Graceful Explosion Machine

This is a sharply designed and good-looking shooter that doesn't really play like anything else. You can compare it to other games, for sure: the two-way horizontal-scroll looping levels resemble Defender or Astro Tripper, and there are plenty of twin-stick games with a similar focus on combo multipliers that make your score skyrocket if you can continuously destroy baddies without getting hit. But the meat here is the 4-weapon system that emphasizes managing resources. Your general-purpose blaster overheats quickly but cools down when you kill enemies with your 3 sub-weapons: a close-range spin attack, an armor-penetrating laser, and a seeker missile swarm. These sub-weapons, meanwhile, run off energy crystals dropped by enemies. Spend your heat and energy unwisely, and you'll let the combo drop and tank your score. If that sounds intimidating, don't worry: I quickly learned to play by feel, reading the situation and applying the right weapon for the job. Juggling enemy swarms to string along a combo for an entire stage feels wonderful when you nail it. I'm not sure gamers who don't care to play for score will find much to appreciate, given that the most interesting parts of the design revolve around the combo system. Score-chasers, though, should have a blast.

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fast and great defender inspired shoot 'em up!

Great arcade game, one for the ages =)

Pure, Old-fashion, but awesome game. It takes me back to the pass and reminds me something beautiful about arcade game. Though it was not a classical shooting-game like Dodonpachi or Deathsmiles but... I JUST CAN'T STOP PLAYING! And also, I bought this on Nintendo Switch, too. BTW, I got a strange problem: When I play it on steam, it will jump to desktop every once in a while without any notice or alert (Of course, the game is paused), whatever it's window or full-screen. That's annoying.

Nice colorful shooting game with good freedom of movement.

(Received as a gift.) I'm not sure what the intended audience is for this game. It's much too difficult for casual players, not to mention complex. For hardcore players, it's much too bland. I consider myself to be somewhere in between these audiences, and didn't get a lot out of it, either. About the difficulty and complexity: there are four weapons, each sharing the same energy bar, and the basic cannon has a separate cooldown. Additionally, there's two movement controls, one for changing direction (that's right, this [i]isn't[/i] a twin-stick shooter!) and the other for dashing, which also has a cooldown. The frantic battles mean that it can be easy to get various controls mixed up. There are also no ways to upgrade weapons, either within a level or overall, or gain extra hit points and/or lives. You get what you get, and that's energy refills, the rare hit point refill, and that's it. There are checkpoints during each stage, but if you run out of lives (you get a total of three, each with three hit points), then you have to start that whole stage over again. Very arcadey, and to be expected from a shmup, but not being able to gain more hit point slots and/or lives is annoying. About the blandness: one reason I enjoy shmups is that, at their best, they're exciting. Cool weapons, special attacks, challenging bosses, and beautiful bullet patterns are some of the features I look forward to in these sorts of games. Graceful Explosion Machine has none of these. Well, maybe it has bosses; I never got to the final stages of any of the planets to find out. Anyway, the on-screen action is nice to look at, but that's all. The four planets are mainly differentiated by color and a few unique enemies. You have the same weapons the entire time, and no upgrades. There's nothing nifty in the game to make you feel powerful other than little sound effects when your combo meter reaches a milestone. Like I said, it's bland. One final note: despite what it says on the store page, Steam Cloud does not appear to be available for this game. I tried playing on my PC this past weekend, and couldn't carry over my save progress from my Steam Deck. If you're down for an unexciting but challenging score-chaser of a shmup, by all means pick this up. Otherwise, I really can't recommend it.

10/10 would play again

디펜더처럼 좌우로 이동 가능하고 레이더가 달린 슈팅게임입니다. 디펜더 팬으로써 지나칠 수 없었기에 바로 구매했습니다. 디펜더와는 달리 이동속도가 빠르지 않고 지키는 요소는 없이 슈팅만 한다는 점은 약간 아쉬웠지만 복잡한 업그레이드 없이 처음부터 끝까지 완벽한 스펙이면서 장단점이 확실한 4가지 무기들을 적절하게 활용하는 방식이 마음에 들었고 그래픽은 아름답고 눈이 편안해지며 음악도 좋았습니다. 디펜더만큼의 재미와 깊이는 없지만 디펜더의 정신나간 난이도가 부담이 될때 하기 좋습니다.

I bought this on a heavy sale and have enjoyed my time with it! I'm honestly really surprised more people haven't reviewed here on Steam, though I know its main selling point was for the Switch. Really clean, brightly coloured simplistic design both visually and gameplay-wise. You're given all the tools available from the very start. 4 different weapons, each requiring you to balance your power meter (or have to wait a few seconds as it recharges). The mobs will slightly change in quantity/difficulty as the game goes on, the difficulty curve felt neither too easy or difficult for the majority of levels. If you're not a fan of getting combos, trying to get high scores without dying, shoot 'em ups in general..I'm not sure how much enjoyment you'll get out of it. As it can get repetitive if you're not having fun with the main combat. That said, I'm not usually one to try and get all the top scores and I still found the campaign's fast-paced gameplay to be addictive and satisfying. Overall just a really smooth experience. The controls felt great and responsive using my Xbox 360 controller, however I didn't see any options to change the control setup. There is a setting to turn off screen shake which I used and it helped a lot. If the trailer looks appealing to you I definitely recommend giving it a try. The game is fairly short, around 5 hours, but it ended before overstaying its welcome. There's the the replayability factor as well if you're interested in perfecting the levels/getting high scores.