DELTAZEAL

Oh, I *really* don't like this one. It might be the most miserable experience I've had, as a casual player, with one of these so far. The biggest issue is projectile visibility. They're all glow-y white or glow-y pink, they blend with the background or, worse with your own projectiles. Half the time you can't tell what killed you. Another issue is the speed of enemy projectiles as related to your ship; they're not *faster* than you, but many of them are just *slightly* slower. This means if you're pressing one direction and suddenly need to switch to dodge, you don't really have enough of a window to do so. Then, there is the issue of enemies popping up from every corner of the screen and sucker-punching you. In general, the game is cheap. It seems like memorization of levels takes precedence here over reflexes or split-second decisions. I know it's an arcade port, but I don't got any coins on me and this is very much designed in a way you'd expect a coin-gobbler to work. Different difficulty settings don't really counter that problem; on the contrary, they just make it even more obvious. I'm not a pro, but I'm not a complete noob either. If I have the exact same problems on Very Easy and on Normal, there's probably a deeper reason for that. Deltazeal does feature a couple of unique-ish mechanics. Its power-up mechanic is probably the most interesting; instead of simply different types of weapons, you have a bar you can fill up with a specific type of a color-coded weapon power-up (spread, missile or laser), granting yourself an enhanced version of that weapon; alternatively, you can fill up the bar with different types, resulting in a weaker, mutli-purpose weapon (by mixing the three types) that covers a wider range of attacks. The more spaces a color takes up in the bar, the more prominent the respective weapon will be in the attack. The other feature is branching paths, but to be perfectly honest, I have no idea how to engage them. I only accidentally found myself in a different level 3 during on session and I don't know how I got there. But hey, it's something that exists in the game. I don't know what else to say; it does feel like I'm wrestling with the game over who has control and that's just not entertaining to me. Getting hit with a projectile in a shmup can elicit responses that range from frustration to denial to determination for future plays. Getting hit with a projectile in Deltazeal gets a single response from me every time: an eye-roll. By the time I'm down to my last credit, I feel defeated, playing on auto-pilot. The fact that once you're out of credits, the game doesn't even lead to an instant game-over, but waits for the timer to run-down waiting for extra credits (which you, of course, have no way of obtaining at that point) is just adding insult to injury. This one, seemingly tiny, oversight by the developers to patch this arcade convention out is just rubbing salt in the wound. It's a game that seems to be liked by many as well, so I don't know how helpful my take on it is; but I'm not having fun with it and I do believe us, the proud caste of Filthy Casuals, will have trouble getting into it. Disclosure: Updated the review with information on the power-up system and the branching paths, as well as clarifying the final verdict.

縦スクロールSTGとしては至って普通のゲームだが、パワーアップシステムが非常に煩わしくそれだけで駄作と言ってもいいくらい酷い。 武器は3種類あり、最大10個までストックできる。 好きな武器を好きなだけ組み合わせると言えば聞こえはいいが、実際はどれか1つの武器に絞って取得した方が強いので10個同じ色を取得する以外の選択肢は無いに等しい。 間違えて１つでも違う色を取得した場合はまた10個連続で取り直さなければならないのでストレスで禿げ上がる。 こんな面倒なアイテムの取得を敵の弾を躱しながら行わなければならない苦痛が伴う為、爽快感重視のSTGを期待して買うと絶対に後悔する。

I like the pace and music of the game, and I especially like the powerup system (which is unique, as far as I can tell), but unfortunately, the game suffers from one major design flaw that prevents me from recommending it. The developers, for some reason, decided to make enemy bullets nearly identical in color to bonus point gems, which are nearly identical in color to your spread shot. All three are a shade of pink. Why? [i]Why would anyone think that's a good idea?[/i] It only adds artificial difficulty to the game and, consequently, frustration for the player. Triangle should take notes from the developers of [i]Crimzon Clover[/i], who have managed to make an arcade shooter with remarkable bullet visibility, despite that there is so much more chaos in that game than this one. I want to like it, want to play it, but I can't--not like this.

Good 90s feel shmup...keep in mind though, even on very easy bullet speed is quite fast and something i never could get used to. Also, many of the bullets are different colors and can be very difficult to see sometimes. I do like when you get hit everything stops for a quick moment. Nice chunky pixel graphics, branching paths and huge bosses too. You also earn continues by gameplay time instead of just getting unlimited continues from the start which is great, although once you reach level 7, if you lose all your lives you have to start the stage over again which means I'll most likely never finish the game. The hitbox is feels kinda big though, but its still a fun game.

DeltaZeal is a incredible classic 1990's style vertical 2 player arcade shooter from Triangle pulling from the very best history of companies like Raizing and Cave. Filled from beginning to end with fantastic pixel art, beautiful parallax scrolling, massive bosses, multiple paths, excellent sound and audio as well as extremely tight controls. Very inexpensive for the high quality you get and worth every penny. The highest possible recommendation for this game to old school shooter fans.

I really like the pixel graphics and the music. The power-up mechanic is cool and the shooting is fun. Poor projectile clarity ruins the game for me unfortunately.

There's a lot to praise in DeltaZeal. The gameplay is fun, the power up mechanic is very unique and interesting, the blackhole attack is a very nice addition that gives more defensive options to players, and the presentation is solid. However, the game suffer from one MAJOR design flaw... and that is the horrendous visual clarity. While making a shmup, it is very important to make every element on a stage visible to players and make sure they don't blend together. A lot of shmups use distinct color palettes to avoid clarity issues, while others give players a choice to dim the background (e.g. Rival Megagun) so the enemies and projectiles appear more colorful and bright in comparison. DeltaZeal does none of those. Enemy projectiles not only blend with with the background and your own attacks, but also get camouflaged by the bonus point items. This paves the way for many, MANY unfair deaths and generates needless frustration. And we cannot try to (wrongfully) defend the game by mentioning its roots as a coin-gobbling arcade game. As with the rest of Triangle Service shmups on Steam, This re-release also has limited continues (only 2 at the start of the game) that can be increased by reaching unknown goals. So we cannot even put a band-aid on this issue by abusing unlimited credits. I want to like this game, but I can't. The visual clarity is too big of an issue to ignore, and it makes the game painful and unfun. I do not recommend playing this game.

Arcade version was definitely more fun, maybe only due to atmosphere. Visual clarity at an all-time low, and the hitbox detection isn't great. The game lags prior to projectile collision, essentially widening the size of your hitbox in the sense that you have less space to dodge something than you think you would, because once it stutters you're dead, even if you had another 1cm+ of space before collision. Like the game seems to project that your death is imminent, loads assets for that, the load itself causes the stutter: death is inevitable. Music's good at least, and I was surprised to see that the leaderboards are still online.

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The weapon system is really cool and it's a fun game, but MAN there are a lot of small bullets with low visibility that are coming at you VERY fast at times. Certain sections just feel a bit too bullsh*t for me to recommend this. That being said, if you love the old fast shmups that people often describe as bullsh*t, you may like this one.