EpicRecovery Reviews

EDIT 3/8/22:The dev added English language and Leaderboards 10/10. It is very good, the only bad thing is that it is in Japanese, the main menu is in English, it is not a problem to play it, but it has a story with images that is unlocked and it would be good if it was in English.

This is a fun game with a simple but compelling scoring mechanics: Collect all the stars as fast as possible! I like that enemy formations are random. The game works well with my Saturn USB pad.

My recommendation ultimately came down to the extreme low price of this game. If it was more expensive, I don't know if I would recommend it. It doesn't seem to have any glaring flaws, but it also does not excite me, either. EpicRecovery is a vertically scrolling shoot 'em up that is laid out more like a test. Which fit the story I've unlocked so far. Each stage has a number of enemy waves showing the enemy type to the player kinda like future pieces in Tetris. Additionally, the game indicates where these enemy waves are coming on screen, as well as; the size of the ship(s) via the size of the indication chevron. And the size indication is nice, since I rarely look at the lineup of enemy ship waves coming. I suppose the name of the game comes from the fact that things can quickly become a bullet hell if you lose dominance of the play area and have to get it back. Often using the limited resource bomb attack clearing the screen and destroying the popcorn enemies. Or conversely, destroying the larger enemy ships, which often also clears their bullets. There's nothing inherently wrong with the game play. However, I find the presentation very sterile and more like a puzzle game. The stages feel like little tests. You're even graded on your performance each stage. But because each stage is a jumble of small, medium and large enemy ships, if doesn't really feel like I'm piloting a space fighter ship. Even if all the shmup mechanics are there. I suppose the lack of a background layer or terrain to show progress is partly to blame. And possibly the lack of mid-level and end-level bosses (at least for the amount of stages I reached) reinforces that. As well as the stages themselves being pretty short. I can't quite put my finger on what's missing here. EpicRecovery just leaves me underwhelmed. I can't say entirely why. It's not doing anything obviously wrong, but even when I'm forced with weave and dodge or absolutely controlling the field, the game just doesn't thrill me like other shooters. But because this game isn't expensive, and because I can't articulate why I'm underwhelmed; I'm still going to give it the thumb's up. Just know, it's an incredibly weak recommend.