approachable. The game features three endings; one that you'll stumble upon about halfway through and two that come from the final boss; a good and bad (the good requires you to basically do 100% completion).

I'd definitely rank this in my upper tier of modern Metroidvanias. The game is tough but fair, with good tells on enemy attacks and the right amount of mobility and evasion for you to react to those tells. It'll punish you for getting too cocky, but it doesn't require the level of mastery that some of its peers require to get through. Highly recommended.
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Re: Games Beaten 2023

by MrPopo Thu Jan 05, 2023 1:49 am

Previous Years: 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022

1. Void Destroyer - PC
2. Ender Lilies: Quietus of the Knights - Switch
3. Raging Blasters - Switch

Raging Blasters is a retro-styled shmup that is heavily inspired by Compile's output; the name is even an homage to Blazing Lazers. The game features two modes; an eight stage arcade mode and a three minute caravan mode. The game supports one or two players.

Controls are simple. One button toggles between three speed values and the other two will control your primary fire. Your ship has six blaster ports, and their configuration depends on which of the two fire buttons you're hitting. The tight shot has all six firing forward; this is your best DPS against bosses. The wide gives you two firing forward and the other four firing on the four diagonals. This is best for the middle of the stages to keep popcorn enemies away from you, as well as keeping fire on bosses when the pattern forces you to dodge to the side.

The game is plentiful with its powerups, but strangely it keeps them very simple compared to its inspiration. The game has no bombs and just five subweapons that each have a single power level. You are therefore free to swap subweapons at any time, because there is no building up needed. You'll recognize all of them; a piercing laser, homing missiles, rotating barriers that can cancel shots, a wave that fires slightly behind you before traveling forward, and a fireball that explodes upon hitting an enemy for lingering damage.

The game has an emphasis on playability without being punishing. There isn't really a power curve like Gradius or even the Aleste games, so dying doesn't really set you back. The game is also generous with its extra lives; I had earned a total of 10 extras by the end of the game. The game features a Donpachi style chaining system, and looking at the leaderboards it is clear there is some method for extending those chains far beyond what I was able to pull off. The game has a mix of enemy shots you can shoot down and ones that can only be cancelled with the shield; the game doesn't overuse the latter, so it stays feeling fair. The game also very nicely puts indicators on the bottom of the screen when enemies are going to spawn from that direction; this removes the bullshit deaths from behind some shmups like to use.

Overall, it's a fun shmup you can hop into and do well with. While there is definitely room for mastery if you're chasing high scores, it doesn't require mastery to make it through. I would highly recommend this as an introductory shmup for people.
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Re: Games Beaten 2023

by Ack Thu Jan 05, 2023 2:26 pm

1. Northern Journey (PC)(FPS)

To describe Northern Journey as an FPS is a little disingenuous. It's partly an FPS, but also partly an adventure game. While combat involves swapping projectile weapons and getting used to the aiming and timing of each tool, much of the game involves searching for items, solving puzzles, and a lot of walks down precarious catwalks. Instead of level's it's a sort of open world with regions that must be explored while also fending off enemies with permadeath and evading the game's traps.

I use traps loosely, because some of them are actually creatures. Northern Journey is inspired loosely by Norse mythology, so small impish things wander around harmlessly, while you face giant spiders and insects or take on trolls or undead that have built fortresses. At other times, you face the unkillable, like a large monster in a bog swamp that calls you forth with a song to make you drown, or a tentacled thing that grabs you in its tendrils and pull you into the depths where you cannot escape. There are also a variety of bosses, such as serpent witches on broomsticks or a doppelganger summoning spirits to fly at you while you leap over glacial crags.

Meanwhile, you're searching beautiful landscapes and strange vistas of swamps, cliffs, forests, and so forth. In one area, it's waterfalls covered in ziplines you must fly over to explore haunted ruins. In another, it's barrows swarming with giant mosquitos and raging sheep covered in massive ticks. And the music is low key but full of flutes and pipes, adding to the grandeur and beauty of the land you're exploring. There is a sense of mystery to each area, even as you're only inching forward because there are spiders trying to drop on you from the trees.

Now it's not all sunshine and daisies. At some point, you're going to have to fight, and that's where things can get a little tricky. The game offers plenty of ammunition, and your basic sling has infinite ammo, but each weapon has quirks. For example, your sling can be quite powerful...if you give it enough rotations. Fire it off without a full cycle, and you'll only do about 36 points of damage. Give it three full rotations, and you've maxed out at 100. You also have to get used to judging range and the arc of the projectile, and not all projectiles fire immediately, so timing your fire is another key element. For example, the throwing axe fires off immediately, but the throwing spear requires a wind up. The big weapon of the game, the ballista? It requires both a wind up and a cool down after firing, though you can negate the cool down by swapping weapons immediately after unleashing a bolt, so you can speed yourself up a little. Every weapon has quirks, and some are only used for certain boss fights, so you have to understand your loadout.

Northern Journey is also not a game that will coddle you. You have to manually save and quicksave, and you cannot do it when you are too close to a ledge or during any kind of event. Don't expect to save during a boss battle, and don't expect the game will pick you up close to where you died if you weren't keeping track of things yourself. With the number of tiny corridors and ledges you'll be traversing (as well as the numerous enemies you'll face along the way), you'll need to take care of yourself. Thankfully health is generally plentiful, and the sling isn't a bad weapon against fodder if you know how to use it and need to conserve ammunition. But bosses are challenging fights, even before you get stuck traversing tiny walkways over instant death while battling them.

It's a fun game, and worth checking out if you want some FPS combat mixed in with your exploration. I got sucked in and had a great time. Maybe those of you who pick it up will have a similar experience.
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Re: Games Beaten 2023

by Syndicate Thu Jan 05, 2023 7:51 pm

...it seems like everyone is off to a pretty solid start. The first game that I've finished in the New Year is As Dusk Falls. I really enjoy the Tell Tale/Life is Strange sort of gameplay since it sort of changes things up for me pace wise. The art style of As Dusk Falls isn't for everyone, but I thought it provided an interesting look to the game. The story itself is pretty interesting and full of twists and even a few surprises. A single playthrough doesn't actually take too long but seeing every single possible choice definitely extends the play time. I especially like the fact that the entire story paths are diagramed out so that you can see what other paths are available. Even more interesting and something I've never seen in this genre is the ability to explore the paths not taken w/o overwriting the "canon" save data that you've already created. I plan on going back to check out a few points of the story I thought were interesting. As Dusk Falls is worth checking out imo if you enjoy these style of games and also have Gamepass.
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Re: Games Beaten 2023

by MrPopo Sat Jan 07, 2023 2:12 am

Previous Years: 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022

1. Void Destroyer - PC
2. Ender Lilies: Quietus of the Knights - Switch
3. Raging Blasters - Switch
4. Citizen Sleeper - Switch

Citizen Sleeper is an adventure game set in the future that has a lot of cyberpunk themes. And when I say adventure game, I'm talking in the same neighborhood as Zork or Monkey Island. Everything is text and menu-based, asking you to make choices, find items, and trust lady luck. You won't succeed at everything, but the game also won't summarily kill you because you tried to get ye flask.

The central premise is that in the future the technology has developed to allow for the cloning of human consciousness into artificial bodies. Corporations hire people to place themselves into cryostasis and have their minds copied into worker bodies. This allows them to get around the inability to develop true artificial intelligence. You give up your life for a few decades and you get a payout, while the corporation gets "your" labor. This setup has led to such artificial bodies to be termed "sleepers", as their true self is sleeping. The game begins with you waking up inside a cargo container; you are a sleeper who has come to realize that there is nothing that will actually make the corporation call your term of service complete, so you steal away on a passing freighter. You eventually end up on The Eye, a broken down space station, and must find a way to make a life for yourself. There are a few complications, though; foremost is the fact that your body will slowly break down unless you receive a supplement that is only produced by the corporation that built you. So finding an alternate source is going to be your first task.

The game presents you with a view of the station, which is your standard wheel and spoke that rotates to generate gravity. There are a series of hot points on the map; these are places where you can interact, such as engaging in work to make money or spending money on food. Many of these tasks require the precious resource of your time. And this is where we talk about the unique mechanic of the game. At the start of a cycle (day) the game evaluates your overall condition and assigns you a certain number of actions; the healthier you are the more actions you have. These actions are represented by rolls of a D6. So, for example, you might start the game with a 1, 3, 4, 4, and 6. When you want to engage in an activity that isn't just a commerce transaction you must spend one of these actions. Now, you're free to use any of those dice rolls, but there are consequences. All actions can have one of three results; a positive, a neutral, or a negative. The chances of getting one of these results is directly dependent on the die roll you spend; a 6 guarantees a positive, while a 1 gives a 50/50 chance between neutral and negative. Depending on the activity, the consequences for a non-positive can be as simple as "you take some damage" to "you actively hinder your efforts at the task". An additional wrinkle is that as you get further in the game you can access cyberspace; here the tasks demand you provide specific die rolls. This can give you a safe outlet for your low rolls for the day.

To progress the story you will need to find key NPCs and engage in their questlines. These typically involve you needing to collect key items or engage in a task enough times successfully to fill a meter, sometimes before another meter fills (whether it be one that ticks up every cycle or a certain amount every time you fail). These questlines are multi-stage and help flesh out the world. Completing major quest objectives gives you skill points which can be spent to give you boosts to your die rolls and other benefits, like being able to consume a particular item to heal. The emphasis is on experiencing the story; while the beginning of the game is very resource constrained, as you get further on you have more tools to be able to reach a state of equilibrium and thus be able to focus on accomplishing the story pieces. A few of the quest chains have the possibility of ending the game by leaving the station; whether you stay or go this will trigger a credits roll.

The game seeks to explore topics like the nature of being, as well as examining unfettered corporate greed. The cast is varied and all have their own stories to tell, and everything is pretty well written. It's a very used future feel, and the game doesn't beat you over the head with any major morals; it's up to you to decide how you feel about everything. If you're looking for a chill way to spend several hours I can highly recommend this one.
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Re: Games Beaten 2023

by Limewater Sat Jan 07, 2023 7:18 pm

Time Quest - PC 1991

Time Quest is an old-fashioned adventure game from Legendary Entertainment. The emphasis is on puzzle-solving rather than story progression.
You play as a new recruit to the Time Corps, and a rogue agent, Vettenmyer, has just gone wild, making ten significant changes to history.

You have to track Vettenmyer down and undo all of the problems he has caused. Since the Interkrons, the time machines in the game, can be tracked, you know that Vettenmyer visited six different geographic areas over nine different time periods. There are a few he did not visit, but this still provides over fifty distinct time/places to visit, each one usually with multiple areas to explore. These range from attending a Chinese Emperor's funeral in 1361BC to meeting Winston Churchill in 1940AD.

In keeping with old-fashioned adventure games, there is some exposition at the beginning and end, but in the middle the whole game is about exploring all of the different times and places, solving puzzles, getting items you can use to solve puzzles elsewhere, and doing things in earlier time periods that affect later time periods. Puzzles themselves are generally straightforward, with a lot of the difficulty coming from figuring out what you can do with items you acquire after completing the puzzles.

I would say that the vast majority of the puzzles are pretty fair. There are only a couple of groaners. The version I got from GOG.com came with the manual and mission briefings, which you really need to read, as well as a hint book which I ended up consulting several times.

I'll say again that I really enjoyed this game, and would recommend it to other graphic and text adventure fans and puzzle lovers. If you are new to the genre I would probably suggest you start with something from LucasArts instead as a smoother entry point.

I will note that the GOG.com release was Windows-only and I run Linux. I was able to run the installer via WINE without major problems, but could not successfully launch the game through the DOSBox instance provided. However, once I ran my own instance of DOSBox and pointed to the directory, the game ran without a hitch.

I did encounter a couple of bugs in the game, but I believe that these are true in-game bugs and not a result of my DOSBox instance. These were instances where I probably did things a little out of sequence from what was expected and got bizarre results, such as characters being in two places at once. I took these as signs that I was doing something wrong and just restored a prior savegame and did not encounter them again.
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Re: Games Beaten 2023

by MrPopo Sun Jan 08, 2023 12:18 am

Previous Years: 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022

1. Void Destroyer - PC
2. Ender Lilies: Quietus of the Knights - Switch
3. Raging Blasters - Switch
4. Citizen Sleeper - Switch
5. GetsuFumaDen: Undying Moon

Way back in the day, Konami released Getsu Fuma Den, a sort of samurai Castlevania II. If you've played Harmony of Despair and gotten all the DLC you might have remembered the samurai character and stage that was the other 8-bit content available. 25 years later Konami finally decided to revive the IP with a new game. And it's... eh. Inoffensive.

The game's story is threadbare; a portal to hell opens and Fuma, 27th heir of the Getsu clan, must seal it. Cue a series of randomly generated levels where you kill demons, collect treasure, and fight bosses. The most notable thing is the ukiyo-e inspired art style; this is most evident on the backgrounds, with the enemy designs having a more standard art style. The game has a roguelite structure of giving you one life and starting you off with very little each run.

The game features eight weapon classes that each handle very differently. You can choose a piece of gear to start every run with; generally you'll want this to be the weapon class you've found works best for you. You can equip two weapons, quick swapping between, and can also equip two sub weapons. Sub weapons have ammo and regenerate on a timer; they act as a force multiplier and give you safer options. You get a couple of healing potions that will refill half your health, and every level has an opportunity to gain an additional one (though not above that intiial cap), so you'll have to be careful. Dodging enemy attacks and striking at opportune moments is key. If you hit an enemy at the right point of their attack you perform a counter for big damage; this is easier with fast weapons. The game also features a Gradius-style powerup bar. Large treasure chests and big enemies will drop a soul which goes into this bar. Collecting additional souls moves the bar forward to the next icon, and wrapping around gives you crafting mats. Like Gradius, you can cash this in at any time. You can stack bonuses to your weapon damage, subweapon damage, health, or you can cash it in for a health potion drop. Now, this might have been a more interesting mechanic, except stacking damage is by far the way to go, as getting things down to killing enemies before they can attack is the best way to stay alive.

After each boss you have the option of continuing or going back to base; the latter will save all the crafting and upgrade materials you have collected. This is probably worth doing the first few runs to build up enough materials so you can get some persistent skills (such as extra health potions and healing on gaining money thresholds) and upgrade your weapons. The game is an odd weapon upgrade system; first you spend materials to unlock upgrade slots, then during a run you can spend a limited currency to actually activate those slots (there is also a more standard level up the weapon option, and you'll want to do both). Once you've gotten a weapon upgraded some you're more ready to actually try and tackle a full run. The game has the standard early game hell where you are doing your best to get your power going, but by the midpoint you will probably hit the point of being able to trash all the regular enemies easily and chew through bosses surprisingly fast. The game also has an odd difficulty curve in boss patterns; I found the second boss actually was the hardest to manage, as he has several hard to dodge attacks, while later bosses spent more time idle, giving you time to unleash big damage. Upon beating the game you unlock a harder difficulty setting, each one increasing monster density and making them have more attack options, but also giving you more treasure on balance.

The whole thing is just a very average effort. It'll take some time for you to click with what the game expects from you, but once it does you'll probably start to sail through. I went from struggling on the second stage to smoothly one shotting the fourth and fifth stages on my first time. There's an alternate character to unlock who is faster but does less damage and has less health, and you likely will have a bunch of weapons and skills to unlock by the end, but it also doesn't really feel worth going back to do so. I think you can do better with this genre.
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