Terra Flame

This is a tough game to review, and I wish Steam had a neutral option. I bought it mainly because I liked the sense of speed in the trailers, which reminded me of the shooter stages in Guardian Legend. Unfortunately it ended up being *too* fast, to the point where I really struggled to follow the visuals. I've been playing all sorts of shmups for decades, from River Raid to Cave games, and this one in particular stuck out as being visually hard to follow. That is not to say the game is difficult--I cleared it the first time on "Normal" with a couple of credits, and would probably 1cc clear if I played again (and I'd say I have "intermediate" skill), just visually uncomfortable and many deaths are due to this rather than any difficulty dodging the average-ish amounts of shots and enemies. You also get a very generous "defender" pickup that grants several free hits. In terms of the rest, the music is good-ish, the graphics are decent overall but could have used more creativity and variation in enemy designs and also in the color pallette, and the ship doesn't ever feel underpowered or overpowered. Things take about the right number of shots to die. Variety in the stages and bosses…

Terra Flame is a loving homage to all things Thunder, whether it be Force or Gates, complete with fantastic music and super smooth and blisteringly fast action. Getting a 1 credit clear on Normal difficulty is also very doable, even if you're not an expert in the shoot 'em up genre. Sporting the wave chaining and crystal collecting scoring system you're used to from other Terarin games, such as Raging Blasters, this is yet another gem from an insanely productive developer that can't miss when it comes to making the type or strand of shoot 'em up that he knows best and, above all else, loves. If you have any kind of fondness for the horizontal scrolling shooters of the 16-bit era, you can't go wrong with Terra Flame.

There's a slight learning curve here with having to manage 3 different shots, but they're not that difficult to memorize. Overall, Terra Flame is a well-rounded and enjoyable shmup all around. If you're looking for another shmup to add to your collection and this is on sale, this is an easy recommendation.

Very solid throwback shooter, if you grew up with games like Thunder Force III-IV and Gleylancer you'll feel right at home here. No-nonsense horizontal shmup from beginning to end.

Very fun scoring game. Terraflame is easy if you're just playing for survival - I got a 1CC on my second run. The scoring combines medal collection with chaining and the levels are set up so that chaining perfectly is very challenging. In particular there are two forward-facing weapons: a standard straight fire shot and a homing shot. Relying on the homing shot for most enemies reduces the challenge of the game but once you power up your weapon it can be very difficult to time the killing of the enemy groups so that the chain meter lasts until the next wave. If a scoring challenge like that sounds appealing, pick it up! There are online leader boards for you to compete in. The gameplay feels great and it doesn't suffer from Gradius syndrome. There's also a 3 minute caravan mode for shorter scoring sessions.

This game is awesome