A Gem in the Shmup Rough

There are a lot of Shmups on Yoyo. A lot. The Shmup is an odd genre; it lends itself to the Indie scene brilliantly but is not embraced by today’s commercial games scene. I think the reason why Shmups are so enticing to the indie developer is because they are easy to create but hard to master. Truly, I have played very few indie Shmups which I would actually consider 5 stars. You can imagine the shock I felt when I first booted up this little beauty.

Galactic firestorm is a classic vertical Shmup which appears to take heavy influence (and music) from the Raiden series. Players begin the game with a beam weapon, an interesting break from the traditional one shot/three shot initial weapon that many Shmups use. Levels are constructed in a traditional Shmup manner, where the player's ship is assaulted by numerous waves of enemies before fighting an end of level boss. At the end of a level the player unlocks a new weapon, and they can take three weapons along on any mission. The enemy sprites are well crafted, and there are numerous enemy types to keep the player interested. The bosses are of standout quality and design, however some attack sequences could be a bit better coded (the stealth teleport of the bombing run boss springs instantly to mind, with the boss often rematerializing directly on top of your ship). This is only a minor niggle however, one that is overshadowed by the amount of content that is offered by ninja_x. The game contains seven levels, each with a boss and most with a mini boss, and enemies are rarely reused in between levels. There is a degree of variety between levels, a bombing run mission, a sea strike and a ship on ship duel all making appearances. It should be noted that the bombs in the bombing run mission are slightly disappointing because it is much more effective to destroy ground targets with your normal weapons, but this issue does not permeate the torpedoes in the sea strike mission. The duration of one game is long enough for the player not to feel "cheated", yet short enough to allow for replay-ability appeal. Difficulty is moderate. it allows accessibility for Shmup n00bs by giving the player an "armour" rating instead of the traditional "1 hit your dead" policy, yet this is perfectly balanced with 3 difficulty setting for the Shmup god. Whilst the early levels represent a calmer and strategic western Shmup, the later levels soon convert into the screen filling bullet hell style synonymous with Japanese shooters.

However, like all games Galactic Firestorm is not perfect. GF's biggest flaw is the GUI. Armour is represented by a number in the top left of screen, which is not only aesthetically out of place but not practical. In the heat of battle a number is far harder to take not of than a gauge, and players may find themselves losing momentum when they have to break focus to digest how much health they have left. Also, dialogue boxes are of the generic game maker style, which largely detracts from the aesthetics of the game.

The GUI niggles may be slightly off putting to some, but the rest of the game is flawless, and one of the best shooter experiences that Yoyo can provide. I urge you, download now!