The Rush

As someone with 0 hours in this game and totally had no part in the soundtrack, this is absolutely incredible! P.S. the music slaps so hard.

have to admit i got frustrated at times, and i didn't like playing with checkpoints at all while still having to conserve lives. i had more fun with the "restart from position" option enabled. the game is really difficult, and the scoring doesn't feel very rewarding. thankfully, there is (probably an oversight which i kinda felt bad about exploiting but hey the game's hard enough and it doesn't work that well on 1.5 difficulty) a way to max out lives and score, simply by sticking to the back of the stage 1 boss and following it around (which will make your score skyrocket in the millions if you're patient enough, and in any case will dwarf any legitimate scoring from the stages). it also seems that scores aren't conserved between game starts, so if you close the game your scores will be gone. wasn't a big fan of that but it doesn't matter that much after all, especially with my previous points. with the negatives out of the way...... the soundtrack is EXCELLENT, and i think the game looks awesome. i may have had some trouble following the action with the colors and sizes but overall it is very aesthetically pleasing. also the game is FREE?? and it's clearly a huge passion project, and i did have fun with the game overall and i was pleasantly surprised. for all the things i disliked, it's still a whole lot better than a fair bunch of shmups i've paid for on steam lol.... i'm mainly leaving this review to support the dev since i think the game is quite cool, and i hope they get to make more games in the future. EDIT: i feel like my review sounds too negative on the gameplay side, i'm also going to mention that on one of my runs i randomly was sent into a secret stage with awesome music and i thought that was really cool, the game's handling feels pretty neat and the whole gameplay is quite tight. most of my negative feelings are also in part due to me not being THAT into more old-school shmups (i am a danmaku baby), and i'm not personally fond of mechanics that revolve around you spending a lot of time right next to enemies, at least not without bombs or other screen clearing effects. also the level layouts are very varied and the endgame was pretty hype with all the minibosses and stuff. just a cool game all around

I give this a big yes.

[h1]これはまさにMSXにあったシューティングだっ！[/h1] ってプレイしたら思ったんですよ、ストアの説明に思いっきりMSXのシューティングにインスパイアって書いてありました。 最低難易度で4面ボスまでプレイ。（通常だと2面頭あたり…） レトロゲーム好きといってもファミコンくらいの不条理さどんとこいな人におすすめ。 アーケード版のシューティングとか、はいはいこんな感じだったわーとなります。 （お金使って貰うために高難易度だらけだったそうな） 全9ステージだと思うトレーニングモードで選択できた。 難易度0.5～1.5で0.5刻みおそらく敵弾の数が変わっている。 ボスは最高難易度の攻撃がおおーってなる。 アイテムはスピードアップ、メイン武器、サブ武器、1UP、点数アイテムがある。 武器はそれぞれ雑魚ドロップ3種くらい、ボスドロップのちょっといい武器がある、ミスごとにそこまでで取得した武器であれば選択できる。 基本横スクロールだが横向いたままの縦スクロールステージもあり。 レトロゲー風味なシューティングといえばそう、覚えゲーですよね、気合避け勢には厳しい、とっさに避けようにも地形にぶつかるし…。 ↓ 敵弾に見づらいものがある（何種類かある弾のうち薄くキラキラしてゆっくり動く弾がやらしい） 敵弾が速い。（初期スピードで躱せないレベルの弾がまれによくある） 目の前、真後ろに敵が沸く、攻撃できない位置に敵がいる（武器種によってはあたる） そこのザコ倒してここを抜けるぞ！って思って倒したら敵が爆散… （地形有りで倒さないと進めないのに倒したら4-16方向（難易度による）に弾飛ばすのはワナ） 強制スクロールで地形に挟まれる。 ボスの回避不能攻撃（といってもその前にいい位置に移動しておけば避けられるのだと思う、予備動作は当然ない） などなど もし当時にあったならと考えるとめちゃくちゃ出来が良いです。 昭和ならフルプライス4800円くらいの出来です、なんと無料ですよ！

"The Rush" is a poorly made 2D retro pixel side scrolling shmup/bullet hell kitbashed out with the blight on gaming that is GameMaker Studio... enabling people who can't get jobs as game developers to have something they can publish on Steam for $100 through Steam Direct. I mean, otherwise they'd have to use RPG Maker. Anyway this is a really poorly done shooter with locked controls, pixelcrap "art" etc etc... one of literally hundreds, and not one of the better ones. At least it faithfully captures the aesthetic of the failed and unpopular MSX "standard" for home computers that never really caught on. This features really godawful, lazy pixelcrap "art" instead of real graphics. It's hard to say if this was because the developer didn't have the skill to do the job of creating 3D visuals, or couldn't afford to hire someone who does, but it also doesn't matter. What matters is that this looks bad because of that decision, and that's a major deterrent to gamers. Games like Terraria and Stardew Valley succeeded [i]despite[/i] the bad graphics, not because of them. This is only free in a rudimentary sense... the developer has their hand out for a $5 USD "donation" for this as you're expected to buy some soundtrack DLC from Steam... digital panhandling. Like the homeless guys who splash dirty water on your windscreen at the traffic lights. No thanks. Even though this is "free", it failed to appeal to the 120 million+ gamers on Steam. SteamDB showed the game peaked at only 4 concurrent players... this is a dismal public reception. This was so bad they couldn't even give it away. Bearing in mind that free games don't add +1 to your game collector count, should you bother adding this to your library and downloading it? Not this time. This isn't worth downloading. While this won't cost you any money, you get what you pay for, and sometimes, even when the game is free, it's still not enough.

Good & tough

Man this game is too easy! I like the lullaby jingle when you press start. :)