Recent reviews by Q.Bajeena #BringBackQuickplay

Guess what, look no further if you are seeking a fun oriented casual shooter experience that won't eat up 2/3 of your disk space.

To me personally, this game feels like a toned-down, more softcore DaiOuJou - in a good way. (Notice that I only played in expert mode thus far(tho it by no means means I'm an expert, it's still easier than Donpachi series in this setting))


I said that mainly because I think Like Dreamer manages to keep that kind of intense, exhilarating gameplay pressure of DDP DOJ (and thus naturally the feel-good factor after surviving tough patterns), while sneakily being a lot easier without losing that core shmup/bullethell spacing and maneuvering essence(stuff like autobomb are not too impactful imo).

Examples include:
Hitbox is small, like, REALLY small, it's probably smaller than the already tiny hitbox display; so, quite often, you can still squeeze through safe areas despite slightly sloppy inputs, whereas you'd be dead for many times if you were playing DOJ. Enemies themselves also cannot damage you, further reducing pressure.

Enemies usually won't linger for too long if you fail to take them down quickly, so patterns won't overlap too much.
Same for bullet cancelling; in DOJ the big guys that will do bullet cancel would usually greatly limit your movement with their bullets, so shooting down a fewpopcorn enemies on other parts of the screen first would be an extremely committed tactic. Here the minions often are located close to cancellable enemies, so it takes quite less efforts to execute.


But still, like I mentioned before, the fundamentals are there and are very solid, so it's great for players enjoying CAVE style shmups but struggling with the difficulty, or when one wants to have less stressful but still exciting play sessions. Per-chapter basis also helps. Music is top notch and has lots of varieties in terms of style. I like this game a lot!

Basically only one phrase needs to be said: "M2 STG"; and if you know what that means you are probably already heading to checkout page at 3 times the speed of sound XD.

This is what video games should be like.

edit: Afaik this is the first time Shottriggers releasing their game on Steam, so fellow shmup enjoyers, if possible, please take the deal - in hope of having their past works brought to PC as well!

Basically, the real Ninja Gaiden 4 isn't called Ninja Gaiden 4; it's not called Ragebound either. Instead its name is Cyber Shadow.

This is how speed-run focused game design should be - being closely tied with a great scoring system.
Done in this way, it permits a far higher degree of freedom in terms of play style (you can most certainly beat the game 200+ playing "grounded"); it rewards smart play and efficiency.

Masterpiece.

It was said that composer of original OST lost all the lossless files due to some sort of HDD failure. HOWEVER, Arranged Sound Track still has lossless version available as World Ignition additional content. Consider buying Explosion base game but those two soundtracks instead.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/301880/Crimzon_Clover_WORLD_IGNITION__Soundtrack/
https://store.steampowered.com/app/358800/Crimzon_Clover_WORLD_IGNITION__Arranged_Sound_Track/

I rarely pay full price for video games nowadays. This one is an exception though.

Some games should be considered masterpiece because you can sense polishing and fine tuning everywhere. Some however are the opposite - you barely feel any trace of artificial intervention. This game and Portal 1 are prime examples.

Amazing game. It's hard to believe that so much jaw dropping "action" potential can be stuffed into a side-scrolling game, but they did pull it off. 1cc presents a great challenge, and replayability is definitely there. Samurai Zero can really learn a lesson or two here.

I like how swiftly attack and defense translate into each other here; I'm by no means a classic beat 'em up connoisseur, but anyways, this holding attack button to defend, then press jump while guarding to do an i-frame'd flip mechanic is a truly genius design, you can transition from attack, guard and repositioning fluently, then commit to attacking again from a better position. Once learnt properly the overall game flow can be sped up considerably.
Character balance is simply exemplary. Those with shorter reach generally have more nimble mobility moves to compensate, all of whom are very distinct from one another.And Raiden's design is pretty insane lol. Tengo Project managed to keep him balanced through clunkiness while making him absolutely as destructive as his appearance suggests. A very unique experience for sure!

But there is one small QoL improvement that maybe should be introduced, that is a one-time autosave system. Yes it doesn't take that long to beat all levels after you get the hang of it, however before that one may need to spend more time than one of his/her usual play session. For the original NSwitch release this isn't that much of a problem since you can always put that handheld into sleep then take a rest, but on PC, obviously not everyone will be playing on a SteamDeck... imho a subtle save system like the one of Fight'N'Rage will work well - it won't give you a continue button but will give you the option to continue from your last checkpoint when starting a game with the same character and setting, and will be scraped afterwards so you have to push your progress further each time.

The biggest critique I have is mini games being too much of a filler --- however this game isn't made by giant corporations with tonnes of budget and devs, so can't really blame it for this, plus the price is quite reasonable.

The overall presentation is neat, with the horror elements kept to a decent balance point imho (I usually do not dare to play horror games :P ). Maybe the story can be digged/developed deeper, and certain dialogues are a little bit incoherent... But again, small dev team and reasonably priced, not a real issue.

Had a fun time playing through it, would recommend.

After spending a bit more time familiarizing with the genre, though conclusion BLUE REVOLVER being a fabulous, carefully crafted game does not change, I feel quite mixed about all post-SaiDaiOuJou non-arcade bullethells. They generally leave me an impression of aiming primarily at being fun to grind & improve (like for 1cc and high score, etc.) instead of being fun to just play & enjoy.

I think it used to be dictated by the whole arcade economy model - not only do the games have to attract random passer-by to have a try, then keep these random people hooked without being too easy. This calls for extremely well polished difficulty curve and making some of the surface level elements to be fun and engaging. For the latter I think Blue Revolver got visuals and music spot on, only falling a bit short in hit effects.

I understand motivations behind not allowing credit spam; some players might spam their way through and decide the game is too short, then call it a day. However - just my opinion - maybe making it "cheap" and easy to see the ending will better encourage those actually care about the process to focus more on performance during playthrough, and also potentially grasp the genre and the game more wholistically.

I personally find the bullet speed to be a tad bit too fast for me... I suck. That's about the only complaint I have in regards to game design.