BIRDCAGE

Translation: Visuals and audio are perfect, but the core gameplay falls short. A lack of enemy variety and patterns makes each stage feel unmemorable. Bosses lack clear mechanical shifts and are just combinations of part-based danmaku, making them easy to dismantle. Without any final phases after breaking parts, the endgame becomes a drag. The potential of this IP is too high to end here—I'd love to see it refined in a sequel or an updated BLACK LABEL edition. - 그래픽과 사운드는 완벽하나 게임성에서 부족함을 느낌 적 종류와 패턴이 적어서 스테이지마다 뚜렷한 인상을 못 받았고 보스는 확실한 패턴 구분 없이 파츠 간의 탄막 조합으로만 이뤄져서 파훼가 쉽고, 파츠를 부숴도 발악 패턴이 없어서 후반이 오히려 루즈해짐 그래도 이대로 마무리하기엔 소재가 너무 아깝다. 후속작이나 BLACK LABEL으로 보완했으면 한다

Great shmup, the story mode allows you to opt in and out of the dialogue allowing you to cater the experience to your liking. Tough as nails but allowing players to restart from the beginning of a stage makes this much much much easier than most shmups if you want to see the ending, harder options also exist for those looking for a high octane 1CC experience.

Fantastic vertical shmup with a very GAINAX art style and good plot. The sword mechanic is interesting and makes it different from other games of the genre. Allows control mapping.

Gorgeous game with maybe the most underrated OST of 2025. Everything about BIRDCAGE is 11/10 cool. Easy difficulty is trivial and Normal is probably more difficult than it should be (even after the 1.1 patch), but this game gives me a rush of adrenaline like few others. BIRDCAGE is at its best when you're in a boss battle, music coming to a crescendo, trying to navigate your tiny hitbox through a screen full of projectiles, avoiding damage by mere pixels on either side of you. You're so locked in on avoiding damage that you aren't even considering how much health the enemy has left, until their ship explodes and the victory jingle plays, filling you with relief and accomplishment in equal measure. I think they would be smart to bridge the gap between the Easy and Normal difficulties before bringing the game to console, but even if they don't, I'll keep coming back to BIRDCAGE. Great accomplishment for what is basically a two-man team at POLYGON BIRD.

It is overall a positive experience, however mostly carried by its visuals and music that are on point. So to say it is an art game, and does not disappoint in that regard. However I do have a few criticisms of the gameplay: the design of the gameplay fails to escalate in a novel way other than fill the screen with more bullets. For example there is a darkness part in the very first stage where you must use your sword to see around you that is never seen again. Nearly every single normal enemy in the game can be found in only the first two levels. The last boss of the fifth stage is also extremely unbalanced and most likely not playtested by anyone other than the devs, seeing as even the ""no hit"" run of this game on youtube still has the player getting hit during this boss with attacks more difficult to dodge than the final boss and true last boss. Score is also unrewarding, as I don't really care about the validation of a letter grade and a leaderboard that doesn't really matter at all; there needs to be an extrinsic motivator like how Zero Ranger gives hitpoints back when you hit certain score thresholds. If the devs are reading reviews, I beg of you: please update the game to be as best as it can be. Something this beautiful *deservers* to have quality gameplay that honors it! Edit: nevermind, it seems this game is just abandoned. so im changing it to a negative review

Very awesome, totally nails what its going for. For a certain sort of person, there are many sounds and sights that will press different buttons in your head, but it isn't solely an exercise in nostalgia; the gameplay feels really great, has some unique twists, and the soundtrack absolutely rules. Deserves so much more attention.

BIRDCAGE has a pretty solid foundation for something that could be more. I'd like to start with the aspects of the game that really stood out to me and pulled me in. The visual design is really strong here and I love the acid trip like visuals as well as the character portraits. The backgrounds can at times be a little distracting, but overall I think they created something visually distinct. The soundtrack and sound design are also top notch. All the songs in the soundtrack are bangers and it's probably one of the better shooting game soundtracks, I've heard in a while. The weapon sound effects are great and maybe the only thing I would tweak is make the sound effect for when you get hit a bit more impactful. The end of level score screen music is top notch. Overall the score screen adds a lot to making completing a level all that much more satisfying. I like the codex calls and the codex database. It's always fun to have a bit of that world building and character dialog. It doesn't do it too much, while giving you just enough to keep you curious. Although, I am still trying to piece all of it together. The gameplay doesn't seem to really try anything new, but it's competent for what it is. The enemy patterns and encounters are engaging and it feels great weaving through bullets and getting grazes. The different shot types are pretty basic. The sword mechanic is fun enough and the later missiles for grazing ability is well done. Overall the gameplay doesn't stand out over many other shmups, but what is there is very solidly designed. I thought the scaling between difficulties was also well done. Alright so now to some of my criticisms. As I mentioned previously I think the gameplay needed a little bit more. Different ships(yeah I know you briefly use that missile based ship, and it was great!) could something interesting, or pilots with different stories to pick from. Maybe some other weapon types as well. The scan line filter can make it kind of hard to see things so I turned that off. I typically do like scan lines though. At times the visuals were a bit muddied. I am running the game on a Linux PC and it works well other than that sometimes it seemed like the screen was stretched, and really only for text or menus. Overall I am still really enjoying playing this. It's an easy(as in just feels good) shooter to throw on and run through. It's got a strong style and great texture to it. I just wish there was a little more to chew on. You gave me one slice of pizza, but I'm a lardy lad and want more. EDIT: How could I forget the manual! I didn't see anyone else mention this, but I really appreciate the inclusion of the manual. Great design work on it!

It's beak!

very fun, i am also quite ♥♥♥♥♥ at it

I really enjoy this particular mix of shmup mechanics and the early PS1/Saturn evocations (down to circle for confirm and an included digital manual that has the same format as a PS1 manual complete with a teaser for their next game). I'll run through this a few more times to see if I can't 1CC it eventually.