GIGANTIC ARMY

Very fun run and gun shooter from Astro Port. They graphics are relatively simple but attractive and well animated in my opinion. The action is a bit slower than your standard side scrolling shooter such as Contra or Metal Slug. The game obviously draws heavily from Assault Suit Leynos and Vulkan in both how the Mech handles as well as the way the game has a fairly basic loadout system with a primary and secondary weapon for the player to choose from. Definitely recommended for fans of robots and run and guns with a bit of patience.

Is it fun? No. Does it have the potential to be fun? Also no.

Controls behave inconsistently, feels pretty jank.

Having a timer and a health pool that carries over, with no upgrades to speak off, makes for a poor experience. Controls are stiff specially with newer controllers... discovering that you can double tap to run and how hard it is to actually do it is a pain

As with all of the sidescrolling mech games that I can find on steam, the keybinding does not work. So it is unplayable.

Game is short with alot of flair. Nice effects with simple game play. There is a entire series of games the devs made that are related. I like this game for its simplicity and great work involved. Its cheap, check it out.

Another great astroport mech game, they're just amazing at this genre, you can't go wrong. All the check marks are there, you know the usual suspects. Gameplay is superb as ever, this one is a bit more old school, basic controls, no dash button, gotta tap left or right. Aiming is intuitive enough, no dedicated hold button either, it holds while you're shooting, so it's bare bones controls wise but I feel that makes it more old school, like Cybernator but faster. I have yet to beat it, it's tough, which I really like, there are limited continues and I'm using them as I get to learn the game but the goal is the 1CC on normal then hard if possible. If you're here it's obvious you like mech games and this one is one of the good ones, have a blast!~

Gigantic Army is a very good shooting game. Because you can control your move speed and fire angel, so a walking robot is more useful than a fighter. Now you have a lot of hit points and a real defense shield. It's possible to beat the game in less than two hours.

This is thoroughly a spiritual successor to Assault Suits Valken/Cybernator. Even at that, Gigantic Army is a very pure game that can differentiate itself from Valken, the later MECHBLAZE, and other mecha platformers in general. If you vibe with it, you'll be coming back to it. Movement is appropriately weighty and deliberate. Walking gives tight but slow control while dashing has some inertia and locks the facing direction. Useful for firing backwards while keeping free aiming, but the double-tap input can get in the way of needing to take small steps into a tight bullet pattern. Moving in any direction will aim towards that direction. You can stop or lock freely at any point to fire at any angle. Properly aiming can be hard at times because the swivel is fairly fast and there is a long-enough-to-be-noticeable delay between holding the fire button and the direction locking. Can be avoided by letting go of movement before holding as a compromise. Jumps are a fixed height, the jetpack only gives so much airtime, and a hard landing leaves the Saladin inactive for a bit. Might be really bad inconveniences in any other game - and you'll certainly feel them settle in as you really grip the harder difficulties - but here, it drives the weight and deliberation in controlling a massive mecha. It turns into a very methodical game, leveraging flexible approaches given by the free aiming to work with and around the limitations in movement. GA is very tightly designed like an arcade game. The timer is pretty lenient, though it (and various enemy spawns behind and around you on some stages) is still there to discourage being completely safe and passive for too long. Health and power carry over across stages while everything else (time, shield, special weapon ammo) resets. Power will go down if you take a lot of damage. Pickups are fixed within stages and shuffled around in runs. Enemy spawns are fixed but their actions can vary. Overall, the game encourages having a general route for each stage without relying on complete memorization of actions or luck. Adaptation to the current situation still applies and there are often many ways to go about it. Weapon switching isn't needed here. You can deal with it, even if it'll take a bit longer with some configurations than others. [spoiler] The riot gun is great for catching missiles and drones, but have a lot of patience for bosses otherwise. [/spoiler] There is a non-abusable scoring system here, though most of it comes to bonuses from pickups at max capacity. Effectively, do it fast and don't get hit. With how the game handles continues - 3 total, and with one the current stage is restarted, score is reset, health is filled but all power is lost - it's better perfecting the early levels to keep health and power for the later levels rather than trying to brute-force credits through the game. Having both a continue limit and stage reset is a bit redundant though you can practice any stage you reach at any power level to prepare for a full run. This is a game to be understood before it is beaten. The game is short and the learning process is quick. A Normal clear isn't a huge ask at all. It's worth replaying on Hard after gripping the fundamentals for the additional true final boss. I can barely crack Stage 5 on Insane, though it doesn't feel impossible. Old-ish game with some technical issues. Low resolutions, better off running windowed and upscaling than running in exclusive fullscreen. Explosion sound effects are LOUD and ignore the in-game sound settings (just leave it as is for consistency). Achievements for clears sometimes didn't register immediately. Small price to pay - especially on sale - for a condensed, raw package of game. Presentation of the story isn't flattering at all (scrolling text on a PDA) but still remains somewhat interesting in the tie-ins to Astro Port's universe. Music isn't particularly notable but distinctive enough to link to playing the stages over and over so much. Art and spriting is gritty and a fit for the setting, complete with a lot of things going on in the background to sell it. It's all perfect for a certain type of person who knows who they are.

Its not bad, but can use improvements If I was able to change my load out between stages that would be neat. Story mode should allow you to continue from the stage you got a game over and then have an arcade mode that just makes you do the whole game in 1 try because currently you have to beat the game in 1 go and as soon as you get game over you have to start all the way from the first stage. its a short game, about 1 hour I would say but not a lot of replay since there is no stage select option. pick it up on sale if you want something simple, its not the greatest game but it is fun to play at least once I think.