Zone of Lacryma

[h1] Sweet little shooter with some minor story in which you gotta fly fast to charge your shield and increase your firepower. Basically your job is to do simple tasks for "some peculiar company". Each mission grants you experience which you can use to upgrade your trusty spaceship. Controls are good and nothing to complain here. Visuals try to stand out and use only a few colors with some low res graphics. Sound is ok but a bit too loud and very crunchy. Ok if you want something small and shorter to play. [/h1]

I can just barely recommend this because I got it on a very steep sale, but even then it has some big caveats. Good stuff: - It really tries to do something new. It's mostly a visual novel with some very old school shooting game stages between its chapters. Very, very old school. - The artistic expression here is genuinely nice. The restrained color palette, the spacious stages, the somber soundtrack, it all feels good together. Neutral stuff: - It's very short. Not necessarily a big deal, most shmups are, but since this is leaning more into the world of being a story that you play through, it's a bit more difficult to accept. I've only played for 30 minutes and I'm more than halfway through the whole game. To keep the runtime down, the writing is extremely blunt. It relies heavily on tropes, and as a result it's a story you've heard many times before. As someone who reads a lot of sci-fi, I can't really get into it. - Increasing weapon power as a result of how high you're keeping yo...