Schildmaid MX

A unique and hugely gratifying shoot 'em up that succeeds both as an example of its genre and as something else entirely. Played for score as it's designed to be played, it turns the traditional STG underdog narrative on its head and instead becomes a game about being untouchable; manipulating enemy formations to feed you more and more gold bullets, selectively picking off threats to keep your shield active and your multiplier growing. The enemies here are as much a resource as they are a hazard, and using them strategically - calculating risk and reward, and figuring out how to bite off the exact amount you can chew - is the real meat of the game. If you play a lot of shmups you might have to reprogram your brain a little - it’s important to resist the urge to hold down the fire button and kill everything that moves, and that can feel a bit unintuitive at first - but once it clicks it’s incredibly rewarding. There’s still a solid survival-focused experience here if that’s what you’re looking for, with some very intense and challenging stuff in the higher difficulty modes, but this is a game that really comes alive through experimentation and a “play to learn” mentality, and …

The scoring mechanics are immensely satisfying here. The soundtrack is also phenomenal (good soundtrack seems to be a recurring pattern with many of the games that I review). Although the gameplay here is quite enjoyable, it can get a bit repetitive after a while. If you like shmups, then you will almost certainly like this. Get this on sale.

This is really fun! It's like those fun shooter games on the SNES but supercharged! Lot's of visual details, simple but good. Great job from the devs

Damn, it's good!

Awesome game!!! Soundtrack is fantastic along with the pretty visuals! Love the variety that the mechanics bring to the genre! You just have to try it for a little bit to understand it. It's not complicated, but you will "get it" if you give it an hour.

Banger soundtrack