Infinos Gaiden

Reminiscing on the golden 90's and as far as hori shmups are concerned, playing this one is as good as it gets.

Picorinne (a developer that is mostly a single person) already showed a lot of promise with [b]Battle Crust[/b], but this far surpasses it while staying true to the principle of maintaining old shoot-em-up design. Right from the 4:3 aspect ratio and the intro, [b]Infinos Gaiden[/b] looks like something you'd see run on MAME, precisely from the 1993–95 timeframe. Compared to [b]Battle Crust[/b], which could be even a little drab at times, this game is much more colorful and sports some top-notch spaceship and mecha designs. Even better than the graphics is the amazing soundtrack, once again a collaboration with composer Hyakutaro Tsukumo; I especially love the tracks of levels 3 and 6, but also the tense boss theme. Don't go in expecting your ship to become some death machine: the power-ups are in fact quite "modest", as they consist of two small pods for additional fire, with extra colored pickups for some more "specialized" shots. The only function of the second button is to move the pods so as to get a wider (or rear, in the case of one of those shots) or more concentrated fire. It may feel too "essential", even if you are a fan of the genre, but on the other hand this sensation of never being powered enough helps with the vibe of being an ace pilot in a desperate struggle against a whole army. Although I have cursed a lot for the rare sections where the scrolling becomes vertical, as they seem especially designed to hopelessly take as many lives and credits from you as they can, I appreciated the design of obstacles and enemy waves. It definitely requires quite a bit of memorization. Levels feature several classic "biomes" but are no less pleasant to look at. For example, level 3 is a desert with even a sandstorm blowing for a while, while level 6 starts above Earth’s surface and then takes you to space, with even a dramatic shot of the light of the Sun before the boss battle. Bosses range from good to great, and a few also feature nice entries before the battle; for example, after the first level is spent flying over a city under an orbital attack, the satellite responsible for it descends from the clouds. It says a lot about [b]Infinos Gaiden[/b]'s quality that an improved arcade version for the eXA-Arcadia platform was made in 2020 (unfortunately there are no signs we'll ever get it "backported"). It's a true gem that can sit proudly beside the games it took lots of inspiration from.

Un des shmups horizontal dans un style neo retro parmi les tous meilleurs disponible sur Steam ! Ni plus, ni moins ! Ma chronique video : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bN5Ske7tCU0&t=1s Pour vous en convaincre j'ai réalisé une vidéo en hommage à ce jeu pourtant assez boudé ou trop souvent oublié à mon goût sur les groupes et sites dédiés aux shmups. Avec Satazius, un must have absolu du genre ! Par contre jeu très difficile même en "easy" ! Le easy vaut bien des mode normal ou même hard d'autres jeux ! C'est dur, ce qui implique qu'on y meurt souvent ... mais l'acharnement fini par payer ! Soyez juste prévenu que ce jeu se mérite si on veut le maitriser comme il se doit.

After pumping many, many quarters into Infinos EXA at a local arcade, I finally picked up the Steam version of the original release, Infinos Gaiden. In both releases, you get a tight shmup with beautiful pixel work and parallax scrolling environments. All the mech designs are excellent, and some of the effects work is surprising and very memorable. The music is also remarkable. Clearly inspired by the classics of the 90s, and executing that with the design philosophy and technology of today, this game plays the way those legendary titles felt in your memory. Gaiden lacks the enhancements of EXA, most obviously the alternate ships and changes to bosses. Some bullet patterns are different, and it's also lacking the arranged soundtrack. That being said, it does have some features that EXA lacks - the options menu allows you to increase or decrease the dificulty (EASY, ARCADE, HARD), and further fine tune how forgiving the experience is by setting the total number of continues (credits) your run will have. There's also a challenge mode, which after you've cleared a stage once, allows you to go back and replay specific stages to try for a high score. Great for practicing as you work toward a 1CC. Be aware that the technical settings for the game are tucked in an alternate launcher than Steam will prompt you for (Game Editor). Here you can change your default keys, if the game launches windowed or fullscreen, the default scaling for windowed mode, toggle a CRT filter effect, toggle "timer sync" (vsync?), and set volume levels. This game also runs perfectly out of the box on the Steam Deck. I suggest hotkeying R (resets the game, as you cannot exit to the main menu during gameplay without intentionally getting a game over) and Enter (toggles Fullscreen, just in case). If there's one problem for me with this release, it's that Steam Cloud is not available. If you're playing it on both a PC and a Steam Deck like I am, having progress on the challenges and scoreboard not be available in both places is a bummer. I doubt this functionality is ever enabled. Hopefully, someday, they will release EXA for PC. All in all, this is a great release, and worth checking out if you enjoy a good arcade shmup.

Retro-Perfektion 10/10 Infinos Gaiden sah auf den Bildern schon gut aus. Aber, dass es so gut sein könnte, hätte ich nicht gedacht. Als riesiger Shoot Em Up Fan hatte ich schon sehr viele (auch aktuelle) Titel gespielt und getestet. Leider hatten viele der teils sehr guten Spiele nie direkt meinen Geschmack zu 100 % angesprochen oder waren ohne Fehler. Bei Infinos Gaiden dachte ich bereits beim Anspielen des ersten Levels "Wow, dass ist es!". Fullscreen Info: Geht im Steammenü erst auf den Editor und stellt dann dort oben rechts im Fenster das Bild auf Fullscreen! Danach speichern und das Spiel starten. Technik: Das Spiel sieht hervorragend aus und könnte das Kind von R-Type (Arcade/SNES) und Nemesis (GAMEBOY/NES/ARCADE) sein. Ebenfalls wurde ich auch an Last Resort (ARCADE/SNK) und Super Contra/Probotector (SNES) erinnert. Egal ob Grafik, Sound oder Musik. Hier stimmt absolut alles und die/der Entwickler haben/hat beeindruckende Arbeit geleistet. Der Stil ist der SNES Ära zugeordnet und fängt deren Geist perfekt ein, vor allem in den späteren Zyklen. Die Technik schreit derart nach 80/90er, dass es einem die Nostalgietränen in die Augen treibt und in der Zeit großgewordene Spieler sofort zurück versetzt. Das Spiel hätte damals genau so erscheinen können und wäre ebenso perfekt gewesen wie heute (was es ja ist). Die Levels sehen absolut toll aus und sind sehr abwechslungsreich. Dazu gibt es noch spannende Bossfights. Die treibende Musik und die Sounds sind perfekt stimmig. Wer Shoot Em Ups mag und Retro Spiele liebt muss diesen Titel kaufen. In Meinen Augen ist der Titel perfekt!!! (daher auch der inflationäre, aber gerechtfertigte Gebrauch des Wortes) Viel Spaß damit und ich hoffe es kommt noch mehr davon.

Incredibly awesome game. Tried it because Andro Dunos II is so good and man was I missing out. This game has incredible pixel art with cool scaling and a really nice soundtrack. Reminds me of Thunderforce IV, Gate of Thunder and Darius Gaiden. Mad it took me so long to try this game.

A SHMUP that looks and feels a lot like something you'd expect to find on a 16-bit console.