Cannonship Reviews

Cannonship is a side scrolling horizontal shoot em up of the gradius variety. The pixel art and enemy diversity offers a lot. However, the ship is woefully underpowered and slow, there are few hp power ups on each stage and no weapon power ups. You can upgrade your ship in between stages, but you may not have much gold as this game requires a lot of dodging and surviving and replenishing health means not being able to better any of the other stats which becomes a major problem in later stages. Your health does not reup after completing a stage nor after a continue, and there is only one continue. All of this matters because a game that starts out gently quickly becomes one filled with bullets and some enemies that take multiple shots. Getting to the menu and even knowing when your game is over is challenged by how fast the game moves in and out of menus if you are holding the shoot button during a stage at which you die. All that said, I know that this is a first offering from this developer, who has made quite a beautiful game. You could probably complete it with a lot of level memorization and exactly the right upgrades. More continues (true continues), a shield option, replenishing life at the completion of a stage instead of requiring 30 gold at the end, and a slightly faster and more powerful ship would make this game a must buy. Until then, if you like an old school arcade game that is pretty unforgiving and very beautifully crafted, then this is your game.

Pretty fun shmup here, and considering it was made by one person is impressive! Good enemies, patterns and...upgrades!!! Shoot enemies, get stars, complete level and use stars to upgrade shoot speed, power, pattern, replenish health and more. There's also two player co-op too! It's not terribly difficult but not a cakewalk either. Options are limited- only one difficulty and you can change to a darker background, run in window mode and a couple others. Experienced players should be able to beat the game in about an hour or less...it took me 45 minutes after a few playthroughs and seeing what upgrades worked best for me. Achievements are also a fairly straightforward 100% too.

Excellent old school shooter with neat retro graphics. A variety of opponents and substantial ship upgrade options are making the game even more interesting. Truly a 'game machine' feeling.