Viral Reload EX

There’s a story here that’s quite different from what you’d usually expect from a shoot-'em-up, and it’s surprisingly fun. It follows a former band member who turns evil, kidnaps his old bandmates, and infects them with a deadly virus. Fortunately, a scientist develops a ship that can change size and be injected into patients to fight the infection from the inside. The presentation and gameplay feel like they were made for an arcade cabinet. The playable area is limited to the center of the screen, while both sides are filled with static background artwork that gives the game a distinct arcade look. That same straightforward approach carries over to the controls. You don’t have much to keep track of. Besides movement, you only have your weapon, an optional auto fire mode, and a dash. There are no weapon upgrades for your main gun or screen clearing bombs, but you do get two firing modes. While inside patients, you fire several bullets straight ahead. During stages at normal size, your shots become homing projectiles instead. Progress is wave based, so you have to defeat every enemy before moving on to the next wave. The waves are randomized, but they’re selected from a pool of pre-made patterns. Each stage consists of ten waves, with the last one featuring an entertaining boss fight. Bosses change their attack patterns and behavior as their health drops, and they often catch you off guard with a few cheap shots the first time you face them simply because you don’t know what’s coming. Stages are played in order, but thankfully you don’t have to beat them all in a single run. Once unlocked, you can continue from the last stage you reached. That’s a good thing because the game is brutally difficult. Death comes quickly if you’re not careful since you can only take one hit, and you only have three lives. Losing a life also restarts the current wave, so brute forcing your way through isn’t an option. It’s especially frustrating when it happens against the final enemy of a wave or when you’re just seconds away from defeating a boss and have to repeat the entire fight. The unique dash mechanic will save you countless times. It lets you pass through enemies, bullets, and other projectiles without taking damage. Since there’s no cooldown, success comes down entirely to timing. The dash doesn’t cover much distance, so it’s easy to dodge one bullet only to end up flying straight into another, and you can only dash left or right. If you’re not interested in the story, there’s a classic arcade mode where you simply play through the stages and see how far you can make it. The main difference is that you can collect pills that protect you from one hit. The final mode is a boss rush. Once you unlock a stage, you can jump straight into its boss fight whenever you want, making it a great way to practice the toughest encounters.

Well-polished wave-based shmup. Difficulty is pretty high until you get a handle on the game but there are training/practice modes for the stages and bosses which are very useful. The cutscenes are well done and gave me a genuine chuckle occasionally which is rare :) The game is criminally cheap too, so no reason not pick it up if you enjoy the demo.

The game has two main aspects to the gameplay: 1- The Dash: You have a side dash that grants you invincibility frames, and recharges almost immediately. You have a brief window after using it where you're vulnerable an can't use it again, so over using it will eventually a zip directly into enemy bullets. 2- Enemy Wave-based Short Encounters: Unlike other shmups, this game does not try to create a bullet pattern, but rather, it has enemies that shoot / behave in different ways, and each short wave sets up an enemy pattern for you to manage. In each stage, you must defeat 9 waves of enemies and the boss at the end. Dying once resets the wave / boss, dying 3 times resets the stage. It takes some getting used to with the dash. You don't want to over rely on it, but you also don't want to forget about it. some waves you can manage to just avoid the bullets, some enemies demand the use of the dash. I found myself switching between "Dashing mode", and "Avoidance mode" until I slowly incorporated the dash into normal play. The game often makes you select between two characters, the human and the octopus. The human has more firing power, while the octopus has homing projectiles. I gravitated more towards the human because I can be more deliberate in destroying the enemies quickly before things get out of hand, and it helps me focus more during gameplay. The pixel art is very low-res, and the game started with a strong screen shake. I nearly got a headache the first few minutes of play, but thankfully, you can reduce the screen shake, and I got used to the presentation. Overall, it's a fun and a tad difficult game.

hey that's pretty good

[b]Impressions from the first 3 levels:[/b] The demo save carries over to the main game (a lovely touch), so give the demo a try. It's easy to pick up - just two buttons: one for firing and one for dashing. The dash is a short-distance slide/teleport, really well done - it wipes out any bullets you touch mid-dash. The button mapping is excellent: X for shooting, A for dashing. You never have to move your thumb off the fire button - just roll it down to press A while still holding X. It reminds me of Ikaruga on the GameCube controller, where you fired with B and could roll your thumb onto A to switch polarity without ever letting go of fire. The gameplay choices are clearly designed to eliminate frustration. For example, destroying an enemy also wipes out its floating bullets, which makes for a very friendly, frustration-free experience. The story is light-hearted with easy, breezy language - no dense text - and it feels like a fun comic strip. On restarting, there's a toggle to always skip cutscenes you've already seen, and every cutscene can be skipped with a long press. The design decisions feel deliberate and meticulous, all aimed at reducing frustration - the mark of a well-thought-out game. It also runs natively on Linux / SteamOS (a huge plus) - one more sign of a forward-thinking, well-thought-out game.

Viral Reload EX is a retro-style shoot-’em-up with neat colorful pixel art and cool cutscenes. The story is about an infected group that we have to save by shrinking down and destroying the virus inside them. Gameplay-wise, it’s not easy, but once you learn the enemy and boss patterns, it becomes much more manageable and satisfying. Each level consists of 10 waves, and completing them allows you to save your progress. The game also has local co-op for up to two players, but you play one at a time. Defeating bosses also unlocks cassette tapes with new music for the boombox. Follow Curator: [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/44793303-The-games-that-I%2527ve-played/]The games that i`ve played[/url]

Pog game

Pretty neat game, pick it up if it's on sale. Not worth $10. Visually, the game looks good. The music is repetitive. While the dashing is a cool mechanic, I feel like it was severely underutilized. Every variation of the only time you need to dash is when there's a full-lane laser coming your way. So in terms of being creative around its core mechanic, the concept is there but the execution is pretty shallow. For $10, the amount of content is also very small. The game does some tricks to make you think it's longer than it is. You'll do 9 waves of enemies, and then a boss. The waves are somewhat random (there's only a relatively small pool of patterns that can spawn). And the bosses are pretty challenging. One hit will either reset you to the start of a wave or the start of the boss. It's pretty unforgiving, which quickly sucks the fun out of it. This difficulty is also compounded by having a very large hitbox for a shmup. Overall, a very unforgiving arcade shooter with a good theme.