Atomanta

Review by [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/34633003-Gaming-Masterpieces/lists/] Gaming Masterpieces [/url] - The greatest games of all time on Steam. Is this game a masterpiece? No, but when I come home from the office I don't need a masterpiece, but a short game to let off steam. Shoot 'em ups are a good choice to achieve this. I turn up the volume until my wife starts screaming, grab my controller and blast some nasties into oblivion. Atomanta, or last year's Tastrion from the same devs, are a perfect choice for that. This is a well-executed, fun vertical shmup. The design centers around four different weapons that you fire with the corresponding button on your pad (A/B and X/Y). You can choose between three basic layouts at the start (variations in damage, range and range). Collect extras to upgrade them. No online leaderboards, no Tate mode, but lots of smooth scrolling bullets in all variations. [u][b] Conclusion:[/b][/u] Shmups are a tried-and-true genre, and Atomanta pulls it off with style and flair. The ship moves nicely, the enemies are varied and come in droves. It is fun to let off steam - and then throw your gamepad in the corner after you have been kille…

[後半に日本語レビューあり] [h1] A 90s-spirit shmup with a versatile arsenal [/h1] A vertical scrolling shoot-'em-up that evokes 90s arcade and console shooters. Thanks to a modern small hitbox, bullet lines are easy to read, and since you do not lose power on death, recovery is smooth. You choose a loadout at the start, and even after powering it up to the maximum level, you can still swap weapons, so deciding whether to push through with your current kit or switch - including secret weapons found mid-stage - is one of the fun parts. The retro pixel art and synth-heavy BGM also do a pretty good job setting the mood. Enemy attacks are varied as well: not only straight shots and fan spreads, but also curving trajectories, homing bullets, and lasers, and many stages also feature collision hazards. On your side, you fight back with front plus back shots, piercing, homing, and more. There are 8 stages with branching routes, so repeat runs feel different. Normal starts you with a lot of lives and keeps handing out more, so it is designed for you to play boldly and enjoy the variety. Bombs erase bullets and deal big damage, and you can also get a one-time bomb upgrade via a hidden pickup (but it ca…

The Normal mode is boring and feels overstaying its welcome too often in its stage design. I recommend to play Hard mode directly instead. The Hard mode is tighter and less repetitive. Though aside of some random counter explosions and minor pattern buffs, the Hard mode difference is not that apparent. And it's still pretty easy with lots of extends and starting lives. It's not great, but it's good. For a 50 minute per run shmup, it's well made enough. The game is also stable. The scoring system needed more depth and clearer ways to tell how to trigger the bonuses. What is Perfect Clear and does it even give me score bonus?

Really good shmup. The gameplay itself stays true to the basics of the genre, which is not a bad thing at all- it's a tried and true formula. The stages have lots of secrets to uncover, and are pretty visually varied, each ending in a multi-phase boss fight. The ships feel nice to move, the soundtrack is great, and the game, at least on normal, is pretty generous with resources. Well worth the £9.

Atomanta is a well designed shmup that plays halfway between the traditional 8-bit arcade shmup and the bullet hell, and the mix works very well, at least it did for me who is more an oldschool shmup player, more into R-type than the new stuff. They tried to bring their own answers to the obsolescence of the traditional shmup gameplay paradigm, with some QoL ameliorations and original gameplay choices. For example you don't lose your weaponry on death. You have 21 lives (on the standard difficulty) and one continue with 6 lives. This would seem to make the game more on the easy side, and it does seem to be rather easier then usual, but there is a higher difficulty, that I didn't try yet. The game is very smooth and fluid and pleasant to play, the levels structure reminded me of Aleste on the Sega consoles. There's a lot of little secrets to discover, including secret levels. You have an initial choice of three different weapons, but you can discover different weapon types inside the levels, there seems to be more than half a dozen. Each weapon has three different fire modes that sometimes feel like different weapons in themselves (standard, back shot, and concentrate beam). The e…

I love this game! This is a game that I can play over and over and over. The bullet patterns are genius, the weapon sets are super fun, the cut scenes make me remember the 16bit era, when I was playing super metroid. There is a nostalgic thing going on but the music wakes you up from the dream and trust me, you need to be in the zone! If you blink, you will loose a life. I played so many shmups before and this game is so fair. Is not Axelay where the gameplay makes you memorize everything after your 10th playthrough. In this game if you can have fun while you learn the patterns and omg, again, the weapon sets are so fun! It feels crispy (when you destroy the enemies) it feels rewarding (when you find secret stuff, no spoilers) and when you die, we'll, its your fault because the game teaches you little by little how to react to the challenges about to come. Not an easy game, not ridiculously hard, fun and engaging. Please give it a try and enjoy the trip. Btw the voice acting is so cute!!!