ZAKESTA-Z Reviews

[i]---see where this game landed on my SHMUP tier list beneath this review!---[/i] I picked up the first 3 Steam games by this dev; [b]Kaikan[/b], [b]Zakesta-Z[/b] and [b]Varyznex[/b] in a bundle on sale for about $12 and played through them all. Compared to your typical unknown indie shmup, these are very well made. Audio is good, bullet hell gets chaotic and fun. The dev has put effort into making all sorts of fun occurances happen on each stage. I wish your ships hitbox stood out more though. My main complaint with these games is one I have with a lot of indie shmups, where you're expected to play a full run whenever you load the game. In this one you have unlimited continues, so it's easy to play through the whole thing in 20 minutes and call it a day. I wish more indie shmups would learn from some of the popular games in the genre like [b]Tyrian[/b] or [b]ZeroRanger[/b] and save your progress between the levels while also making them a little harder, so there's some actual challenge inserted into the game. No more of this dated arcade style "would you like to continue?" BS. You can always add a 'full game run' as an additional mode for retro purists. If you can save between stages though, this of course comes with the caveat that you need more than 5 levels to play as well. [b]Jamestown[/b]s method of progress is the best one I've encountered in shmups; You have a level select screen and it shows which difficulties you've beaten each stage on, as well as giving you things to unlock. This makes me much more motivated and interested to keep replaying levels on the harder difficulties. When I begin a stage in Jamestown, i'm just trying to master one tricky level as opposed to having to play a full game run where I go through the first 10 minutes of fluff I've already solved until I get to the bit I actually need to practice on. That said, if you are a retro purist, then depending on how irritated you are by the ships hitbox visibility, you may well end up considering these games as hidden gems. ===================== [b]My SHMUP Tier List[/b] ===================== [i]-Simply personal taste. I’m excluding roguelikes, boss rushes and genre mashups-[/i] [b]Loved:[/b] Jamestown | ZeroRanger | Super Hydorah | Tyrian 2000 | [b]Great:[/b] Drainus | Super Galaxy Squadron EX Turbo# | [b]Decent enough:[/b] Steel Empire | G-Darius | [b]Kaikan#[/b] | [b]Zakesta-Z#[/b] | [b]Varyznex#[/b] | Ganablade | Dogfight | Angel at Dusk* | Space Elite Force# | Space Elite Force 2 | [b]Meh:[/b] Nanoforce | Steel Rain | Eigengrau* | Zenzizenzic* | Steel Vampire | Natsuki Chronicles | Wolflame | Satazius | Zangeki Warp | Cycle Chaser H-5# | Armed Seven | Counterattack: Uprising | Burst Fighter | Supercharged Robot Vulkaiser^ | Valfaris: Mecha Therion | [b]Awful:[/b] Ginga Force^ | Nebula Fighter^ | ===================== [i]-Probably played another 100+ Shmups, but I only started this list recently and am sticking mostly to modern releases[/i] [i]-Not including any 'flying anime girl shmups' as they don't appeal to me. Believe me, I've tried.[/i] * = Felt like I was on the same screen the entire time, which I dislike. ^ = Encountered some jank. # = Too short, even for a SHMUP.