Candy Rangers

I love the way this game looks and plays. The overall presentation is fantastic, and the soundtrack is incredibly good. It has a strong 5th-generation console vibe that I absolutely adore. The whole experience feels playful and cozy, while still being a traditional on-rails arcade shooter that constantly encourages you to come back and chase higher scores. The difficulty ramps up at a steady pace throughout the campaign, making Story Mode feel engaging and satisfying. That said, I ran into a few issues. I tested the game on two different machines (one running Linux and the other Windows), and the same problems appeared on both. There are noticeable hiccups whenever the melee attack connects with enemies, and only during that brief moment. The game also crashes randomly during Arcade Mode, but that could be my own fault since I mess with my machines too much. One final feature worth mentioning (understandably not listed on the store page) is that the game supports a Wii Remote and Nunchuk. Just follow the developer's guide on the Steam Guides page to get it working.

A short-but-sweet on rails shooter with a lot of interesting ideas for the genre. Like a sort of top down Sin & Punishment, Mechano plays around with aspects like platforming, hidden paths, and certain enemy sequences being completed to attain in-game rewards and score. I think one of the best things about an on-rails shooter is applying a 'wow' factor, and many levels in Candy Rangers find a stride of doing a lot of cool things at once, bonking and shooting enemies in semi-color-coded fashion. The other big inclusion to the formula is having four sisters with four face button (or WASD on keyboard) bullets for each colored enemy. It's both color and general pattern matching, with x-axis red lines, z axis blue lines, y axis green lines and a corner yellow split pattern. The color and pattern matching is a very interesting idea to have to balance in the chaos, and if you're going for score it's something you have to take great care or you'll lose combo. Graphically the game is wonderful to look at. I enjoy the character designs and some of the enemy designs. I absolutely adore that each level has an unlockable art piece if you meet a modest score threshold, which does a lot to es…

A really nice and charming game all around! It's bit rough around the edges here and there, but finding the many secret coins and seeing all the nice art definitely makes up for it. I highly recommend trying to play with the target display option disabled; figuring out which character to shoot with based on how the enemies are aligned makes the gameplay feel a lot more engaging. It's worth checking out, especially alongside the other game in the "Treasure-like" bundle, Disaster Arms!

Adored this one! Some frustrating bits towards the end. The camera and bullet paths can be a little confusing as the game builds up in complexity. Overall, loved the visuals, music, gameplay and hope to see more things from this team! Looking forward to jumping into all of the post-game extras and going for some completion things.

I’m fairly mixed on Candy Rangers here but I’ll have to lean more towards the negative given the severity of some issues. To give credit where it is due, the visuals are very charming and simple, appealing to the nostalgia from games back during the height of the DS era. The end cards do a lot to add character to the rangers and are often lighthearted and cute. I enjoyed the way the game incorporated the varying face buttons into the gameplay loop, and you also get a fair bit of skill expression in having boost/slow mechanics, jumps, and melee attacks. It’s not terribly complex on paper but the way the levels demand you to juggle multiple different mechanics helps keep them hectic and exciting. As simple as it is, I do like the level design and how the environment looks as you progress through a level. Most levels have alternate pathing so it's neat to be able to access these paths, and see how they crisscross with the main levels normal pathing. Some decisions around the rail shooter experience do detract from it a bit. [list] [*]I enjoyed the novelty of using different face buttons for different enemies, but with the way some enemies are positioned you quite frequently clip an…

Very polished and fun for a first studio project. Very reminiscent of the Wii era of gaming.