Z-Warp

Good game and had a lot o fun. The game has only 5 stages plus a sixth boss, and they are short, but they are fun and it makes learning the patterns easier. Good music and multiple difficulty options for casual and veterant players. You start with zero credits but are going to earn more of them as you play so anyone can beat the game. And any game that makes me kick baphomet´s ass is a big plus for me. My only gripe is that there are way too many distracting flashing lights and the backgrounds get lost in all the chaos.

newbie friendly bullet-hell.

[h2] Very good little SHMUP with innovative ideas! [/h2] I believe we live in the golden era of video-games. If you dig enough, there are plenty of fresh ideas everywhere, especially coming from indie developers — who are something like the (now) cult movie directors of the 60s and 70s discovering new ways of expression through visual form. Z-Warp is a perfect example of how lucky we are to live in this golden era. Although it is not a masterpiece of a game (actually it is a very short and simple one), it is extremely fun, accessible and joyful. Plus, while being classical in its gameplay, it has some mechanics that renew our perspectives on how to approach shmups. The core mechanic in this game is the bomb system. In Z-Warp, you have unlimited bombs, but they take a while to charge and must be managed wisely, with precision. Also, you can touch the bosses with your spaceship (which is quite unusual), and this makes their bullet-hell shootings very fun to avoid. The graphics, cadency, sounds, gameplay and hitboxes are nice. It is also an easy game to platinum, but moderately hard to master. A good acquisition in anyone's library. EDIT: I said that it is not a masterpiece. Don't listen to me. In fact, it is. After playing more, I realized how good the level design is: ingenious, never repetitive and without a dull second in the entire gameplay. The short length of the game is good in this case, because you will be replaying it a lot. I can see myself returning to this little gem again and again over the years.

Great.

flashy and a bangin' soundtrack

Fun little tribute to DoDonPachi. It's a short experience but great for a run or two trying to beat it without continuing or to better your score. Also, not too difficult, so recommended to players getting into shoot-em-ups.

Looking at Panda Indie Studio's releases, it looks like after [b]Project Starship X[/b] they decided to focus on smaller projects (which they also did while that game was in development). This is one of those, a short shmup that can be finished in 15-20 minutes but is really good to play. The ship is the same from PIS's (...uh) other games, and the Snappy boss is recycled from [b]PSX[/b], but the rest of the graphics looks completely new, using a lo-fi style with very stark color contrasts. The ship is the only mechanical object in levels themed on the insides of the body, with creatures and backgrounds that still look more cool than gross - who thought getting to a ship called E.V. Horizon was a good idea? There's also a welcome [i]tate[/i] mode if you can rotate your screen vertically. This developer keeps having great taste in finding fitting musicians for their games, the boss theme especially. Beside a classic bullet hell shot - wide if tapping the fire button, concentrated beam and slower ship if holding - there is a bomb that the game itself advises players not to be shy about using, since it recharges by itself fairly quickly. Also in a pretty original touch, even a partially charged bomb can be unleashed, but it will only cancel bullets in the area around the ship. Needless to say, the game has several situations where either of those methods are absolutely necessary to survive obstacles and bullet barrages that are impossible (or almost) to survive otherwise. Some bosses may launch relentless attacks that force you to never bring the bomb to 100% because bullet canceling is more urgently needed. Bosses themselves are not subject to collisions, because their bullets can come from everywhere; my favourite is the one themed on stomach reflux (!?), with barrages coming from the bottom of the screen. In any case, the game is always fair, signaling from where an enemy wave or the next boss attack is coming. The five levels are finely crafted and balanced, it's not easy even at the lowest difficulty but not punishing either, gifting more credits after the first positive results - but forget keeping your score if you use one! Getting to the fifth boss and destroying it while never continuing is required after all, to access the true final battle. The only true issue I have is that there is lots of potential for eye strain, not new from Panda's games to be fair, even though the bullets are always clear. [b]Z-Warp[/b] has gone periodically on sale for a couple € over the years, a must if you like the genre even marginally.