Squad 51 vs. the Flying Saucers

[b]Squad 51 vs. the Flying Saucers[/b] is one of the most unique side scrolling Shoot 'Em Ups I have encountered. The retro black and white art style feels like playing through a 50's Sci Fi TV show. The storytelling, acting and voices present incredibly well. A hidden gem that is definitely underrated.

It's a decent shmup, nothing too special. The visual style is obviously the draw and [i]it is[/i] pretty cool - I'll give it that. ..though [b]Cuphead[/b] and [b]Unstoppable Gorg[/b] rate a little bit higher for me on that front. I like that the game follows shmups like [b]Tyrian[/b]: It saves progress between stages and you can mix and match upgrades that you acquire over the course of the run (though the upgrades here aren't very interesting). Not much else to say about it. It's a decent game with a neat art direction. ===================== [b]My SHMUP Tier List (PC)[/b] ===================== [i]~Simply personal taste.[/i] [i]~Sticking mostly to modern games that don’t use the archaic lives/continues system.[/i] [i]~Not including many 'flying anime girl shmups' as they don't appeal to me very much.[/i] [b]Loved it:[/b] Jamestown | ZeroRanger | Tyrian 2000 | Gunlocked+ | Steredenn$ | [b]Great:[/b] Super Hydorah | Drainus | Super Galaxy Squadron EX Turbo# | Warhawk (2017) | Star of Providence$ | Minishoot’ Adventures% | [b]Good:[/b] G-Darius | Steel Empire | MF-01 Aerostrike% | Operation Steel$ | Jets’n’Guns 2 | Wings of Seduction+@ | [b]Decent:[/b] Ganablade | [b]…

Truly amazing hidden gem. Unfortunately, it is a bit short, but it is right size for a single player shoot em up. The 50 style movie cutscene are amazing, real B movie quality. Original audio is PT-BR, a nice surprise to me. For the price asked, you have no reason to skip this one.

Plays well on my PC handheld AokZoe A1pro Overall: 8/10 I'm not shmup savant but I had a blast with the game. The cinematic and style was great! Loved the story that's integrated with the combat! Gameplay: 7.5/10. Nothing new was good, i had fun. Bc of the monochromatic nature of the game, sometimes its hard to see what's going on. The weapon upgrades could've been more spectacular. Story: 8.5/10 it was fantastic. Got the 50s vibe. The acting was on point with the camp, loved the 3rd act Difficulty: 8.5/10 I'm no shmup guy, so this was pretty difficult for me. Luckily the normal modes had infinite lives and each stages had 1-2 check points. There is a hardcore mode for you shmup people. I personally loved the game. I was grinning from ear to ear the whole time.

Squad 51 is one of the most visually unique shmups out there, it captures the black andwhite science fiction movies perfectly, even bringing live action footage with solid actions in between stages. Yet it fails in so many ways a shmup, the hurtbox is HUGE, and not only that, but it also adds sways everytime you move, so it’s even more imprecise when you need to go through the patterns. On that note, due to the lack of precise movement, the bullet patterns are more on the simple side, sometimes to a fault, making the game very dull to play for a long period. The upgrades system is also subpar, I barely felt inclined to experiment with different weapons, because of the lack of challenge This game is mainly for it’s visual appeal, but if you’re looking for a good shmup, you’re not finding one here sadly

I played this game co-op with a friend of mine, and we just did the Story mode. Its basically what its advertised as. My friend and I both appreciated the system where, before each mission and upon every death, you can change your equipment/enhancement loadout. At first you can only equip a few, but you unlock the ability to equip more as you play (I think its based on total number of points you've accumulated from your overall playtime). I did find the enhancement that makes it faster to get an extra life to be pretty worthless since, even with 2 of those equipped at once (the max), it still took too long to get another life. As for actual complaints, shmups commonly have a problem with too much screen clutter making it hard to keep track of potential hazards, and unfortunately the retro black-and-white movie aesthetic adds to that since there's no color to help differentiate all the things you're seeing. Also, foreground objects should NEVER obstruct actual hazards. This doesn't happen often, but it shouldn't be happening at all. Aside from that, the only thing else that kind of let me down was that I wish they could've done a little more/better with the 1950s aesthetic…