Vacant Kingdom

Bullet-hell battles, but the player character has momentum/inertia (you let go of the d-pad, but the character slides a little until it stops). So, a common mechanism for bullet-hell games (micrododging) doesn't exist here. The design doesn't seem to take that into account. Exploring the world was pleasant enough that I kept playing, but at a certain point the battles just became obnoxious. It's a shame, because a lot of the bullet patterns were interestingly designed instead of just being bullet spam (especially the sarcophagus battle).

W cat

Funny and charming game about rebuilding a kingdom. Approximately 4 hours in length. Gameplay is a fast-paced bullet hell as well as complex puzzles. Way too short but glad to finally play after trying the demo 6 years ago. Would definitely play other games from this developer!

One of my favorite indie games. I believe it was made primarily by one person, so it's always interesting to see a solo artist's outlook on art, music, programming, writing, mechanics, etc. That said, the game is surprising because all of the above are surprisingly good. The art is charming, the music is varied and interesting, the writing is witty and funny, the programming is extremely solid, and the SHMUP mechanics are solid. There are about 15 bosses, each with their own unique patterns and arenas. I found the hardest difficulty fun to play on, and comparable to something like Rabi Ribi on the hardest difficulty. Anyways, I highly recommend the game, and I hope the dev makes something else soon.

An excellent twin-stick shooter which doesn't simply incorporate bullet-hell "aesthetics", but which actually provides true bullet-hell gameplay, with one notable departure from the usual tropes found in the genre : the lack of a screen-clearing ability. Instead you are given a slowmo ability reminiscent of the FEAR franchise, and this intriguing design decision makes for very unique gameplay. Unfortunately there aren't that many enemy types or bosses, but what is there is extremely solid and leaves us wanting for more (plus the bosses put up a heck of a fight on Masochist difficulty, so you won't simply breeze through everything either). In other words, if you are interested in the danmaku aspect of this game, give it a shot! On top of the aforementioned shooting, you will spend your time exploring a small interconnected world and solving traversal puzzles, some of which I found pretty non-trivial (looking at you, bath-house). There is good variety here and they feel like a nice break from the action. Furthermore, you will meet and talk with many wacky characters, whose dialogue often got a chuckle out of me. And I haven't even mentioned the head-bopping and extremely diverse s…

Really cool game, blending together different genres pretty well! Make sure you grab the OST with the game. Bangers.