Z-Warp (Playstation 4)

Vertical
Checkpoints OFF
3 Difficulty levels
5 Stages
Ship speed fixed
- - - - - - -
Developed by Pandia Indie Studio
Published by Red Art Games in 2023

Looking back at my track record, one could say I have a soft spot for shmups developed by Panda Indie Studio. What I can honestly tell is that I play them because they're really short and don't take much time to be learned - aside from the successive cryptic loops of Project Starship X. On the outside Z-Warp looks a lot like previous games from the company, but there's a crucial difference in gameplay here: this is their first title that doesn't use the roguelite approach, making it a regular arcade-like experience that should please old timers who value strict memorization above anything else.

Z-Warp definitely works as a short diversion with a few intense bullet hell moments during boss fights. After years of cooking up quick romps by perfecting and recycling the same style over and over, in a sense it's like Panda Indie Studio has delivered a culmination of everything that came before with this game. The visuals and sounds are again very familiar, just like a few gameplay aspects such as the bomb recharge, which is yet another variation of the dash / clear mechanic seen in previous offerings.

The Brain stage (5th)

Commands in Z-Warp work with buttons □ (shot), ×/∆/L2/R2 (focus shot for slower movement, tap for shot) and ○/R1/L1 (bomb activation). When triggered, the bomb destroys enemies and nullifies all bullets within its radius. After a few seconds it starts to recharge, and if triggered again prior to full recovery it will only serve to eliminate bullets. As expected, bombs are endless and during the most difficult moments against impossible bullet barrages they represent the difference between life and death. The B items you find during the game work as instant smart bombs that can also open up walls for you to get through, as seen in the barriers of the second stage.

Speaking of items, you can also come across the P for power-up (also increases the spread of the main weapon) and the H for extra life. It's not possible to have more than 5 lives in reserve, but if you're down to your last remaining ship you'll eventully regain a spare life if you survive long enough.

The scoring system requires you to kill enemies in succession to boost the multiplier. Keeping the multiplier from depleting is done by either killing more stuff, collecting those falling green skulls left behind by destroyed enemies or picking up items. Pay attention to the top of the screen, which serves as a meter to track the status of the multiplier during the level. This meter turns into a health gauge for the stage boss, and for a specific reason: right before entering the area of the boss the multiplier is frozen. If you want to maximize your results make sure that you keep it high until that point. Getting into the boss fight with no multiplier at all makes a large dent in the overall score.

Z-Warp starts out slow and does a good job of adding new hazards with every stage, evolving as if you were travelling upwards through the human body. There is some confusion between the actual game and the story shown in the intro, which hints at a sci-fi backdrop and does not mention this organic Innerspace setting at all. Finally, there are two very important gameplay details, also mentioned in the in-game text tutorial: the detonation of bombs is also capable of collecting items, and the ship can fly unharmed over bosses. This last one is essential when enemy spreads start coming from below, such as during the battle against third boss Acid Reflux. Takumi and Mars Matrix would be very proud of this much belated influence. Visual nods to Truxton are also there in the start screen and, of course, all those green skull items.

Launch trailer for Z-Warp on the PS4 and PS5
(courtesy of YouTube user and digital publisher Playstation)

The main game mode is titled Story. In this mode a true last boss awaits after you beat stage 5 on a single credit, with the selected difficulty determining the maximum multiplier you can achieve: on Medium/Normal it's ×8, with ×4 on Easy and ×16 on Hardcore. Endless mode has a variable difficulty level and keeps the game looping after stage 5, capping the multiplier at ×8. TATE orientation, screen shake and vibration can be activated/deactivated in Game Settings.

My best 1CC score on Medium/Normal is below. I played Z-Warp on the Playstation 4, but it's also available on all main platforms of the same era so there's no excuse not to try out this decent independent effort if you got it lying around.

Xevious - Fardraut Densetsu (PC Engine)

Vertical
Checkpoints ON
1 Difficulty level
4 Stages
Ship speed fixed
- - - - - - -
Developed by Compile
Published by Namco in 1990

It's no secret I've never really held the original Xevious in high regard, even though I'm well aware of its importance to the development of vertical shooting games. That's why I knew very little about its sequels until recently, when I decided to see what the PC Engine port had to offer. And lo and behold, Xevious - Fardraut Densetsu actually boasts a little bit more than the drab offerings of the original, even including a proper ending in the special mode that corresponds to the game's title.

This game is also considered to be the third or fourth in the series, depending on how you see it. In between the original and this one there's the arcade sequel Super Xevious (which is pretty much equal to the first bar a few enemies and increased bullet count), Famicom's Super Xevious - GAMP no Nazo, which also spawned an arcade variant later on and became infamous for adding puzzle elements to the regular stage progression, and Xevious - Fardraut Saga on the MSX2, upon which this PC Engine version is directly based with alterations such as the number of levels and ships controlled in the special mode.

So what's different here after all? Players can select between two modes at the title screen: Arcade is a direct port of the original game, whereas Fardraut is the "story" mode where you fight against the evil forces of GAMP - which stands for General Artificial Matrix Producer, a supercomputer that has taken over the planet.

One of the new bosses in Fardraut mode

There's not much to say about Arcade mode. All 16 areas are seamlessly connected to each other with no visual indication of where they start and end. Area strips overlap and the loop restarts the game in area 7, going on forever for as long as you can play. Two weapons can be used, a regular double shot to target air-based enemies (button II) and a single bomb that destroys ground-based enemies (button I). There are no power-ups at all. Throughout the first 16 areas you come across four "Andor Genesis" motherships: the first one in area 4, the second in area 9 and two in area 14. Additionally, there are a variety of hidden Sol Towers (destroy for points) and Special Flags (collect for extra lives), both uncovered by dropping bombs at their exact locations.

In essence, Fardraut mode is an arrangement of the regular Arcade mode, since it uses many of the same area layouts and terrain. The twist is that now you'll be able to collect power-ups left behind by slow-moving planes, which provide some very welcome enhancements to make the game more exciting. Enemy actions might change a little, with some of them shooting more bullets and others behaving unexpectedly, such as a few of those revolving monoliths now being destructible. The stage structure is also different, with 4 defined levels and proper music that goes a little beyond those boring looping bleeps.

The first items to come up are the red ones. Red R increases the ship's rapid fire, red W upgrades your shot at every two icons taken. Later on these items will also start appearing in yellow color: the yellow R continues to improve rapid fire, the yellow W widens the reach of the ground bombs and a new A item serves as a screen clearing bomb for bullets and aerial enemies. Finally, by the end of the game you'll come across blue items: the blue A adds two shield crystals as frontal barrier (that can be launched forward by pressing buttons I + II) and the red R adds two rotating shield crystals. Both types of shields are depleted if they take too much damage, but their energy can be recovered by taking the blue W item. Finally, the bonus golden orb is worth 1.000 points.

Fardraut mode has an odd behavior for stage progression. At the end of stage 2 you'll come across a heavily fortified area as the boss. If you're able to destroy it without getting hit you'll skip the next stage completely and continue towards stage 4. If you fail the ship will go down in flames (no life lost) and you'll normally enter stage 3, which has no boss and transitions into stage 4 when it ends. Not only is the second boss extremely difficult (more so than the final boss), but refusing to play stage 3 will certainly make a dent into your final score. That's why I didn't feel bad for failing to dispatch the second boss, which I was never able to accomplish anyway.

Special familiar terrain of Fardraut mode
(courtesy of YouTube user Emu-Games)

When scoring is considered, it's obvious that skipping stage 3 isn't a good idea. Flawless play will result in lower scores in the end, but considering the number of lives at your disposal it might just be a good strategy to milk a few checkpoints (something that most of the time isn't intentional anyway). Both game modes – Fardraut and Arcade – start with 4 lives in reserve, and they also share the same score-based extend routine: the first one comes with 20.000 points, the next with 60.000 and after that all extra lives are given at every 60.000 points.

 

Still speaking of Fardraut mode, it's important to mention that it has rank, supposedly related to the amount of power-ups collected. While that's certainly a fact, rank will only seriously affect gameplay if you manage to keep a perfect run with no deaths. Dying of course sends you back to a checkpoint, takes away all upgrades and resets rank. Regardless of rank considerations, don't expect the game to be a walk in the park, after all it gets quite taxing towards the end no matter what. Those orbs that explode into five spread bullets are a nightmare and make everything quite tense for a long section, for example.

On a final note, I can certainly vouch for Xevious - Fardraut Densetsu on the PC Engine and its special story mode. It's a short take on the classic game that isn't as boring, good for some decent action on a shooting style that's old but might still offer a few thrills every now and then.

 

Below are my final results for Fardraut (1CC) and Arcade (reaching the second loop). There's only a single shared high score buffer, unfortunately. Next I'll probably go back to Super Xevious on the Famicom or head directly to Xevious 3D/G on the Playstation.

Fast Striker (Neo Geo)

Vertical
Checkpoints OFF
1 Difficulty level
6 Stages
Ship speed fixed
- - - - - - -
Developed by NG:DEV.TEAM
Published by NG:DEV.TEAM in 2013

A sci-fi themed shmup designed with a vertizontal orientation (vertical scrolling occupying the whole 4:3 screen area), Fast Striker biggest claim to fame is its crisp prerendered backgrounds, a graphical achievement that also extends to the animation of bosses. Allegedly developed alongside HuCast's DUX for six years soon after NG:DEV.TEAM delivered its first game Last Hope, Fast Striker was released for the Neo Geo MVS in 2010 and received a few updates before landing on the Neo Geo AES in 2013. For this reason I guess it's safe to assume the AES version is the final iteration of the game, even though it would eventually reappear years later for other platforms.

If we exclude Last Hope - Pink Pullets, then Fast Striker is in fact NG:DEV.TEAM's second shooter. While completely different at a conceptual level, the company did strive for something that wouldn't be considered as hard to beginners, hence the presence of not only one, but four distinct game modes that sort of emulate the approach kickstarted by Cave in Mushihimesama Futari. Cave is indeed a major influence in the gameplay of some of these modes, even though the implementation is far from reaching the same standard of intensity and/or execution.

Fast Striker - Original mode demonstration
(courtesy of YouTube user ghegs)

 

Basic controls allow players to fire a frontal shot with button A and a rear shot with button B while activating a temporary invincibility shield (if available) with button C. It's possible to swap the functions of button B and C in prior to the actual start of the game. Even though it's not stated anywhere, button D gives you a frontal shot with autofire, which is very handy because by holding either the frontal or the rear shot the ship's speed is reduced, and in the case of the frontal shot the pattern is also altered. This "focus shot" is of course reminiscent of the gameplay from Cave games, and has a particular purpose depending on the chosen game mode.

Speaking of which, these are the main differences between them:

• Novice mode - rapid shot is narrow, focus shot is a wide 3-way spread, the shield activates automatically if you're hit by a bullet but this depletes the whole shield stock (doesn't work on collisions); game ends after stage 5.
• Original mode - rapid shot is wide, focus shot is narrow with straight nuke missiles.
• Maniac mode - rapid shot and focus shot are narrow, with focus changing into a Dodonpachi-esque laser; the shield does not damage bosses and might increase their health (similar to bomb usage in Espgaluda);
• Omake mode - behaves like Maniac mode, but with a lot more enemy bullets and even slowdown; shields are now released from special enemies; there are no medals to be claimed.

While all modes differ from each other with relation to ship firepower and scoring mechanics, there are aspects that are common to all of them. The astronaut enemy, for example, appears in all modes, but only gives out extra shields in Novice and Original modes. Extra shields in Maniac are obtained by collecting medals without dying, while in Omake they come by destroying specific enemies. Speaking of medals, they are obviously very important for scoring in all modes except for Omake, where they're totally absent. In Novice mode medals take the form of yellow stars. To get medals automatically sucked into the ship all you have to do is avoid using the focus shot. 

A defining feature of the game's difficulty that's common to all modes is rank, which fluctuates between 1, 2, 3 and devil (max). The longer you survive and the more enemies you destroy the quicker you raise rank, increasing the number of enemy bullets and making the game overall harder. The only way to lower rank is by dying. It's not possible to reach devil rank in Novice mode, which makes sense because it would be odd to have suicide bullets in a mode that's supposed to be tailored to beginners.

One final detail common to all modes is related to "secrets", as seen in the screen at the end of a stage showing the bonuses you get from items collected, shields remaining, no-missing the level and technical bonus (triggered by destroying specific parts of bosses). Besides indicating the max chain, this screen also tells you how many secrets were found. Secrets actually correspond to the act of uncovering the big NGDEV mascot, which converts all on-screen bullets to medals and temporarily changes medals to NGDEV items that are worth more than regular medals. In a nutshell, almost all secrets are related to destroying one or more of the larger enemies in a row. Sometimes this is followed by a "devilsplosion" tag that appears close to the score counter, but I wasn't able to figure out if this has any extra purpose other than trying to sound cool.

Where have I seen this laser before?

The formula for scoring higher is the ability to get the highest possible chain prior to the boss fight, whereby the chain count is frozen and works as a final multiplier for some end-of-level bonuses. In Novice and Original chains are simply the amount of medals collected, so the challenge is to kill everything and time the destruction of enemies that trigger the NGDEV mascot to get even more medals. In Maniac and Omake chains are increased by killing enemies in pure Dodonpachi fashion, decreasing very fast if for any reason the chain gauge is reset. In Maniac mode medals work as an extra means to score and also to regain shields (if you're able to sustain max rank all medals will appear as NGDEV items). Omake on the other hand doesn't have medals. In these modes point-blanking creates large colored balls that boost the chain counter, an effect that corresponds to the nuke missiles from the focus shot hitting large enemies in Original mode.

It's interesting to note that deaths don't have any impact at all in the chain counter, and this is valid for all game modes. Score-based extends are granted with 300 and 600 million poins in Novice mode, 800 and 1.600 million points in Original mode, and 2 and 4 billion points in Maniac mode. I wasn't able to check the extend routine for Omake. A single 1UP also appears in stage 4 in all modes if you play well enough there.

While the game is visually pleasing and all modes are quite diverse and relatively fun with their own specific little rules, my impression is that Fast Striker lacks the finesse needed to make it stand out. The techno soundtrack is nothing to write home about, common place and generic. The rear shot has an odd delay when used, with a very short pause after the first stream is fired. There are also a few baffling functional oversights, such as "broken chain" being heard all the time in Original mode even though chains can't be broken there. The shield gauge is present in Novice mode but of course it has absolutely no purpose there. Finally, there seems to be a luck-based autoshield in non-Novice modes, which definitely sounds weird but is actually good in any given situation.

My focus on this first experience with the game was to get the 1CC in Original mode, which I was able to do after a little practice with the score below. I missed several secrets and did not squeeze the game to the max, something I'll leave for the ports in other platforms, as well as future attempts in Maniac mode. Maniac and Omake have the distinction of allowing players to fight a True Last Boss if they're capable of beating the last boss on a single credit.

Battle Garegga (Saturn)

Vertical
Checkpoints OFF
6 Difficulty levels
7 Stages
Ship speed fixed, selectable at start
- - - - - - -
Developed by Raizing
Published by Electronic Arts in 1998

When digging into the history of shmups, it's not uncommon to notice a few polarizing games that in time became legendary. Radiant Silvergun and its spiritual sequel Ikaruga are prime examples of this statement, but while Ikaruga rose to fame and was subject of incredible hype during the Dreamcast era, my feeling is that Radiant Silvergun tends to be left aside due to the emphasis on chaining if you want to survive and see the game to the end. It's a mechanic that's not everyone's cup of tea, yet Radiant Silvergun has an ardent fanbase of course.

I'm drawing this comparison because in lots of ways Battle Garegga suffers from the same fate of Silvergun. While revered by many as one of the best arcade shmups ever designed, it's also heavily criticized due to the need to cope with a very special kind of challenge if you want to survive and see the game to the end. The magnum opus of Raizing, one of the companies that flourished from the ashes of Toaplan during the 90s, Battle Garegga comes with an enormous amount of intricacies that hide beneath a seemingly normal military/sci-fi themed design. In shmup hardcore circles the game is also synonym with its creator Shinobu Yagawa, who took upon himself and his company the task of making an arcane shooter with a strong visual influence from Taito's Gun Frontier.

Crisp sprites and an overwhelming attention to detail are one of the strongest assets of the game, as is the awesome soundtrack. Enemies explode in puffs of shards and smoke that vanish on screen in the most diverse ways, and such as the gameplay itself never in the same exact fashion. It gives a special vibe to a title that's very pleasing to the eyes and ears, but playing it as you would play any regular shmup won't cut it if you're the kind of gamer who likes to abide by the 1CC rule. You will be punished hard for that. And the only way to escape utter and excruciating failure is to learn how to deal with rank.

Silver Sword and the approach towards the 4th boss

First, the basics. Button A shoots, button B activates the so-called weapon (also commonly referred to as bombs, which is understandable depending on the chosen ship) and button C switches the formation of whatever options you have. All ships have very specific characteristics related to speed, firepower and weapon types, and depending on the button used to activate your choice you'll also get increased speed (button B), smaller hitbox (button C) or both (either A+B+C or selection timeout), with button A giving you the default speed+hitbox. What's particularly interesting is that each ship variation comes with a different color and has its own name! My ship of choice when playing the Sega Saturn port, for example, is commonly known as Wild Snail (A), with variants called Iron Mackerel (B), Rust Champion (C) and Golden Bat (A+B+C).

A plethora of items will appear from destroyed enemies, falling down the screen if coming from aerial foes. Small and large power-ups, small and large weapon icons, options (you can have up to 4) and medals for points. The main shot has five power levels, and the more powered-up you are the more small items you need to upgrade the ship. 40 small weapon fragments will result in another full weapon in reserve, which is also obtained by taking the large weapon icon. You can of course deploy partial weapon attacks with whatever fragments you have in stock. Options can be arranged in 5 regular formation types: spread, tail, front, rotate and trace (point to the opposite of player's movement). There are, however, special formations achieved by collection items in a certain order.  

Medals increase in value as long as you collect them before the next medal(s) appear and you don't lose any of them without having another on screen. Maxed out medals are worth 10.000 points each, but if the medal chain is lost then the next one will be worth its initial value of 100 points. That's the main source of scoring, along with a few tricks that help you achieve more points faster if you're able to pull them off.

Picking up the relevant items and powering up the ship as fast as possible would be anyone's expected strategy, as well as getting all icons in excess for a few more points. And this is where normal conventions absolutely do not apply. Rank in Battle Garegga is directly influenced by how long you survive, how much you shoot, the amount of items collected and how many lives you have in stock, among a few other minor things. This means that powering up too fast and picking up all items the game throws at you will increase the difficulty to the point the game becomes unmanageable, be it for the density and speed of bullets, the increased stamina and aggressiveness of all enemies or the absolutely random behavior of some bosses.

The start of a wild ride for Wild Snail
(courtesy of YouTube user The VideoGames Museum)

Adapting to all the constraints mentioned above is something every player needs to learn and cope with, there's absolutely no going around that. That said, the only action that effectively works to reduce rank is dying, so the most important thing to have in mind is to suicide regularly, keeping your reserve at no more than two lives – at least during the first half of the game. At the same time, regular suicides demand some dedication to scoring because the more extra lives you get the more suicides can be properly planned. Besides the extend interval of 1 million points, a single extra life will appear if you destroy the large ship that appears in stage 3 when it fully parks at the end of the level. Interesting details about deaths is that you lose only one shot power level when dying, the weapon stock is preserved when you die and you get 20 weapon fragments upon respawn.

Valley, Plateau, Factory, Plant, Cloud, Base and Airport. These are the names of the stages, each one of them putting up a harder challenge than the previous one. By the time you reach the Base in stage 6 the game is already really difficult no matter how low rank is, and that's where resources should be maximized for what's coming ahead in the final stretch of the game. Blink and you'll be toast. I lost count of how many times some very good runs ended there because I got sloppy. Just for the record, I wasn't bothered at all by the tiny thin bullet sprites. Bullet visibility is after all a common complaint from many people about Battle Garegga.

 

Click for the option menus translation for Battle Garegga on the Sega Saturn

Whatever your objective is when approaching this game, soon it becomes clear how deep the gameplay actually is, especially when you decide to try out different ships. After all, it's also possible to use four secret characters from Mahou Daisakusen / Sorcer Striker, either via a code or simply by changing a setting in the options of the Saturn port. Gain, Chitta, Miyamoto and Bornnam do have variants based on the selection buttons, only with no name changes (they are then referred to, for example, as Gain-A, B, C or ABC). For an in-depth, comprehensive description of all the subtleties about characters and gameplay, the Shmups.wiki webpage is a wonderful, if not mandatory, source of information.

It took me a long time to come to grips with Battle Garegga. It wasn't easy for a series of reasons, but mainly lack of time and stamina to practice. Slowly I warmed up to it though, spending whatever time I had to finally pursue the 1CC with the Golden Bat ship. It's got a piercing shot, a decent weapon and reasonable flying speed. My main strategy was to suicide twice on the first boss, once on the second boss and depending on how much I was able to score do it again prior to the fight against the third boss.  By then I'd have all 4 options, maximizing the weapon stock and suiciding as required to keep a low life reserve. Then from stage 6 on it was all out war. Tough as nails, but always engaging and never quite the same as the previous credit.

The port for the Japanese Sega Saturn is great and has all you need to enjoy the game to the fullest, including TATE mode, an arranged soundtrack, nice configuration tweaks and the previously mentioned ability to easily choose the secret characters. It was the only home version available for almost two decades until the joint release for the Playstation 4 and the Xbox One, titled Battle Garegga Rev. 2016.

Here's my final 1CC result, playing with Golden Bat in the Arcade difficulty. Arcade is the default setting selectable from the main option menu, and is the same as difficulty 4 when you activate the Simple options.

Task Force Kampas (Playstation 4)

Vertical
Checkpoints OFF
5 Difficulty levels
3 Stages (loopable)
Ship speed fixed
- - - - - - -
Developed by Cassiopea
Published by eastasiasoft / Red Art Games in 2021

Originally released for the Playstation Vita and later ported to more modern platforms, Task Force Kampas is a vertical shooter with three stages and neverending loops – at least after you've beaten it once, whereby the game ends right there and then. That's the first time I've ever seen this, and I refused to incur in that old mental exercise of trying to figure out what was going on in the minds of the people who developed the game. I could quote Roger Murtaugh once again, but this is (still) a respectable blog.   

To a design naïveté that doesn't even allow wallpapers to fill out the empty space of the widescreen space but offers the usual share of stupid visual unlockables, Kampas adds random enemy generation within stages, in an attempt to make the most out of the extremely poor enemy gallery. Yes, this is another game that desperately tries to give out more than what it has in store. Although not exactly in the same bag, it's sort of in line with some of those quickies released by Panda Indie Studio, such as Red Death and Void Gore.

With that said, what's there to expect from Task Force Kampas? Not so much, really. In a nutshell, it's an endurance campaign with very short loops, a few weird gameplay choices and decent music.

Cocoking doing his coco thing

 

There's just a single input used for shooting: either R1 or □. An assortment of five characters, of which two are initially unavailable, allow some sort of variation in the way you're supposed to deal with the restricted array of enemies. The basic rule of the game is that you only have one life with a single health bar, but this health bar doesn't actually work like players are used to. If you get hit the screen gets tinted red, and another shot in this condition ends the game. In order to get rid of the "damage" status and start recovering health you need to stop shooting. Just remember that recovery can't be done immediately after being hit, but only after a few seconds have elapsed while being at the brink of defeat. The health bar is the one in the lower left corner of the screen. I haven't figured out the purpose of the one to the right.  

Powering up the initial shot happens automatically as you destroy enemies, but can be sped up by taking the icons that appear halfway into the level and prior to a boss fight. D doubles the shots of your firing stream and S increases its power, while H instantly recovers health. Since the screen is empty when these huge alphabet letters appear, picking up the H doesn't make any sense. Some of the destroyed enemies release tiny golden dinosaurs named "coco", whose basic purpose is to give you more points. However, as you make progress they will also endow the ship with options that behave like cocos on a leash, which of course grant the player with a little more firepower. 

The choice of characters/ships is simple. Besides color, they differ in specific aspects that give them some edge over the basic gear. Midori (green) starts with an extra shot, Psychobaby (red) starts with an enhanced/super shot, grandma La Yaya (blue) has more HP, Unknown (dark red) has side shots and Cocoking (yellow) has no shots as all. Wait, no shots? Yes. What you get instead is a group of 5 cocos on a leash that constantly fire for you. The problem is that you can't actually control their position (they're always following you around) and their attacks do not reach the top of the screen, which requires getting up close to bosses to actually inflict some damage on them. As for grandma Yaya, she's actually a very good character because it takes two hits to see her enter damage mode.

With very few exceptions, all enemy shots in Task Force Kampas come straight down at the player, whereas small missiles change their trajectory diagonally towards your position. Don't destroy them too close though, their explosion radius is lethal. This little detail becomes very important later on when things get really hectic simply because this blast radius also annihilates enemy bullets, helping you to strategically clear chunks of the screen. Watch out for the huge destruction blast of those large missiles that come at the center of the play field.

Release trailer for Task Force Kampas on the Playstation 4
(courtesy of YouTube user and publisher RED ART GAMES)

It's hard to recommend the game by dint of the visual design, which is just simple to the bone. Backgrounds are almost all black, and everything is aimed at heightening the intensity of the foreground action. The music is quite good though, it definitely gets you going if you can crank up the volume a little bit. The three boss encounters are also quite interesting, especially the last one with the colorful energy spreads against the laid back club track. After a while you tend to take the screen shake for granted, an aspect that might be a small nuisance for some people when they start playing. I got used to it after a while.

The game is okay for a few hours of good fun, then it wears off once you've looped it a couple of times and tried a few extra (unlockable) difficulty levels. My favorite characters where the Unknown lady for her side shots and old La Yaya because of her best survival chances. My best score was achieved with her, reaching loop 4-1 in the Normal difficulty. During gameplay Task Force Kampas keeps track of the time each credit lasts, but unfortunately this information doesn't appear in the high score screen.

Crisis Wing (Playstation 4)

Vertical
Checkpoints OFF
1 Difficulty level
7 Stages (loopable)
Ship speed fixed
- - - - - - -
Developed by Pieslice Productions
Published by VGNY Soft / eastasiasoft in 2023

Even though I appreciate inovation every now and then in my shmups, more often than not in recent times developers tend to forget about design basics that are still important, at least for me, in any good and decent video game. Some of the quirks or problems I have stumbled upon frequently when trying more recent games include style over substance, shop mechanics + grinding, stupid online/offline leaderboards and botched scoring systems often associated with huge campaigns that are impracticable for an arcade/1CC mindset.

This is the main reason why Crisis Wing, released for all mainstream consoles after a decent run in PC territory, sounds like such a breath of fresh air. Heavily inspired by the classics of old pioneered by Toaplan, such as Truxton and Vimana, the game is a straightforward outer space campaign that dares to use the clichéd combo of shot + bomb across seven loopable levels. The fundamental difference in the design of Crisis Wing is that no ground terrain exists in the game, which sees the player exclusively fending off wave after wave of aerial foes while dispatching a worthy gallery of gigantic bosses. It's pure old school shooting fun in a quintessential arcade format.   

Upon being spawned the ship has only a main stream of two narrow shots, which is instantly upgraded by taking one of the power-ups released by specific carriers. It cycles between three colors: red gives you a spread vulcan, blue endows the ship with a slow but powerful missile salvo and green provides the classic straight pattern, just a little wider. In order to upgrade them you need to collect two items of the same color (the first one will add a "P" beside the score counter). There are two very distinct upgrade levels, after that any power-up collected in excess will be worth 1.000 points.

Release trailer for Crisis Wing on the Playstation 4
(courtesy of YouTube user and mega company PlayStation)

 

The carriers will also normally bring extra bombs, as well as a very rare extra life or a super medal worth 100.000 points. The medal mechanic is the most important device of the scoring system, and works in a similar way as that of the shmups designed by Shinobu Yagawa, such as Muchi Muchi Pork! and Battle Garegga. Medals are released periodically by killing regular enemies. Starting at 100 points, all medals successfully collected increase in value until maxing out at 10.000 points. If one of them is dropped this value is reset, unless there's another medal on screen which will be generated at the same value of the previous visible one. If a successive string of maxed out medals is maintained the super medal mentioned above will be released from a special carrier in stages 3 and 7, provided you manage to destroy the necessary enemy waves in each stage. If the criteria for the 100K medal isn't met then you'll get the 1UP instead.

Enemy destruction is indeed what you need to focus on in order to trigger either the abovementioned special carriers in stages 3 and 7 or bonus waves in the other stages. Not only do you get an extra number of free and easily destructible enemies for more medal generation, but you also score 40.000 extra points by obliterating a bonus wave. Finally, constantly hitting enemies also increases points slowly. That's all for scoring, but players should also be very aware of rank. Survival time, power-up levels and successive medal collecting add to the dynamic difficulty and the increasing enemy aggression in terms of bullet density and bullet speed. As expected in this case, rank is only alleviated by dying.

Score-based extra lives are granted with 250.000 and 500.000 points, and then for every 500.000 points after that.

Well designed, with good variety and packed with a steady flow of enemies from start to finish, Crisis Wing is definitely a winner on the gameplay front. It's challenging and engaging, with only a few short moments that could be described as unfair. In some sections a few enemies come from below without warning, a situation that's comfortably overcome by simple memorization. The first couple of levels is relatively easy, but soon crowd control and some degree of strategy becomes extremely important to get through with safety and confidence. And it goes without saying, but greed for medals is an extra threat for score chasers.

Hint: target both parts of the 2nd boss in equal measure if you want to have an easier fight

My general tips for Crisis Wing would be to get comfortable with the rank aggression as quickly as possible, go for the blue weapon on bosses if you can and don't be tightfisted with bombs. Dying with a full bomb stock always made me feel like a moron. There's absolutely no bonus for preserving them, just like there's absolutely no fanfarre in the ending, which just displays "COMPLETED" on screen and sends you right away into the second loop. Almost all enemies fire extra bullets during the loop, providing a remarkale leap in challenge that should please the most hardcore of players.  

If I had to be picky, there are very few aspects that could've been worked on in Crisis Wing. I'd much rather have a sound cue for medal spawning instead of medal loss, for example. I's not rare to be blindsided by the horizontal screen span (even if it's a relatively minor one) and lose a precious 10K medal. And although stage 4 is very long and seems to go on forever, I wouldn't say it's a drag because enemy variety shines throughout. The good news is that the music does a good job to support the action, it's just not that awesome in the sense you'd want to include it in your next gaming soundtrack playlist.

Besides the normal Arcade mode for one or two players in couch co-op, there's also a Time Attack mode (2:30 minutes) and a sweet Boss Rush mode that offers much more than the regular parade of bosses and mid-bosses. A handy Practice mode allows training with some flexibility for the levels you have reached in a single credit. TATE is available along with some nice options for filters and such.

My final high score table for the normal game campaign is below, reaching the third stage in the second loop. 

Slap Fight MD (Mega Drive)

Vertical
Checkpoints ON
4 Difficulty levels
3/4 Stages (loopable)
Ship speed by icons
- - - - - - -
Developed by Toaplan
Published by Tengen in 1993

In order to understand the many chapters in the history of the development of the shooting genre, it's important to get to know at least a few pivotal games. Two examples are Xevious, one of the cornerstones of the vertical subgenre, and Gradius, the game that paved the way for more intricate horizontal shooters. Even though the design of both games doesn't have much in common, the devs at Toaplan were certainly keen on blending their styles with a little extra influence of Terra Cresta. The result was Slap Fight, the second arcade shooter the company released after Tiger-Heli.

The late release of a port for the Japanese Mega Drive was a relatively weird one, both in terms of timing and print run. Slap Fight was a rather old game by then, and a lot of Toaplan love had already been given to the system with the likes of Truxton, Twin Cobra and Zero Wing. And since the game came out in very low quantities, it soon became one of the most expensive and sought after cartridges in the years that followed. The Mega Drive port, however, has a particularly interesting feature: an arrange mode that's even more engaging than the arcade original. That's the reason behind the Slap Fight MD title.

A quick full credit of the Mega Drive version of Slap Fight
(courtesy of YouTube user Jorge Miashike)

Simplicity is the name of the game in vanilla Slap Fight. By default, button B provides rapid shot and button A acts as a "weapon select", as the options have it. Button B, in fact, activates the highlighted upgrade in the vertical weapon away, exactly as you'd do in any Gradius. The active slot cycles by taking yellow stars left behind by specific enemies, and the upgrades include speed-up, shot, side, wing, bomb, laser, homing missile and shield. Shot, bomb, laser and homing missile are weapon types and self-excludent. Side is the ability of firing short-range side shots to take care of the ship's flanks. The shield is self-explanatory, lasting a certain amount of time while giving you protection against three hits. As for wing, it upgrades the ship's firepower but also laterally increases its hitbox in the process. Wings can be destroyed by enemy fire, but up to three of them can be equipped at any given time. Activating any weapon type or the wing power-up will move the ship close to the middle of the screen and award the player a few seconds of full invincibility.

Kinda like in Xevious, stage progression is seamless, yet it's very clear that one loop of Slap Fight has three bosses, which appear in areas 17, 40 and 80. This means a full loop is made of 80 contiguous sections. It's not a long one, but the difficulty slowly ramps up as you get through the game again and again. Life extends are given with 30.000 and for every 100.000 points you score after that. A single extra life is also granted when you defeat the second boss, as well as in other obscure circumstances that aren't really important unless you're adamant in learning this and many other intricacies about the game. Here's a great source for that.

Speaking of secrets, the only one I used extensively was the one for the starting speed-up (press ↗ with A + B when you're spawned, also valid for the very start of the game). All weapons also have specific dynamic scoring secrets that appear when you use them extensively: the space invaders character for shot, growing plants and flowers for bomb/laser and metallic tokens for the homing shot. Upon starting the game and refraining from shooting completely, when you die you'll reappear fully powered in a further area ahead with up to 240.000 points in the bag (there is a certain point where it's not advantageous anymore to keep on going).

One final element about the regular game is the appearance of an invincible little ship that bounces around giving you random help against the enemies, a phenomenon that happens only when you're using the shot weapon type. It's kinda like the helper bit seen in the Mega Drive version of Hellfire. An obscure detail that's worth mentioning is the duration of the shield function, which is actually determined by one of the settings in the options.

Second boss

And then there's Slap Fight MD, which some consider to be the real meat on the bone of the Mega Drive port. By activating this mode in the options, you'll play a darker and marginally harder mode that rearranges and improves enemy sprites, adding different bosses and a new function for button C: the typhoon bomber. Whenever you have at least one wing equipped it's possible to sacrifice it for a spinning powerful blast that leaves the ship in its default size afterwards. Note that in Slap Fight MD you already start the game with one wing attached, that's why the ship is bigger there. Four bosses are fought in areas 15, 57, 73 and 83, with the full loop being just slightly longer than the original one.

Of special importance is the energetic new Gradius-like soundtrack of Slap Fight MD, composed by none other than Yuzo Koshiro, the man behind the music from Streets of Rage and The Revenge of Shinobi. I don't know about specifics, but with the exception of the pacifist trick of the regular game all other main secrets mentioned above also work in this arrange version. And a very nice bonus regardless of the mode being played is the soft-reset function provided by pressing A+B+C + START, a feature that would only become usual in the Sega Saturn era.

I admit I had more fun with this game than I had anticipated, mostly because I was never really fond of the visuals inspired by Xevious. It's extremely interesting to notice some embrionary elements in this game that would evolve into several different shmups in the Toaplan portfolio, such as V-V / Grindstormer and Truxton, both in terms of gameplay and music. Truxton, in particular, owes a lot to Slap Fight, as hinted by the terrains filled with moving turrets and bosses that fly over moving sections, timing out if you take too long to beat them.

Below are my best results for regular Slap Fight (4th loop, area 4-59) and Slap Fight MD, (3rd loop, area 3-44), playing in the Normal difficulty. From what I could gather, the port is very faithful to the arcade game, even including an arranged version of the original soundtrack.

TwinBee Da!! (PSP)

Vertical
Checkpoints OFF
2 Difficulty levels
5 Stages
Ship speed by icons

- - - - - - -
Developed by Konami
Published by Konami in 2007

Originally released for the Japanese Game Boy handheld in 1990, TwinBee Da!! has the distinction of being the 4th chapter of the long running bell-juggling franchise by Konami. Besides an European port that appeared a few years later with the title Pop'n TwinBee (not to be confused with the homonymous Super Famicom chapter), the game was revamped into a full-blown colored version included in the TwinBee Portable compilation that came out for the PSP in 2007. Also known as the "Powered Up Arranged Edition", the PSP entry comes with a little bit more than the color makeover you'd expect for a monochromatic older and rather obscure video game.

The first aspect that pops to mind when booting up TwinBee Da!! is how good it looks. The arcade-quality cute'em up graphics are nothing short of awesome, as is the music featuring arrangements of tracks from previous games led by well-known composer Manabu Namiki. Some sources cite the involvement of M2, yet I could not confirm that anywhere from the in-game information. The only feature that did not reach the heights of an arcade entry is the challenge, which is of course understandable. On the other hand, since the game does not loop the carrot on the stick here is the possibility of maximizing your score throughout five stages.

Pink windmills over fluffy clouds

Basic gameplay is very similar to other chapters of the franchise. One button is used to shoot (with native autofire) and another to drop ground bombs (can be set to autofire if desired). By shooting at clouds you release bells whose color can be changed if you continue shooting at them. Mainly colored yellow, they will eventually cycle through blue (speed-up), white (double shot), green (trailing options) and red (shield barrier). If you hit them bells for too long they eventually get wrecked and fall down the screen for good in the form of a deadly bug.

Besides bells, there are also ground items to be collected. Most of them are fruit that give you some points, but you can also come across a star (clears the screen of airborne enemies and bullets), a milk bottle (extra life) and a candy (3-way shot). Collecting the candy a second time makes the character shoots an extra candyball that bounces around the screen. Note that you can't have the double shot (white bell) and the 3-way shot (candy) at the same time, so collecting one disables the other. The same happens with the green and the red bells, which means you are forced to choose between the options or the shield. All items collected are shown in a large status bar on the left side of the screen.

A staple of the series, the ambulance item also returns. If both your arms get shot (the ones that drop the ground bombs), the ambulance will cruise the screen for you to recover them. Miss it and you won't be able to drop bombs for the remainder of the level, being granted new arms only when the next level starts. Also note that the ambulance item appears only once per stage.

Each yellow bell collected in succession without any of them falling off the screen increases in value until maxing out at 10.000 points, in what represents the main source of score for those who shoot for the best possible performance. In a nutshell, it's the same mechanic that's present in every TwinBee game or variation thereof, such as the ones from the Parodius franchise. Juggling bells for points can be spoiled by greed as usual, but TwinBee Da!! behaves a little differently from the other games in the series. For example, it takes several shots to make a bell change its color instead of just one. And instead of disappearing from the color cycle, all bell colors keep coming even if their function is maxed out. Each surplus bell collected is worth 10.000 points.

A brief look into how TwinBee Da!! looks on the PSP
(courtesy of YouTube user Now Loading Please Wait)

With only five stages, TwinBee Da!! is quite a short game. Instead of parading in their own level, the boss rush lifted from TwinBee appears right at the end of the 4th stage, meaning the PSP version is one stage shorter than the Game Boy original. The gameplay in general is very easy to grasp yet the game becomes a royal mess by the time you reach the 4th stage. There's so much going on by then that it's virtually impossible to keep a steady combo of yellow bells, with absolutely no slowdown to be seen anywhere. Hint: since it takes three blue bells to max out the flying speed and maximum speed isn't that fast, it's advisable to just max it out as quickly as possible.

There are other differences between TwinBee Da!! and the original Game Boy title, such as the absence of the Queen Bee boss, the lack of the stage select feature at the start of the credit, the reordering of some boss themes and the fact that it's 1-player only. Does the eye candy compensate for that? I guess in the end it depends if you're a die hard Game Boy fan. For me it was just another basic diversion to be had during a short flight. It's also a rather easy one, especially for those who have some knowledge of other games in the series.

My best 1CC score is shown below, playing in the Normal difficulty. A charming collection in its own right, the TwinBee Portable disc has elementary features such as button remapping and saving.

Fighting Hawk (Playstation 2)

Vertical
Checkpoints ON
4 Difficulty levels
6 Stages
Ship speed fixed
- - - - - - -
Developed by Taito in 1988
Published by Taito in 2005

If it weren't for Fighting Hawk being included in a Taito compilation, many people would certainly think the game was yet another product from Toaplan. Of course there are some underlying signs that don't exactly click, such as the soundtrack that slightly resembles Master of Weapon and that typical font Taito used in pretty much all their arcade games of the time. But everything else screams Toaplan, in an explicit homage that's perhaps even more pronounced than that of Gekirindan.

Taito Memories II Vol. 1 "Joukan" on the Playstation 2 is where you can find a port of Fighting Hawk, also available in full TATE glory. My impression is that this game is quite obscure even among Taito's connoisseurs, a commercial failure that got lost amidst the glut of shmups that took over the scene in the end of the 80s. Although averagely competent, it stands in the shadow of heavy hitters such as Kyuukyoku Tiger / Twin Cobra and Hishouzame / Flying Shark, which in turn are its main sources of inspiration. This means, of course, that players who enjoy the gameplay of these Toaplan shooters will feel right at home with Fighting Hawk. 

Splitting tanks halfway into the 1st area

Getting used to the gameplay is as simple as it gets. One button shoots and another triggers a salvo of homing missiles while melting all on-screen bullets, acting like a variation of a life-saving bomb. As is customary in this series of Taito compilations, both inputs can mapped as you please in the controller, just remember that a turbo function is definitely needed for the shot button unless you'd like to mash the controller (and your wrist) into oblivion. Then it's all a matter of learning enemy and boss patterns, their reload routines and memorizing a few sections in order to get through them with less hurdle.

With six levels of relatively long duration divided in 149 "areas", Fighting Hawk plays out as if it had been designed between Tiger-Heli and Twin Cobra, only with a much less aggressive difficulty progression. And once you get your shot powered up by taking the upgrade items, the game also starts to resemble Flying Shark / Hishouzame. The difference here is that when maxed out the firing stream acquires a spread opening that's very handy to take care of enemy waves approaching from all sides. Besides the power-up, the item gallery also includes extra bombs, bonus medals (1.000 points each) and 1UPs. Extra lives are also awarded by scoring, the first with 60.000 points, the second with 180.000 points and then further ones at every 100.000 points you're able to achieve.

Besides regular memorization, in shooters like this one the most important thing to have in mind is to beware of sniping tanks taking you off guard. Most of the danger in Fighting Hawk comes from below, either from tanks approaching in parallel tandem or from large bombers that enter the screen with no warning whatsoever. That's why from stage 3 onwards it's only safe to hug the bottom of the screen if you know beforehand what's coming next. And in the last stage a sequence of 25 jets arriving from below must be destroyed before facing the dragon bat final boss.

Fighting Hawk's attract mode
(courtesy of YouTube user Replay Burners)

The path to the dragon bat spans all sorts of terrain. Forests, rivers, snow fields, urban and industrial terrains, sea. Enemies include all sorts and colors of tanks, turrets, floating rafts, boats, helicopters and battleships. The overall emphasis is on a military background, yet weird stuff appears every now and then, such as the race cars in the snow stage.

The notion that the game is a much tamer variation of the Twin Cobra formula is definitely helped by the generous assortment of bombs. There are checkpoints, but with five fresh bombs for each new life any of the bosses or mid-bosses can be easily bomb-spammed if you don't want to take any chances. The only advantage of preserving bombs is to take the end-of-stage bonus of 1.000 points for each bomb in stock. In addition to that, whenever you have shot or bomb maxed out (5 bombs in stock), any respective in-game item is automatically spawned as a medal.

Click for the option menus translation for Fighting Hawk on Taito Memories II - Vol. 1

In the balance between survival and scoring, there's also the possibility of exploiting checkpoints, but this has to be well planed. Some of them send you relatively back, others allow the progress of the credit in an easier fashion. In the end, Fighting Hawk grants a final bonus of one million points for completing the game.

Below is my final 1CC result for this mild Toaplan copycat. It was fun for the ease and the diversion, definitely a recommended break of similar style if the likes of Twin Cobra or Flying Shark seem temporarily insurmountable.

Overdriven Evolution (Nintendo Switch)

Vertical
Checkpoints OFF
1 Difficulty level
10 Stages
Ship speed fixed, selectable at start
- - - - - - -
Developed by TOMAGameStudio
Published by VGNYsoft in 2024

I just broke the seal of the family's recently acquired Nintendo Switch, after being able to snatch it from my daughter's hands for a couple of evenings. And the chosen title was Overdriven Evolution, a widescreen shmup designed to squeeze everything from a colorful set of assets across a handful of available game modes. As its name implies, the developer came a long way since the original Overdriven hit the gaming scene during the (not so) golden days of XBLIG. An intermediate iteration called Overdriven Reloaded also exists, albeit not in physical form.

A shiny venture dressed up as a classic sci-fi mission to destroy an evil empire, Overdriven Evolution attempts to cater to all audiences with introductory game modes such as Story, which comes with four difficulties that incrementally add more pressure to the basic gameplay. Each one of the three available ships (the third one is unlocked after a few hours playing) is able to shoot and to fire a laser focus shot that dramatically reduces the flying speed to allow some micro-dodging (yes, it's the same old style that's predominant in many shmups developed by Cave, especially those of the Dodonpachi series). A third button triggers a smart bomb (if available), and a fourth button switches the color of the ship and its firepower between blue, red, yellow and green for you to get past simple colored puzzle gates every now and then. 

Naturally, the three available ships differ in shot styles and speed. Prototype 1 has a straight shot and rotating satellites that also shoot straight ahead. Prototype 3 is similar, but its satellites will automatically target any enemy in the vicinity. Prototype 2 has a spread shot and equally functional satellites, but flies at a slower speed. Firepower is increased by taking stars left behind by destroyed enemies. 20 yellow stars give you a boost in power and add 1 option/satellite, whereas a single white star has this same effect except for the 1.000 points you normally get from each yellow star.

Release trailer for Overdriven Evolution
(courtesy of YouTube user and publisher VGNYsoft)

What's special about the gameplay here is the way it implements lives. An energy gauge measures the amount of hits you've taken in each current life. If you're only using the regular shot and the energy gauge stays above 50% it displays "Safe Mode". If the energy gets depleted to about 50% or below the gauge changes to "DANGER". However, regardless of the current energy status, whenever you're using laser the energy gauge shifts to around 15% and displays "OVERDRIVEN", and in this condition you're of course close to dying. I can't recall any other shmup that has a similar approach to risk and survival, that's why I believe this is by far the best idea implemented by Overdriven Evolution. 

Dying strips you off all upgrades, so keeping a safe and healthy energy gauge is of course one of the main objectives as you advance through the 10 stages of Story, Arcade or Manic modes. Easy and Normal difficulties of Story mode still allow you to take a few hits when using laser, but all other difficulties and Arcade mode work with 1-hit kills when in OVERDRIVEN status. Arcade and Manic get rid of the pre-stage story bits while behaving like the Hard difficulty of Story mode, with the only difference being the single 1-hit kill mechanic implemented in Manic (no energy gauge there). All of these modes use the same array of items, which include a red + for partial energy recovery, a green + for extra life, B for a single smart bomb (only one can be carried at any given time, if you die it's gone) and temporary enhancements in the form of W (an extremely effective wide shot) and 5 (five straight bullet streams). Hidden items consist of alien artifacts that look like golden keys (five per level) and a space cow (one per level). With the exception of these hidden icons, all items are automatically sucked into the ship if you're close enough to them.

While full of explosions, creative bosses, simple yet effective pseudo-3D eye candy and some nice tunes in the soundtrack, Overdriven Evolution is hindered by a few odd design decisions that rub me the wrong way. The first one is the random nature of item drops, which severely affects the performance of any given run. The balance between enemy bullets and ship movement is also prone to leaving players unsatisfied in the long run, meaning you're always a bit too fast when using shot and a tad too slow when using laser, which makes weaving through certain boss patterns an unnecessary chore. Finally, I can live with the fact that it's not possible to cover the entire screen with any of the ships, but Prototype 2 is just too slow to be of any actual use in solo play.

Other details are also confusing. The escorting of Terry's spaceship in the end of stage 3 is a weird passage, because if she dies the credit is instantly over. Sometimes the scrolling speed picks up and returns to normal for no reason at all, which makes no sense and breaks the pace, such as in that cool insect-based level. And I'm not one to normally comment on endings, but the ending here is really a downer and keeps you guessing if there's anything you could've done to not incur in such a dreadful fate. Well, there just isn't.

Lighting blue beams of destruction

All things considered, it's easy to see why Overdriven Evolution falls short in providing clean, satisfying shooting fun. The basic elements are all there, but the design is all over the place and lacks fine tuning. For example, it's unclear how the hit counter that goes up with the timely destruction of successive enemies works into the scoring system. It seems to be mostly irrelevant, especially when you realize that the main source of extra points is the collection of yellow stars, which appear in greater numbers when destroying those mine blocks. The bad news is that all ships are too underpowered to satisfactorily take advantage of this, often leading to frustration because it's impossible to destroy the majority of those precious mines. And since hidden items aren't worth any points whatsoever, there's no incentive to get out of your way to collect them in any serious credit.  

Besides the game modes mentioned above, Overdriven Evolution also comes with a few extra modes such as Boss Rush and 10 challenge "minigames" aimed at fulfilling achievement tags. All these modes allow up to 4 people to play together, which is neat. Two single-player extra modes complete the package: The Line (keep enemies away for as long as you can) and Color Reflex (which heavily uses the color switching mechanic). All these additional modes are pretty much aimed at beefing up the achievement section, of course. Tweaks such as screen shake, invincibilty and scanlines are also included.

I don't think I should feel bad for not beating the default top scores in the local leaderboards, since I didn't really feel the need to push myself into learning how to circumvent the shortcomings in the gameplay. I noticed the score seems to be shared between all ships in co-op play, so perhaps that's the secret to reaching those high figures? I wonder! Anyway, below is my best 1CC result in Arcade mode playing with Prototype 3, after beating Story mode in the Normal difficulty.