![]() 2D logic puzzlers The Bridge and Echochrome had you rotating 2.5D environments to create impossible connections between platforms. Escher’s marvelously mind-bending aesthetic. There have been a handful of games that have recreated Dutch artist’s M.C. There is, of course, a combo metre, which increases your points while building up your energy store to unleash massive screen-clearing attacks. Different types of enemies drop different types of weapons, and you’re usually rewarded for picking up the latest. There’s also a dash button and, key for shmups, a diverse array of weapons to unlock. It eases you into its gameplay dynamics, like the “Lash” that works like an energy tether, binding enemies together and encouraging you to ram into them for extra damage. This video of a dude simultaneously controlling first and second-player in Ikaruga never gets old. I’ve probably purchased ten times more shmups than I’ve actually completed. I’ve probably played hundreds in my day some for mere minutes until the oppressive difficulty turns me off (check out the “bullet hell” genre), others for hours and hours until I’ve perfected a clean run. It’ll bend your brain, even as it tests your thumbs. Only instead of a sphere, you’re traversing complex, beautifully laid out, Möbius strip-like levels. Like SSHD, it has an unusual level design in which attacks can come from all angles. Like SSHD, it can be fiendishly but entertainingly difficult. Like SSHD, it’s a twin-stick shooter, where you control your spacecraft with the left analog and aim attacks with the right. SSHD could get dizzying, especially in its later stages where the screen filled with a dazzling array of lights and explosions.Ĭurved Space, a brand new indie shmup (“shoot-em-up”) game on the PS5 and various other modern systems, reminds me in a lot of ways of the SSHD experience. ![]() In SSHD, players took control of a piddly little alien spacecraft circling a spherical planet, where enemies and laser beams attack from 360 degrees. I have fond memories of blasting through PS3-era Super Stardust HD, far from the first twin-stick shooter, but easily one of the best. Available Now for PS5 (reviewed), PS4, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, and Windows.Ī twin-stick shooter with groovy Escherian design. ![]() Our review of Curved Space, developed by Only By Midnight. ![]()
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