Rysen Reviews

Absolute brutality. One of the hardest shmups I've played. Insane amount of bullets. I like shmups, but it's just too much for me. It took over 50 credits to clear it.

Rysen is a fun shmup, and it deserves more attention. One thing I want to address first - the store description says "no bullet-hell", but personally I would classify this as a bullet hell shmup. Whatever you call it, it gets very intense and there are a lot of bullets on screen. But the difficulty is reasonable, and it always feels fair. In terms of overall game flow, Rysen feels fast paced. It reminds me of something along the lines of Judgement Silversword or Eschatos. Like those games, you don't get a focus button or a full screen bomb. The action feels fast, but bullets are clearly visible and never move at an unfair speed. Extends are given out pretty generously, which is part of the reason why the difficulty is reasonable. When you die, you'll respawn in place and won't get sent back. At the start of the game, you'll choose a primary weapon and secondary weapon. You lose the secondary weapon when you die, but it's not a big deal because these weapons are dropped pretty often. For my secondary weapon, I always chose Shield. It absorbs up to 3 shots, and it was good for me as a beginner. One interesting thing to note is that you don't take damage when colliding with an enemy. So, you can move freely and just focus on avoiding bullets. Rysen's stages are designed with this in mind, because you'll see enemies swarm in from all sides of the screen. Since you don't have to worry about them crashing into you, it feels a bit different - but it works really well. Scoring is simple: you get a bonus for killing an entire wave of enemies without letting any escape. There are also some destructible things in the background that give points. I didn't really play for score, but I suppose you'd want to choose one of the more aggressive secondary weapons (not shield) to clear enemy waves. There's also a second loop of the game, but I didn't try it. There are a lot of settings, including customizable controls. However, there's no TATE mode. I had a minor issue getting Rysen to run properly in full screen, but it turned out to be an issue with my Windows settings (display scaling). Once I sorted that out, full screen was good. Rysen is priced very low, and it's definitely worth it if you're into this genre.

Why this game don't have more reviews is beyond me. A great shooting game of the more caravan enemy spawns with maybe a bit of bullet-hell. Mayhaps Dark_BMX or ShmoopJunky could help this gem of a game out by giving it some exposure? Who knows. I don't. Rocking soundtrack, killer visuals, tons of things. Customizable keys, flashes, everything. You've got your shot button, your second shot button and a change of SPEED button. This is a minor gripe because it cycles through 1 to 5 by 1 step. So for instance if your at speed 3 and want to dodge some tight patters you got to press the SPEED button 3 times to go from 3 to 4 to 5 and finally to 1 which is the slowest speed. Thank you, dev. Wish you got more buys... But such is the unpopularity of this genre, I guess. What a life!

Infinite looping shmup that (probably?) plays like the old games it's inspired by. Has some weapon loadouts choice where you either shoot a strong version of one or a weak version of both types equipped.

Definitely worth checking out if you wanna scratch a bullet hell itch with something short and sweet. Really solid, a fun way to spend an hour or so.

Rysen is the game that I would like to say that “Thunder Force, is that you?”. The game could be a small love letter to the Thunder Force fans and other shump fans. I bought it on sales (because it was very cheap) and it has potential to improve even more. I really like the current state of the game though it still need more balance and improvements. Here are the pros and cons for the game: The Pros: + Has many references from the other STG games likes Thunder Force (especially Thunder Force 2), RayForce, Alltynex Second, Raiden, Zanac,... etc. + Beautiful pixel graphic with tons of explonsions, small details and parallax to make the game more enjoyable. + Coooooool musics. + Fully-supported keyboard mapping and controller with no input lags, NOICE!! + The gameplay is simple, likes the old-school shumps: Shoot & Dodge. With the lengthy 7 stages with 2 loops without any special conditions to unlock the 2nd loop so just chill out and play it to your heart contains, because get ready to...DIE...ALOT. Yes, literally!! + For the weapon systems, you have 6 weapons in total: Straight, Shotgun, Shield, 2 types of 4-ways (“x” shape and “+” shape) and the signiture weapon from the Thunder Force series: Hunter (Homing shot). You can use these weapons as default weapons at the beginning of the game. There are 2 weapon slots: Primary and Secondary, Primary will be your unchangable weapon through out the game and Secondary can be changed through out the game. Pick up the weapon icons dropped by enemies to change your secondary. But you have 2 weapon slots that doesn’t mean you are OP, there will be some drawbacks and benefits, you can use them seperately for their normal power. If you use 2 different weapon types like Straight and Hunter, the power of each weapon will be decreased, works well for large formations of popcorn enemies but not suitable for big enemies likes bosses. On the other hand, if you use 2 same weapon types, likes Straight and Straight, the shot will be powered-up to deal more damage, best for against the bosses. So choose wisely to suit your play style. + The flight speed can be adjusted for more better navigation. + The scoring mechanic is simple, kill an enemy formation will reward you points, some formations are huge, so this is your decision to clear them or not. + The game runs smoothly 60 FPS. + Good balance on the difficulties. The Cons: - Sometimes the bullets will blend with background causing some cheap deaths (especially at the later stages when things are getting faster). - The achievements won’t pop-up when playing in fullscreen. Overall, this is solid game with challenging gameplay, with some more improvements will make the game truly shine. Get the game when it’s on-sales, because shump fans need to play this awesome STG. This is a journey to the past! Final score: 8.5/10.

A love letter to the PC Engine shooting game classics, looking at Compile games such as Blazing Lazers and the Zanac series in its weapon variety and ultra fast paced action. But also to the Star Soldiers series, with some masterfully designed multi scrolling layouts full of scoring opportunities, in the best tradition of Caravan STG games. And even to Toaplan proto-bullet hell games such as Batsugun, giving the bullet density and creative patterns in some sections. While other times it's able to put us in the zone like a modern revision of Fire Shark or Truxton, forcing us to constantly dodge bullets coming from big enemies, taking a lot of time to destroy. The feeling of desperately trying to clear a ship that is filling the screen with diabolic and hard to dodge patterns, and the satisfaction of finally destroying it. But with bullets that thankfully, most of the times, are not as fast as those on Toaplan games. With a subtle and elegant difficulty curve, feeling close to a hard 16 bits era console game, but without the frustration of losing lives with too damn fast bullets coming from nowhere, reducing the necessity of memorization. This baby only has the fun and brilliant parts of classic STG games, taking off the annoyances. It also has a superb sound design, transmitting the sensation of chaos and destruction that is so important in a fast paced STG with a Compile DNA. And while the graphics are humble, there are a lot of references and homages to 16 bits STG games that will warm your heart, including fake moving 3D sections in the background, in the best tradition of Treasure games. The soundtrack is only okay, with some rocking tunes with catching riffs close to some low-profile PC-Engine Super CD-Rom2 games. It's easy to the ears, it creates the necessary mood, but it's not memorable. So you will not start a new credit only for the joy of listening to a catchy first stage track. The developer seems to be aware of this, so there is an option to create a custom soundtrack with our own tunes. If you greatly enjoyed Teraring Games, and think that Raging Blasters was the best modern attempt in recreating the Star Soldier series, wait to play this. In my opinion, none other STG inspired by the PC Engine shooting catalogue has been so close to condensate the spirit of that era. Simply through a brilliant and clever level design, taking the best aspects of classic games. But at the same time, raising the bar with things that are only possible with modern technology, like a higher resolution. So there are a ton more of ships and bullets. And that elevates the fast paced nature of Compile games to new heights.