|][-@I7 in vitro #デッド・インヴィトロ

Wow. Just... wow. What an absolute riot of an STG this is. It's not often that I feel the need to review an STG after just four hours of playtime. More often than not I prefer to commit to higher difficulty clears before giving my final thoughts on a shmup; as that's when the intricacies of its core design, balance, and scoring are best stress-tested. Dead In Vitro (annoyingly stylized as "|][-@I7 in vitro," much to the dismay of any sort of SEO) however is the ultimate definition of a hidden gem; though it thoroughly escapes me how a gem this bright and flamboyant can remain hidden for any length of time. While Dead In Vitro very obviously carries its strong Cave influences proudly on its shoulders (the behavior of your options come straight out of Ketsui, along with its Chip system; and with boss spawn animations seemingly copied from 2nd loop Dodonpachi Daifukkatsu runs), the closest resemblance to any STG this game has is... Like Dreamer. As with Like Dreamer you control an adorable and highly lovable character while your screen is being bombarded with a never-ending onslaught of bright pastel colors while you're charging along to the delightful tunes of a deceptively …

Fun STG that is difficult not to recommend given that it's only $2, but you should probably be aware that it's a bit rough around the edges and that you get what you pay for. The game's gimmick is that you can trade N+1 bombs to increase your rank by N (up to a maximum of 5), which increases the amount and spread of bullets fired by enemies and bosses. For the first 4 of the game's 5 stages of the game you never really end up using this gimmick because the "rate" (score multiplier) is reset to zero at the end of each stage. The game's True Last Boss is unlocked if you beat the final boss while your rank is 5, and it's a resource check with undodgeable patterns that fill the entire screen with bullets, so for scoring runs you'll end up saving all your bombs until the end. Due to how the rank system affects bullet spreads it also breaks certain patterns (for example, the third boss ends up being easier on rank 2 than rank 1 because of even-numbered spreads). Some bullet patterns near the end of the game will drop the FPS to single digit numbers. I can't tell if this is intentional to replicate old arcade shmups or because Unity can't keep up with the amount of stuff on the screen, …

works great on the SteamDeck, really fun game.

you might look at this and think its caveslop but youre wrong this is caveslop with BETTER visuals now thats... now im in trouble!

Pretty basic bullet hell, but I like the simplicity. You get a wide shot, a lock-on focus shot, bombs, and that's it, no need to overcomplicate things. The way the screen gets overloaded with numbers whenever you bomb or get a bullet cancel is really fun. cool neon color scheme, neat style overall. I like that you can alter the difficulty dynamically, lets people decide on their own how much challenge they want (I can't handle above rank 2 though). No continues but the difficulty is fair enough that anyone should be able to clear it, unless you're trying to beat the TLB. Extremely light on features, you don't even get the option of rebinding keys or a pause button, but at 2 bucks it's hard to complain, it's a very solid shooter that easily gives you your money's worth.

If you are reading this and looking for an obscure shump to play, this one doesn't really hurt to try. There are more expensive shumps that are worse than this one. This game is currently stuck in sub-10 review hell on steam so no one will read this but it costs like literally like two candy bars and better for you.