Darth Canoli
Arcane
I was searching for a shooter with some upgrades outside of combat and found this one after trying a few.
Difficulty is highly customizable
And for each mission: easy, normal, hardcore and legendary as far as i know + 11 difficulty levels for each and no, you don't have to go through all of them, you can just use a cursor to set the difficulty you want before launching it, also, the last difficulty level and mode you used becomes the default one until you change it again.
Good system, too many shooters/shoot'em up are either too easy or so hard you'll launch the first level 30 times and die in a matter of minutes if not seconds each time.
Fire modes add a strategic layer
Because unlike some other shooters, you can't change it during a mission unless you find a weapon bonus.
Still, each fire mode has 3 sub-modes, one dual-laser "sword" and two sub-fire modes with a different spread.
Even with the sub-modes, each fire colour mode (yellow, orange, red, blue, green and purple) has its own strength and weaknesses and some planets will provide enemies easier to dealt with some of them.
Red is a focused fire straight ahead while Blue is fully spread 360° around your ship while others have different combinations in between.
Drops and bonuses well managed
They're discernible from bullets, which happen quite often in others shooters, there's power ups, fire modes which include power ups, shield recharge, overload which destroys all enemy bullets on screen and damage nearby opponents and steel modes which makes invulnerable for a short time and also powers up your ship a little also for the duration of the boost.
And of course, credits (currency) to gather.
Upgrades between missions
There's quite a lot of different upgrades, missiles, bombs, engine, armor, wings, bringing some defensive and offensive boost, some focused on one or the other, some more balanced, also, wings can increase the collision damage you do to the opponents.
And of course, your drone companion, R-Type like, except unlike R-Type, you can't but it in front or rear or your ship to block incoming fire.
Let's not dwell on the marvels of the past, it's not helping...
Research and base management
I found the previous features quite good, nothing groundbreaking but it got the job done and well done.
This is where it stops.
Aside from the interesting bonuses the research nodes bring and the flat research/economy/production the building "game" brings, The core of the gameplay here changes, every upgrade takes in-game time (and it's speed up when you're in mission or rather slowed down when you're not)
How should they have done it?
Instant base building taking resources (was base building really necessary?)
It consuming some credits already but the RTS or MMO-like construction system is quite retarded.
And research?
Instead of a time management game where you will get to the research screen after every other mission, make it like in Fantasy General where you allocate a percentage of your gold findings to each kind of research.
But none of that here, unfortunately and it's these features that really got on my nerves.
Enemies diversity and bosses
Job well done on that front, there's diversity, all with their different tactics/AI and weapons, bosses are interesting as well.
It's good but not great but it might be just me, every enemy is mech-like, ships, mechs, giant floating bases, missiles, it lacks a bit of theme variety and also a touch of inspiration.
Not a negative point but could be better.
Gameplay, SE and music
Some elements of gameplay are already disseminated over the previous points.
Mission gameplay is good, good response, no hit-box problems, fast enough (way better/faster when using the mouse over the keyboard), main grippe is when using the mouse, you can't move if you stop pressing the firing button (which isn't the case with the keyboard).
You don't have to select one or the other though, you can switch from keyboard and mouse control at will during a mission so there's that.
SE and music are good too, nothing spectacular but good nonetheless.
TLDR
Rating
7/10 (more if you don't mind the time management shenanigans)Good gameplay
Good SE and music themes
Interesting upgrades and bonuses
Interesting tactical layer with the fire modes
Great difficulty settings
I hate the base management part and don't like the research timing thing too much either, it kind of ruined the game for me after a while.
