Rotschwert

I like this game and enjoy uncovering the mystery by completing each difficulty. The art style and soundtrack are great. It's satisfying, enjoyable, and a challenging bullet hell experience. I recommend this game

Completed all difficulties. Interesting case where all of them form one connected storyline, in ascending order. It flows rather nicely for both the Rabbits present in the game. It also makes the final difficulty the canonical(?) ending I suppose. If you're looking for an extended explanation you won't find it. (I haven't found the piece of dialogue in the storepage trailer anywhere!) However what is there is more than enough to keep your drive going. As for the gameplay, the other reviews explain a lot better than me. I'll just note a few things I found peculiar. All difficulties kind of share the same amount ofhealth, outside of Relaxed Reverie where there's more. You can feel very powerful with lots of health, but the minor amount of iframes can have a wrong turn go very poorly if you aren't careful. This is particularly noticeable if you try to melee enemies right before they shoot at you. If you're too late you will eat those bullets. Chaining is fun, it only matters for score b...

I'm a big fan of their work. Clean aesthetic, silky smooth controls, dreamy mystery vibes that remind of of Zero Ranger, and several difficulty modes will have me coming back to unpack this little gem. The passion and design sense can be felt through the whole experience. Stop reading this and support this game developer!

[h3][i]Why wouldn't you just sleep?[/i][/h3] Working title, later scrapped for fear of eye-rolling corniness and inaccuracy: [i]"Signalis and Ikaruga Walk Into A Bar..."[/i] I feel as though I have a duty to first complete this on Vivid Nightmare—the game's Hard Mode equivalent—and [i]also[/i] experiment with a couple of playstyles before I write anything that's 110% concrete, but at the same time, my mind is pretty much made up, with or without that experience/those approaches; If STGs are in your ballpark, this has to go on your list. Like, frame one. If they're [i]not[/i] in your ballpark, but you want to play something with a distinct air of intrigue to it, this still has to go on your list. It's in that rare territory of "I will straight up buy this for you if you promise me that you'll give it a fair shake," especially because this work deserves to have more eyeballs in its general direction; it feels [i]wrong[/i] seeing this exist in that certain indie realm of heavy obsc...

Rotschwert is a really solid entry to the Shoot 'Em Up category, with its use of monochrome and minimalistic aesthetic. The gameplay is pretty straight forward, you've got a tracking rapid fire attack and a slow spread burst for crowd control which requires the player to use it strategically depending on the situation, there's also a speed up button that accelerates your movement to get out of tight situations, its like a reversed focus mode. The strongest aspect of this game is the amount of content and secrets that can be found, the story is very abstract and mysterious so its up to the player to puzzle together what the actual meaning is, this is a common trend with Winged Fox and his games. sufficed to say, this is game is a fun time and I recommend it :)

I could wax philosophically about gaming as art and the artistic vision of the developer and yadda yadda -- and I will, no doubt, be doing a lot of that in my future. However, what matters in terms of game design is sound enough for me to give a recommendation on that front alone to anyone not swayed by the delightful presentation. The graphics are clean and do an excellent job relaying important information to the player at rapid speeds. The sound design is both of those things as well, not to mention the S-tier OST in each stage. The progression of challenge from stage to stage is logical and satisfying. It's just a great time all around. I've only yet put two hours in, but I imagine I'll be putting in much much more as I am bad and haven't yet beaten normal mode. The [spoiler]final phase of the final boss[/spoiler] is a cruel thing. Please play this fukken game. It rules.

I picked this up on recommendation from the Shmup Database. There's a lot to like here, but I think there are some area for improvement. This review is based on clearing the easy and normal difficulty, but not having been able to clear the nightmare difficulty. Nightmare, with the recharging health at the end of each round, feels like the "intended" way to play. In terms of presentation, despite being a horizontal scroller it's clear there is influence from both ZeroRanger and Undertale, which I very much appreciate. The monochrome presentation is unique and presents well, though it seems more effort was put into some areas than others. Some areas can be visually confusing (such as the 4th screenshot in this store page, where the background can be confused for bullets). The hand-drawn characters and cutscenes are lovely. I really appreciate the bits of narrative here, and I hope I'm able to see more if it, assuming there is more - the game does not signpost very well what is required...

what?

now, i am not good at all at bullet hells, yet something compels me to play certain ones. this is one of them. i did manage to beat easy mode, but i see that to see all the game has to offer, i need to get good, which i plan on doing. the art style is clear and looks good. the bullet patterns are beautiful and fun to dodge. the game has great pacing, and surprising variation in enemies. i loved my time with this so far and plan on spending more time with it.