So, finally, Shooting Love 200X has released... I remember seeing and hearing about this a LONG while ago, back before the 360 version came out, and wanting it... but then I just never got around to importing it. Fast-foward to now, and the whole thing is out, consisting of Exzeal, Trizeal, Minus Zero, and this game, Shmups Skill Test.
Shmups Skill Test is an.... interesting thing. When you first try it, you're likely to have alot of "WTF" moments. The game hits you with a barrage of funky "minigames", each geared towards testing some specific trait/ability that somehow relates to shmups. In the main game mode, you go through a series of these, randomly chosen from the available minigames in each category. For example, the first category is always "overall", which essentially throws you a mini-shmup, where it's all about dodging, blowing stuff up, all the usual. The enemies keep coming, and you get points for taking them down. Simple, right? Well, the rules change after each round. The next round might be a "here's 20 squillion powerups bouncing around the screen, only grab the red ones" sort of thing, or it might pit you against Definitely Not Hibachi, who throws bullet patterns at you to dodge, getting more and more intense as time goes on, your only goal here being to survive; naturally, you cant kill a foe such as that. Or the game might try to hit you with buildings. You're even going to get to do some recycling, as you battle your hated arch-nemesis, Physics! No, seriously, that seems to always be the one at the end....
There are no game-overs here; you move onto the next challenge when the current one is cleared (if it's a type that CAN be cleared) or when you get hit, or in a couple of specific cases, when you screw something up (like the one with the rocket). At the end of the gauntlet of tests, you're given what is essentially a scorecard, and it calculates a "gamer age" for you; your overall goal is to have this number be as low as possible. You also have a traditional score though, so dont worry, that's still there.
For the most part, the various minigames are well done. Unexpectedly well, in some cases. For example, my favorite is this one that tells you to "DODGE!" and then drops you in this horrible hellhole filled with giant red spheres. Shooting doesnt help, here... it's all about dodging the spheres as the camera/playfield spins and zooms all over the place, but you cant just memorize THIS challenge, no sir. You never know what the thing is going to do next in this mode. It'll abruptly change the direction that everything is shifting in, and change the speed, and keep spinning, and it can do this pretty freaking fast.... and then come to a near halt, slowly spinning like 5 giant orbs around you, making you wait for what you know is probably coming, that moment when it just abruptly lurches off in some random direction.... overall, that challenge is not about MEMORIZING, it's about REACTING. It's hard to explain, but it seems to react to you, too... if you were to play it enough, you'd probably see what I mean. There's definitely some sort of AI in place there acting alongside the RNG. The interesting thing is? No matter how many times I try that minigame, it *never* does anything unfair despite the randomness and all the wild movments and spinning. I have yet to have a "what the hell was I supposed to do about that?" moment. Or any moments that feel like they're completely about luck. And that kinda amazes me, considering how this specific minigame/mode works.
And honestly, the whole game is like that. It just WORKS, and that includes all of the many bits that have RNG in them. When there is RNG, it's all in the right places, and more importantly, not in the WRONG places, AKA, places where it can kill you regardless of skill. And for the non-RNG challenges, they're equally well made; none of the patterns that Definitely Not Hibachi fires at you are at all cheap or broken or anything like that, for instance, though you might get a TAD irritated at the one where the bullets blink on and off yet dont actually stop existing during the "off" state... you'll see what I mean when you get there. But even that is never unfair, never cheap.
And overall, the actual scoring system... I dont mean the age thing... seems well done too. Each minigame is weighted properly, in terms of how much overall score potential it has for you. Getting a truly high score in the main mode really will involve mastering ALL aspects of this.... which is pretty much the entire purpose of the whole idea. So that's well done.
As a rule, the different minigames are all pretty fun, and definitely quirky. The only ones I kinda dont like much are the ones called the "shooting tests". The idea is to last as long as you can, and stop things from reaching the bottom of the screen by shooting them. .....without rapid-fire. Things will take more and more hits to destroy as time goes on. That's right... this is a test of just how rapidly you can hit the damn fire button. And you have to go really... freaking.... fast.... to master it. I hit level 99 (the game measures current difficulty in "levels" that keep slowly going up over the course of each minigame) during the main game challenge the first time the "shoot the boards" one came up, and by the end of it, I'd stopped holding the controller normally, and was instead slashing my entire hand across the facebuttons, back and forth, REALLY fast, in order to keep up the utterly absurd fire rate needed to keep going. My entire arm and shoulder still hurt after having done that. The nasty part, there's an achievement for hitting level 99 in that.... but you have to do it in the challenge mode, not the main mode. I'll have to do that AGAIN later... ugh. BUt yeah, I'm not too fond of the fire-rate test thing. But I can understand why it's there, even if it is a very outdated concept (it's mostly very old shmups that had fire-rate as an important thing; nearly all modern ones use auto-fire, so that your arm doesnt fall off).
Overall though, I think the entire thing works well. Most importantly, I just find it really FUN. And that's the key to everything, eh? And I think that's what's special about THIS one.... shmups can be fun but are often also frustrating; there's always that one boss you cant quite manage, or that one enemy formation that will impede your progress, or just that one THING that happens every freaking time, and you get irritated. I know I do. But in this game... I dunno, it never gave me that feeling. When I'd screw up, I kept thinking "I can make up for that mistake in the next couple of challenges". Or something like that.
Functionally, everything is good, by the way. Controls are perfect, no issues there, there's leaderboards, and a replay-save system that works in all modes.
Overall, this is a pretty strange game, but it's one of those ones that I can recommend to any shmup fan... particularly if you like Triangle Service.
....also the soundtrack is REALLY bizarre. ....yay?
