HORGIHUGH (ホーギーヒュー) Reviews

Steam version doesn't run on Linux.

I wanted to like this game. Looks fun, the graphics are neat but that's about it. There are no actual options so you have to find the manual to even figure out how to enable full screen. Then the sound is INCREDIBLY LOUD and there are no options to lower sound in game. Could've been a fun little game, but yeah I refunded it after blasting my eardrums out.

Can't recommend in the current state. I get inexplicable frame drops (drops to 30 FPS on third stage) even though my hardware should be overkill for this (RTX 2080 Ti, 3900X). It does not read POV hat as d-pad movement or support joystick remapping, so you can't use a DS4 pad out of the box. Also, it will stretch without preserving aspect ratio, meaning it is stretched out on my 21:9 screen. Besides the myriad technical problems, gameplay-wise there are several issues. The blue money cubes look too similar to enemy bullets, and when the screen scrolls up or down your ship also moves with the scrolling, which means you can crash into the scenery even though you did not move at all. I feel like this game needs a lot more polishing and play testing, but it looks like there haven't been many updates since release. I requested a refund. I think there could be a good game underneath, but not in its current state.

Shoot-em up with cute animal characters. Personally, like Touhou, I really suck at these games. xD However gameplay is fluid and the music is enjoyable. I found the plot a bit weird but the game charm really hooked me up. Overall a positive experience.

A fun horizontal shoot 'em up with high production values in the visual and music categories. My playtime is understated, I enjoyed this game so much I purchased it again when it launched on steam to have english translations. This version is the same other than that as far as I can tell to the original Japanese release. The game's strongest points are its visual artwork and sound. The gameplay is also good, with tight controls and a fun overall balance, definitely more old school than new school in the way it presents its take on the genre, which is a double edged sword at times. The penalty for dying is to lose all your powerups, which is fairly punishing given there are about 8 or 9 levels of power ups plus shop items (an in game shop in a shmup is probably the game's most modern inclusion and it works well). If I could stress anything in this review it's that the game is harder than it looks. Initially I was turned off from buying it because I saw a 1cc video that made it look easy, but I find the difficulty enjoyable and it's definitely not too easy. Easy mode is a nice inclusion that only changes the penalty for death to drop you two levels instead of being reset. Even that provides a fun challenge as the basics go unchanged. As in the Japanese version, the options are limited in terms of configuration (unless I'm missing something). I have to use borderless gaming to get full screen and there is no in game menu to do pad assignments (although on a hori rap 4, it mapped to a very logical setup by default). Overall I'd recommend it!

I'm not sure what it is about this game that I like so much, but I sure have been playing it a lot recently. Despite the fact that there are a number of small bugs at the time of writing the review (which will probably be fixed pretty soon), I really enjoy the game for what it is. It is a bit on the easy side for a shmup player however, so it would be nice if a hard mode was added in the future.

HorgiHugh is a game that has high production values when it comes to its visuals and music, and its gameplay seems fine for a shmup. However, you don't have to play the game much to find out that it definitely needed more time in the oven, or at least a proper post launch support. The very first thing you notice after running the game, is the lack of any settings whatsoever. You cannot set your desired graphical settings such as resolution and display mode, you cannot change your keybinds, and you cannot change sound volume levels. If you have not read the manual beforehand (which is a JPG file in the game's installation directory) or the text-based manual on the Steam discussions page, you might even struggle to find the selection keys on the keyboard for a while. And can I talk about how weird the controls are on the keyboard? You use the directional keys to move, Shift to shoot, Ctrl to dodge, Space to change your partner's formation (when you get them as a powerup) and Enter to unleash your bomb ability. I can deal with Shift and Ctrl, I can deal with Space bar too. But Enter as the bomb button? Who thought this was a good layout to use in a game with no key rebinding feature? Putting that aside, it's time to get to the gameplay. On the surface, HorgiHugh is another well-made shmup. The controls are tight and the overall balancing of the game seems fair, resulting in a fun experience. Although it doesn't take much for the cracks to show themselves. For starters, the game acts very confused when it comes to some of its rules. While the game warns you briefly if an enemy is approaching from behind, there are some enemies that don't have a warning, rushing at you from behind at full speed and requiring you to memorize when and where they come out. Is this something that rarely happens in a shmup? Well, no. But it IS very inconsistent to have a warning for some enemies and then not have one for the others. The same confusion applies to the shop as well. The shop offers upgrades that are permanent until you exit the game, and upgrades that vanish after death. Yet it does not tell you which is which. It makes you wonder why the devs did not confine the upgrades to the playthrough you are currently doing (like many other games) to avoid such unnecessary confusions. Second, the basic offensive and defensive abilities that you have are so worthless. The loop-de-loop is very ineffective as while it might give you a brief period of invulnerability, but the looping makes you go back to where you started the motion, potentially hitting another projectile and dying. A simple barrel roll with the option to choose the direction could have been much better. And the flash bomb? It takes a whole lot of time for the powerup to charge, just to wipe all enemies and keep their projectiles intact, and flash the screen to white for a moment so you cannot see the latter at all. This is such an underwhelming effect for a supposedly powerful offensive attack that takes time to charge up. The game also has a number of technical issues that result in unreliable behaviour. From time to time, you can run into audio mixing problems. Sometimes tracks and sounds play on top of each other and become loud as a result, some other times you can witness sounds becoming quieter than what they are supposed to. Or you might try to pause and quit your playthrough, just to find out the pause screen is not showing up at all. There's also an issue that happens only in level 3. The whole game works very fine and runs in constant 60fps; as expected from a game with such low system requirements. However, the moment you enter level 3, the game drops to 30fps and stays like that until the end of the level. This is an issue that has been present in the game since 2020, experienced by many users as visible on the store page's reviews, yet has not been fixed by the devs as of May 2023. If all of what I mentioned are not signs that the game was just dumped here without proper support planned for it, I don't know what are. Overall, while HorgiHugh looks and sounds gorgeous and its gameplay proves to be fine even though it suffers from a couple flaws, the quality of its PC version is highly questionable for a game that came out in 2019. The lack of several important features such as configurable options and key rebinding, in addition to lacking post launch support and technical issues remaining unfixed, makes this game hard to recommend.

This game is very charming and I enjoyed it a lot for its presentation and most of its stages and bosses. However, it comes with issues that do make it an acquired taste: - Dying resets your power completely. It's often very possible to recover as the game isn't too difficult otherwise but it can be frustrating in some sections and especially when getting into the game. - The pause button is P. I thought I simply couldn't pause until somebody told me that. - There's no real practice mode. You can skip to a stage you've reached already but you'll start with minimum power. - Stage 6 is a boss rush of all the previous bosses. It's purely just padding out the game loop. - The snow stage often causes the game's framerate to go down from 60fps to 30fps. This doesn't slow down the game but it can be irritating. Luckily, the affected section doesn't require any precision. - Bosses do not time out which is why there's an infinite in the game. This greatly discouraged me from caring about scoring. -Sound effects can be played multiple times within the same frame and can end up being very loud as a result. Unfortunately, I doubt the game will get updated or patched but one thing I'd really like is if there was a harder difficulty than Normal as well. There's only an easier one.