ZeroRanger

I'm not a shmup guy, but whenever I boot up ZeroRanger I become a shmup guy. It's tough as nails, that's the point. Like the arcade games of old, you start out trash and develop mastery one run at a time. Beautiful art, blood pumping tunes, ZeroRanger is an incredible game that's difficult to put down.

The way ZeroRanger's difficult scales and progresses is extremely clever. The challenges themselves remain the same, but you get more "lives" by dying (there's complexities to how that works) in a way that makes it naturally match your skill level. If you're good at the genre, you go straight into a harder experience, while struggling turns it into something more manageable. It achieves this without feeling like the game is going easy on you. Knowing how it works doesn't break the magic. I think that's very impressive. And if you choose to continue mastering the game, the systems provide a very natural ramp toward a more traditionally challenging vertical shooter experience.

Please ignore my playtime: i originally purchased this game as part of an itch.io bundle. It was just so unbelievably good that i opted to buy it a second time. Zeroranger is one of the best games I've ever played. It has one of the best soundtracks I've heard and it was composed using. i kid you not. Microsoft GS MIDI Wave-table. If you're not in the know, that's the default MIDI soundfont that comes with windows, It's usually regarded as so bad that most people immediately replace it with something else. This game took that and turned it into something that easily hangs out With the music of Undertale or one of the good RGG games. The Art of the game extracts such an absurd amount of detail and fluidity from 8 colors that any color combination of green and orange has become an inside joke with my friends. This game is so good it ruined COLORS for me. .. Or did it make them better? The enemy arrangement and bullet patterning is so engaging that Toby fox tapped one of this game's developers for Deltarune's chapter 5. It's so good that i think about it when i'm playing anything that remotely resembles a bullet hell. I had never played a real Shoot em' Up before this game, and now I've played every touhou and len'en game. And Zeroranger still holds up as one of the best. If you have any interest in the genre, I implore you to at least try the demo. It's difficult, but not inaccessibly so. At least to me, Zeroranger is a game about confronting impossible odds, and persevering through them. I think many people misinterpret it as being about Buddhism, and while it uses a lot of Buddhist iconography and ideas, I think it's in service of the game being about absolute determination, rather than enlightenment, The end game difficulty spike is entirely also in service of this, and if you have the patience, it's intensely rewarding to actually overcome Despair. [spoiler] While the save deletion point is extremely frustrating, it's worth knowing that you can get back to that point very quickly once you've gotten the game down well. [/spoiler] I can only wish there was more to play. An extra game mode has been in the works for years, but i don't have full faith that it will ever be finished. I do have my full faith, however, that Anything System Erasure makes is worth playing. (If only i wasn't horrible at sokoban, lol) [spoiler] You can Hold space bar and type "helpme" on the main menu to access the WIP black onion game mode. [/spoiler]

If Undertale met Space Invaders, then this game would be born of such union.

if you lose to the true final boss it wipes your saves lost to true final boss what a beautiful game

good shmup, unforturnately it lacks comprehensive practice modes that allow the player to segment off bosses and different segments of the stages.

I can't give this game a bad recommendation. It's clearly a very good shooter, and if you like that sort of thing I'm certain you'll have a good time with this. The only real design criticism I have is that the visuals could do with a high contrast mode as often enemies and your ship blend into the terrain. However I still refunded it. As a puzzle gamer who was only playing for more Void Stranger lore I really really tried to like this game but I just... couldn't. Had to ask myself "Am I enjoying this?" and "Would I be playing this if it weren't for Void Stranger?" and the answer was no. If you're coming here from Void Stranger and you don't normally play shmups, probably watch a streamer or a lets play instead.

This game... this game. How do I even describe it? It's something you just have to experience. It's an impressive piece of media that can keep you invested even through a clenched jaw and controller-smashing infuriation, and even more impressive to let you come out the other end wanting to praise it wholeheartedly.