DELTAZEAL

Deltazeal is a return to the 90s style shoot 'em ups I enjoy so very much. Simple game mechanics, outstanding pixel graphics and an excellent challenge without being overly brutal. The mechanics that that make Deltazeal standout are the way power ups work. The game has the standard wide shot, missiles and lasers. However, the game lets the player mix and match these weapons and upgraded version along a power up track. Each time a power up is picked up it gets add to the right of the the track. Once the power up track is full, the left most power up is dropped to make room for the newest one. I really like this power up mechanic. Many shooters reset of the strength of the power up once you switch. Deltazeal not only doesn't do that, but allows the player to craft a mix to get a little bit of everything or really concentrate on one type. Me, I prefer powerful missiles and laser attack with limited spread shot to deal with popcorn enemies. The other thing that stands out in DeltaZeal is the stage design. Just like in science the symbol delta means change. So to with the stages. Often having differing sections or be completely different stages. One such more significant stage change is the Warning sub-stage. This can be a parking lot of tanks or fleet of hidden submarines popping up to take shots at the player's ship. What this does is keep the player on their toes. Preventing pure memorization to take over. And I like that. These changes aren't so much that they could ruin a 1cc run (I don't think). But they also keep the stages from getting stale as they are played over and over. Deltazeal doesn't do anything incredible, but it does do a few things a little differently. It's these little differences that elevate a good shooter to something I want to come back to and play more and more. Other than that, it provides all the things I look for in a STG.