Rival Megagun Reviews
Rival Megagun is a competitive split-screen shoot 'em up where you transform into a giant boss ship and battle your rival head-to-head in local or online PVP.
App ID | 654100 |
App Type | GAME |
Developers | Spacewave Software, RJ |
Publishers | KOMODO |
Categories | Single-player, Steam Achievements, Steam Cloud, Multi-player, PvP, Online PvP, Full controller support, Shared/Split Screen, Remote Play Together, Shared/Split Screen PvP, Steam Leaderboards, Remote Play on TV |
Genres | Action |
Release Date | 29 Nov, 2018 |
Platforms | Windows |
Supported Languages | English, Portuguese - Brazil, French, Italian, German, Spanish - Spain, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Japanese, Russian, Korean |

2 Total Reviews
2 Positive Reviews
0 Negative Reviews
Negative Score
Rival Megagun has garnered a total of 2 reviews, with 2 positive reviews and 0 negative reviews, resulting in a ‘Negative’ overall score.
Recent Steam Reviews
This section displays the 10 most recent Steam reviews for the game, showcasing a mix of player experiences and sentiments. Each review summary includes the total playtime along with the number of thumbs-up and thumbs-down reactions, clearly indicating the community's feedback
Playtime:
1029 minutes
If anyone has ever played touhou, this game will remind them of 'Phantasmagoria of Flowerview'. The main difference from this game and that is you can actually BE A BOSS! This game has been my most anticipated game of the year ever since I saw its demo at Pax South 2018!
Great game and cheap! It well worth your money and totally viable for competition/Tournaments!
👍 : 6 |
😃 : 0
Positive
Playtime:
360 minutes
really cool and unique, had a lot of fun playing it with friends who enjoy versus games. in an ideal world there would be an absolutely bonkers esport scene for this
👍 : 0 |
😃 : 0
Positive
Playtime:
95 minutes
Vertical PvP gallery shooter. Score chains and defeat your opponent. Good ship variation with configurable loadouts. Play as a boss ship! Level up and collect gear. Awesome retro graphics and music.
[i]Listed on the [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/40858110-Shoot-%2527em-up-Database/]Shoot 'em up Database[/url][/i]
👍 : 2 |
😃 : 0
Positive
Playtime:
6803 minutes
Simply put - Rival Megagun is an incredibly fun game for PvP, with a solid Singleplayer mode.
The gameplay loop rewards resourceful, creative plays, with luck playing a certain role, but dodging, chaining skills and situational awareness being the deciding factors. There are 4 difficulty levels both for PvP and Singleplayer - the relaxing Easy/Normal modes for newer or casual players, a Hard mode offering balanced challenge, and Very Hard for the truly skilled and determined. There is a fair variety of equipment, player characters, and weapons to pick from - while some are kind of OP compared to others, it's still very fun to pick a loadout that suits your playstyle. Stay at safe range and turn enemies into fireworks with Exploding Shot, or get up close and personal with Compact Blasters. Save up energy for a powerful Boss (controlled by *you*!), or be an absolute menace spamming the enemy field with your Subweapons. The soundtrack keeps you in the groove and gets more intense when a boss is on the field.
The game now has a free demo which lets you play online with other demo players. Demo content is limited, but should work well as a taste test with your Buddies 2.0. The game came out almost 5 years ago, but there is a small community of players who regularly play online to this day. Sure, most of them are Japanese, but come on - it's 2023, just use DeepL or something. The Arcade mode is okay and has a few fun surprises, but PvP is where the game truly shines.
I recommend trying the demo first to see if the game's mechanics resonate with you. And when you feel brave - tune in on Saturdays for some PvP action! The community is very friendly with newer players and will lower the difficulty for you, so no need to be shy. Hope to see you in battle soon!
👍 : 2 |
😃 : 0
Positive
Playtime:
4137 minutes
Versus shmup that feels the closest to a traditional arcade shmup out of this type of game I've played (compared to say Twinkle Star Sprites which is more puzzle-like and has a lot of unique quirks + neogeo slowdown). Single player is pretty solid too and there are difficulty modes to match any level of player.
Multiplayer games especially on the highest difficulty can get really hectic with the bullet patterns resulting in fun improvised dodging. Highly recommended to fans of the genre if just for this.
Netcode works nicely with input delay not being introduced unless you're controlling a boss form. You can easily play across continents with little issue, and bosses having their control nerfed is honestly justified for most of them.
There is an equipment system which sounds bizarre but in my experience overall makes the game better. The baseline ships feel a bit underpowered to clearing out enemies. While if you are playing with powered up shot + return bullets (these cause enemy kill chains like TSS, or deal tactical damage to bosses!) you can get up to crazy enemy patterns as the game keeps getting harder the longer you survive. Super fun in PVP matches.
For the past few years there has been a japanese & international group playing online every Saturday @ 9pm JST for a few hours. The longevity of that group should be some proof to this being a hidden gem of a game.
👍 : 7 |
😃 : 0
Positive
Playtime:
551 minutes
Rival Megagun is a fun multiplayer shoot'em up for local and online matches. It looks great and plays quite well. The single player campaign is alright but gets a bit repetitive, good for practice though. Multiple characters and game styles to choose from. Suitable for shmup beginners and experts.
👍 : 2 |
😃 : 0
Positive
Playtime:
3591 minutes
Tons of fun, way better than TSS or PoFV. There's so many possible modes that are all uniquely fun, I lost count. I wish I knew the conditions for the Damage Up upgrade though, because when I play the German META, I'm at a disadvantage. Unless they agree to adjust the rules.
👍 : 4 |
😃 : 0
Positive
Playtime:
1723 minutes
1) This is a relatively mid-paced, simple chaining and dodging vs. shmup.
2) "Gear" shouldn't have been introduced
3) Overall, a good introduction to this niche of this genre, but it might be wise to move on to harder games once you master this.
4) Grab it on sale, jump on the discord, ask for a few games.
Rival Megagun is a vs. Shmup. You are on one side of the screen, your opponent is on the other. You both shoot enemy ships and dodge bullets. If you can maintain a chain, you both build up energy and build up drones for your opponent to shoot down. Once your chain drops, the drones spawn, and your energy is banked. If your chain dropped because you got hit, you lose a bunch of that energy. The goal is to make sure your opponent gets hit twice. You have two useful tools at your disposal: you can charge up a shot which fires character-specific objects at your opponents screen, and the ability to transform into a mega gunship, spawning a boss that you control onto your opponent's side.
The main shmup-related skill this tests is chaining. Yet, this game seems to be fairly consistent at feeding you enemies when you need them. Secondary is dodging - the bullet patterns are pretty easy to handle once you have a little experience. The fundamental difficulty of dodging the patterns and chaining the enemies is not high, but it's also not very low either.
Moving on past the core mechanics:
There's 7 characters, one unlocks through arcade mode. The characters have different shot types, special attacks, and gunships. Different characters have different strengths. As an example, Dr. Magic has a very good special attack, but his shot spread is thin, which makes chaining a lot harder. In principle, this is fair. The reality of this has not yet presented itself. However, people argue about which character is best, and a consensus hasn't been reached - this is a good sign.
There's an option to equip a loadout - you can change how drones spawn, you can give yourself two permanent powerups ("Gear") , and there's an alternate attack you can equip once you've unlocked it. Some of the gear breaks the game balance quite badly, but there's an option in multiplayer to turn it off. Turn it off, please!
The strategies for putting pressure on your opponent are often straightforward - you want to fill their screen with stuff when they have lots of stuff on it already. There don't seem to be complex or advanced mechanics regarding this, such as the ones that might be present in other games of this genre (there is no "boss counter" like in PoFV, your bombs and energy are separate...). The end result is that the meta is, at least now, very simple to learn, and the game is easy to get into. There's disadvantages to this, but I like this, because this makes it serve a purpose: it is a good, soft introduction to vs. shmups.
A few other things to tie up:
The soundtrack is about as good as you expect out of a shmup. Not excellent, not annoying.
The aesthetics are bad, and the characters are mostly 1 dimensional and unlikeable. The story is kind of a joke, but it's also aware that it's a joke. It creates this overly gamey feeling, which might leave a sour taste in some people's mouth. In this particular case, the game seems to make a point of pointing out that the characters are 1 dimensional and unlikeable, and it makes a few jokes at their expense. If the aesthetics and story were central to the game, this would be bad. In a shmup, where these elements are almost disposable, I feel like this was a good choice.
All in all, though, I think that a veteran of this genre might skip over it without feeling like he's missing too much - if you already play PoFV or Twinkle Star Sprites regularly with friends, just skip this. However, someone who wants a softer introduction to the genre would do well to grab this...after a patch or two, and maybe during a sale.
Edit: Bullet Visibility was improved through a few options added by the dev, review updated to reflect this.
👍 : 24 |
😃 : 0
Positive
Playtime:
113 minutes
I just spent a day as part of a Rival Megagun tourney hosted by a friend on Twitch. Watched something like 30 best-of-5 matches over the course of a day, played in some myself. This game rules. Totally delivers on what you see in the videos/screenshots and then some.
It is more than a clever idea, it is excellent execution. The look, feel, and sound of the game is still 100% shmup, the delicious frosting is the added challenge of trying to outplay your opponent on the other side of the screen. Managing your own attack meter and bomb count make a difference, as does the timing of your cross-screen attacks and boss transformations.
Single Player is enjoyable and polished but it's not the same as finding someone to battle against. You know how niche this genre is, so tell your friends about it and make sure the people who would like this game get to hear about it -- it just means you have more people to play with!
👍 : 5 |
😃 : 0
Positive
Playtime:
72 minutes
The game isn't particularly bad, but I feel that it's the weakest in it's niche. Pound for pound, I believe Phantasmagoria Flower View (TH9), Twinkle Star Sprites, and Change Air Blade to be better games.
Game controls well, and it does shmupy things. Arcade mode is servicable, although I feel the the very hard difficulty could've been executed better than "Hey, you have to fight a free boss mode first!" every round. Online play feels mostly fine, although controlling a boss straight up breaks sometimes, which is kind of this game's defining feature. A major bummer.
My big gripe is that some characters seem flat out better than others, in a bad way. Nano, after getting full bar, can fill about half the screen with death, whereas the evil doctor gets some bouncy balls that can sometimes trap your opponent, but oftentimes doesn't. Some enemy bullets are literally the same colour as your shot, making them invisble; an extreme design oversight in my eyes. Some stages are incredibly boring, and take too long to get exciting. For instance, earth makes me cry whenever I roll it cause that match is going to take forever due to the ease of enemies, and the slow rate at which it ramps. This games big shtick, becoming a boss, is not very functional online, and in my experience, almost equates an auto loss for at least the next round, because you don't have the resources to kill your opponent.
What confounds me even more is the addition of "loadouts" which in my eyes defeats the whole purpose of having unique characters. Just make your characters more special.
If you're interested, there's stuff to like about this game. I would just recommend checking out some other games of this variety first like the ones I listed above, because I think they're flat out better.
👍 : 48 |
😃 : 3
Negative