03-18-2016, 04:47 PM
I've played a few of these.
First one that I recall is Fatcat, by Nitrome.
I have played several others since then, most of which I have forgotten.
A few years ago, I discovered Viewpoint while browsing the sprites here, and decided to try playing it. Well, I suck at playing it...XD
I also have played 'recently':
Bullet Heaven (I've not yet mastered)
Bullet Heaven 2 (I probably will not EVER master it)
Shameless Clone 2 (In one gaming session, I beat the entire game)
Shameless Clone (I found this one tedious and boring, I RQ pretty early)
My preferences tend to be a balance of all the gameplay and art elements. Story I don't personally care about either way, but it's a nice bonus when implemented correctly. It's also cool to see games that add new gameplay elements,or use the uncommon ones, sometimes even if these fail horribly.
Viewpoint takes things to a whole new level just because of the isometric perspective, which really screws with the ability of the player to track the bullets.
Fatcat has two player-controlled characters, the cat and the owl, and you need both to beat any level. Each one can only do certain things, making this a really interesting game to play. It also makes it fairly challenging, however. I have yet to beat a Nitrome game, anyways, but this was my first one, and I've since learned to accept the fact Nitrome specializes in challenge/difficulty, and not just the art style or innovative gameplay concepts.
Shameless Clone 2 implemented the upgrades system fairly well. Even after you reach an upgrade level that renders your character OP, there comes a point that the sheer amount of enemies, or their stats, renders it practically useless without at least, some skills.
Shameless Clone was ok, but it had some annoying little features that just aren't my cup of tea. If you like having the screen flipped upside-down because of some pickup, give it a try! I'm sure it had other interesting stuff, but I just couldn't honestly enjoy it, so I quit.
Bullet Heaven can get frustrating in some places, but the upgrades can really help. Art style is cute, and overall, this isn't bad for Matt Roszak's first attempt at a bullet hell shmup! However, it's sequel far surpasses it in just about every way.
Bullet Heaven 2 doesn't have permanent upgrades, and furthermore, it penalizes you for using any upgrades. On the opposite end of the spectrum, it gives you higher score for using handicaps and/or a tougher difficulty. The artwork has significantly improved, and just about everything is animated in some way. The soundtrack I'm iffy about, I suppose it fits a shmup, but given that BH is a spin-off to the Epic Battle Fantasy series, it feels detached from the overall theme of everything. Bullet heaven 2 also uses Starling and DragonBones for sprites, which means that a pretty decent GPU is required to play the game at full speed. Also, since instead of using vectors, all the graphics are rasterized in-memory, it can be notice-able when something is re-scaled. I also reported during the beta testing stage of the game some z-sorting issues, IDK if these have been addressed. Despite any of these problems, however, I can safely recommend this game for anyone who wishes to play it. I've been planning on writing a review for quite some time, but it's on my to-do list, so it'll happen someday.
Now, I've probably forgotten to list one or two other games here, so I'll update the post if any come to mind
First one that I recall is Fatcat, by Nitrome.
I have played several others since then, most of which I have forgotten.
A few years ago, I discovered Viewpoint while browsing the sprites here, and decided to try playing it. Well, I suck at playing it...XD
I also have played 'recently':
Bullet Heaven (I've not yet mastered)
Bullet Heaven 2 (I probably will not EVER master it)
Shameless Clone 2 (In one gaming session, I beat the entire game)
Shameless Clone (I found this one tedious and boring, I RQ pretty early)
My preferences tend to be a balance of all the gameplay and art elements. Story I don't personally care about either way, but it's a nice bonus when implemented correctly. It's also cool to see games that add new gameplay elements,or use the uncommon ones, sometimes even if these fail horribly.
Viewpoint takes things to a whole new level just because of the isometric perspective, which really screws with the ability of the player to track the bullets.
Fatcat has two player-controlled characters, the cat and the owl, and you need both to beat any level. Each one can only do certain things, making this a really interesting game to play. It also makes it fairly challenging, however. I have yet to beat a Nitrome game, anyways, but this was my first one, and I've since learned to accept the fact Nitrome specializes in challenge/difficulty, and not just the art style or innovative gameplay concepts.
Shameless Clone 2 implemented the upgrades system fairly well. Even after you reach an upgrade level that renders your character OP, there comes a point that the sheer amount of enemies, or their stats, renders it practically useless without at least, some skills.
Shameless Clone was ok, but it had some annoying little features that just aren't my cup of tea. If you like having the screen flipped upside-down because of some pickup, give it a try! I'm sure it had other interesting stuff, but I just couldn't honestly enjoy it, so I quit.
Bullet Heaven can get frustrating in some places, but the upgrades can really help. Art style is cute, and overall, this isn't bad for Matt Roszak's first attempt at a bullet hell shmup! However, it's sequel far surpasses it in just about every way.
Bullet Heaven 2 doesn't have permanent upgrades, and furthermore, it penalizes you for using any upgrades. On the opposite end of the spectrum, it gives you higher score for using handicaps and/or a tougher difficulty. The artwork has significantly improved, and just about everything is animated in some way. The soundtrack I'm iffy about, I suppose it fits a shmup, but given that BH is a spin-off to the Epic Battle Fantasy series, it feels detached from the overall theme of everything. Bullet heaven 2 also uses Starling and DragonBones for sprites, which means that a pretty decent GPU is required to play the game at full speed. Also, since instead of using vectors, all the graphics are rasterized in-memory, it can be notice-able when something is re-scaled. I also reported during the beta testing stage of the game some z-sorting issues, IDK if these have been addressed. Despite any of these problems, however, I can safely recommend this game for anyone who wishes to play it. I've been planning on writing a review for quite some time, but it's on my to-do list, so it'll happen someday.
Now, I've probably forgotten to list one or two other games here, so I'll update the post if any come to mind