Battle Crust

First I want to say that the game is a solid shoot'em up. It feels like a vertical R-Type with a late 8-bit/early 16-bit feel to it. The gameplay feels like a good starting point for players who are just getting into the genre and don't want to have a wall of bullets thrown at their face. It also offers just enough difficulty in the later stages in normal mode to keep things interesting for novice players like myself. The hard difficulty is where players with a little more skill than myself will find their fun since normal mode is pretty much 1CC'able first time around for expert players. The music is also pretty darn good and really gives an older play like myself a warm and fuzzy sense of nostalgia when playing. The sound effects also sound like something straight from a classic shooter from the yester-years. Overall I think the sound and music for the game are spot on and go great with the aesthetics. Weapon variety in this game feels great and weapons don't feel thrown in just for the sake of choice. The play gets to choose from 3 charge attacks in the beginning. Each attack comes with pros. The Megashot, for example, stops your ship upon fire rather due to kickback, but grants you a huge damage boost. The weapon upgrades feel great and all have different damage levels along with utility that make certain situations more tolerable. The game is pretty bare when it comes to configurations. To put the game into TATE you have to set your monitor to landscape. This isn't a big issue, but people will find this annoying. The game also automatically scales to your current monitor resolution instead of allowing you to select it. The game itself runs fantastic. These are issues to be expected from a game made by a ridiculously small team with a micro budget. Overall this is a solid purchase for those looking to scratch that shmup itch.

Editing this review because the developer has updated the game to support Hori 360 arcade sticks. I will edit again once I've played the game enough to give my full impressions.

"Battle Crust", like it says on the description, adheres to the 80's/90's style “traditional” shooter design in aesthetic and gameplay, which are less commonly seen nowadays compared to the more modern “bull hell” design of shooters. I've expressed my preference for the former in previous reviews here on Steam, so I'm always delighted when new ones show up that are well crafted. "Battle Crust" delivers on that front. “Vertical R-Type” has been the common description for it, which pretty apt. The controls are pretty simple, one button for regular shooting and one button for charge shots. In order to use the charge shot, you need to have collected at least one power up. It's straightforward enough where someone can pick up and play it very easily. In addition, adhering to the classic style shmup formula, there are multicolored powerups to collect that transform your standard pea shooter into an assortment of different weapons with strengths and weakness. The game does a good job of placing these accordingly, tailored to whatever is going on while you are playing. It's easy to recover you charge shot upon death, and you never feel like you have to rely on your weak default weapon for too long. You can also select from three different charge shots upon starting (and continuing), which have different properties, and change the flow of the game accordingly. The game is pretty well designed and telegraphed, so you never feel like your deaths are unfair. Skilled shump players, however, who habitually single credit Cave shooters and the like would likely find the challenge lacking except on hard maybe, and consider it a sour point. For others, it will be challenging enough (I'm just now getting to last stage on Easy on a credit, to give you an ideal of my skill level), and thus best suited for more casual players, beginners, or people nostalgic for classic shooters. The presentation is enough of a draw for groups outside of this to at least check it out though. And then there's the music, done by my personal favorite VGM composer Hyakutaro Tsukumo. Previously known for his works with the defunct company Technosoft ("Thunder Force V" chief among them), and more recently for his soundtracks to indie dev Dracue Software's run and gun mech games, such as "Gunhound EX" (also on Steam). Instead of employing his usual over-the-top modular synth rocking that defines lots of his works, he opted to compose the soundtrack with old school FM synthesis to match the classic theme of the game. Despite the retro, chiptune sound, the music still has a lot of the rock and roll grooves and melodic, bombastic highs common in Tsukumo's style. On the whole, it is very well done, and a soundtrack release is the only thing I'd like to see from this down the road, because I think it deserves one. The release itself is pretty spartan, since it was apparently self published by a sole Japanese developer, so it lacks things like achievements, and it has a few configuration oddities to navigate since they aren't in the game itself. Still, the game itself is solid, and definitely worth the value at 8 bucks.

レトロSTGの良さを抽出したような縦スクロールシューティング 良かった： ・アートワーク　 　フィルタ＋スキャンラインに映える美しいドット。 ・ＢＧＭと効果音 　どちらも大変高品質で、ゲームを盛り上げてくれる。 ・敵配置とバランス　 　ギミックにあふれ、道中、ボス戦ともに楽しい。適当なプレイが即座に死に繋がる緊張感もいい。 ・Mega Charge 　発射の反動で一瞬動けなくなるという性質と超火力が、攻め/守りの感覚を与えてくれる。 悪かった： ・アナログスティック入力に対応していない ・設定周りの仕様がわかりづらい 　まずウェブマニュアルを開いて自分でKeyconfig.exeを起動するという設定手順はいくらなんでも泥臭い。 ・縦画面周りの仕様が中途半端 　縦画面モードにする→SteamBetaから縦画面版を有効にする→デスクトップ設定でも縦にする 　という設定手順は面倒。ゲーム側で画面と入力を回してほしい。 ゲーム本体は素晴らしい完成度で、文句のつけようもない仕事。 ゲーム外の細かい部分がやっつけなのがもったいなく感じる。

I love that Game. Is a great old school Shoot ’em up, new day called Shmup. I had that schort word Shmup. It has lovely desigend sprites and great old school Shoot ’em up music. It's great that you can buy the music from game.

ビデオゲーム老人歓喜のアイ○ム系STG。 真新しいことは何もないです。ただし…、 『あの頃』隣にいた者達で、いまだにゲームやってるのは 僕ぐらいになったのだろうか…と、思わせてくれる程の 懐かしさを引き寄せる丁寧な作り込みです。 グラフィック、サウンド、操作性はもとより、 敵配置やステージ構成における難易度の展開も よく練られていると思います。ミスに納得できるので。 某Rと違って、チャージショットがアイテム取得後に 可能となり機体標準装備でない。 （あえての設定でしょうが、老人なので楽したい。） 昔ながらで、後方よりの敵機襲来に慌てる。 （STGにおける敵配置の記憶は最早常識ですが、 　アラームやインジケーター表示とかで楽したい。） などと。箱の隅を突っつけば個人的な要望が出るには出ますが、 バランスの取れた秀作だと思います。

Since this game is not Steam Deck verified yet, I tested it out: it works great so far, no issues after playing a few levels. Nice responsive play and the default buttons are fine. Playfield size is ok for the screen, I have no visibility issues. This is a great game, loving what I've seen so far. Level and weapon design feel very Image Fight; not a common inspiration these days, but a welcome one.

他のプレイヤーも書いているがジョイスティック操作で左上に自機が入りっぱなしになり操作できない（ジョイスティックは二つ所有しているが、どちらもダメ）。キーコンフィグもキーボードだけだし、Joy to keyもスティック操作で邪魔されて動かず。金を取ってゲームを売っているからには最低クリアしなければならないことがあるだろう。操作できないなどもってのほかだし、他のゲームでは普通にできていることだ。まして800円の価格帯はstgではやや高めの設定。セール中の斑鳩より高い。なぜステイックのキーコンフィグを入れるか、キーボードとジョイステックの操作選択設定をつけなかったのか理解に苦しむ。

Awesome retro shooter. A perfect introduction to the genre, if you've never played a shoot 'em up before.

This game is NOT a bullet hell shmup, that's a very big plus for taste. I am a fan of games like the Gradius series (esp. Salamander on the PCE and Gradius V on the PS2), R-Type or Musha Aleste. Battle Crust somehow fits to that list. This game was one of the few SHMUPS that I have really gotten fond of since a very long time.