The Rush

An 8-stage MSX-style shmup with a bit of modern polish to it. Soundtrack is great, and selection of weapons is neat, with mix-and-match capabilities for shot+missiles. Personally, i find combo of triple shot + homing missiles on first ship being great on stages and decent on bosses. While checkpoints are optional, before respawning on checkpoint you get option to select with which powerups you want to handle checkpoint (oh, and did i forgot to say? after dying, all you really lose is your speed-ups), so even though disabling checkpoints makes this game much more comfortable to play for danmaku-leaning shmuppers like me (hitbox there is pretty lenient too! it won't really save you from occasional "sucker punches" from behind though that older style shmups are known for), there's still a reason to use them. There is an option to enable slowdown, however you won't really get to experience that much slowdown outside of late game or maybe higher difficulties. Game's scoring seems to be mostly about just grazing bullets, and, well... just shooting down things. Neat thing is, you can graze bullets multiple times, similar to Psyvariar revision (or, if we want to include an example…

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It pretty much plays like the Life Force series back on the NES, and just as punishing. Maybe slightly even more unforgiving in my opinion. It requires insane twitch reaction and I am honestly not up for it. I couldn't even get past the second level. It has a cool soundtrack. It's free as well. All in all, it can represent a stiff challenge for those willing to take it. Godspeed.

Good game - found out about it from Japanese X/Twitter. Great soundtrack, neat graphics. Fun in general with one caveat: The game is brutally difficult at times - more than even old shooters. Even on the "lowest" difficulty level enemies shoot stuff when they die and bosses shoot near instant tracking shots. This isn't Drainus where you can kind of train yourself on lower difficulties, as the lives are arcade style with checkpoints.

I'm rushing it

Gorgeous, colorful retro-styled shmup with arcade sound effects, that plays really well. The difficulty is punishing, but it has menu options that make it quite accessible. For instance, there's a practice mode where you can load up any level, including ones you haven't reached yet in the score-tracking default mode. So that you can see the nifty level design, or jump directly into the boss fights. That's a nice touch, for those of us who might otherwise struggle to go on an extended run and see all of what the game offers up in visuals and gameplay. Pretty awesome addition to my library of shmups, and it's free!