VRITRA COMPLETE EDITION Reviews

Was craving something akin to old school side scrolling shmups, and this game is exactly what I was looking for. Decent graphics, great music, and great gameplay.

[h1]Only on a sale, and only if you're an OG shmup fan[/h1] I was attracted to this game because of the graphics. Something in the screenshots reminded me of some big sprites coin-op shmups from around 1988. The graphics are nice, I don't know what it is but it made me feel like I was playing on a CRT sometimes. It fills up the screen nicely. The gameplay on the other hand is not the best. Initially the game feels okay, you have to finish the easy mode, then you unlock new modes: arcade, hard, and insane, which are the real difficulties and you get the real boss on the last two difficulties. Surprisingly you can't upgrade your weapons, which might make the average shmup fan feel cheated, but after all it lets you focus on the level memorization and it's not really a bad thing. I am personally a fan of the R-Type school of shmup, which means slow movement with high difficulty, without bullet inflation (you and most of the enemies take only one bullet to get destroyed) which gives you the opportunity to find patterns, and this type of gameplay favors memorization to master the game and try to "1cc" it, which is the real way to play shmups. It's not the paradigm here, everything goes extremely fast, most of the enemies are bullet sponges, and the game gives you infinite continues. Even worse, it increases your lives total by one each time you use a continue (without limit). This is a very bad thing because on high difficulty on the last level it's practically impossible to not get hit by the walls of bullets thrown at you, and you can't really 1CC the game. That means your only chance to win the most difficult levels is to "farm" lives, by using continues until you have enough lives to have a chance. That means increasingly long play time for this level. The last level has three consecutive bosses, the first one not too difficult but overly long to beat, and the last two being very difficult and bullet-spammy, and farming lives to beat them will take several hours, at least the first few times you'll play it. That's several hours restarting the same level from the start. I was very torn about this game, and was about to give it a negative review, but after all the game is okay if you don't try the biggest difficulties, and ratehr pleasant. It's just that it doesn't have a lot of content, so buy it on a sale preferably. [h1](follow my curator page [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/33882793/]GenXPlayers[/url] for more retro and indie reviews)[/h1]

I've had this game for a while now, and I've loved every minute of it when playing. It's a great horizontal Shump very reminiscent to the R-Types and Gradius games, with great gameplay and even greater soundtrack.

It's a polished shump game. The music is great, the mechanics does make you want to try more for a higher score, but the biggest gripe I have atm that caused me to not play it for a whole day, coming 2 days this review is made. I unable to play the game after I quit playing it on full screen out of nowhere. Clicked "play" multiple times. Had "running" for a few seconds and just cut off. Tried everything, but failed. What I trying to say is that I can't recommend this if ppl having this problem and there's no way to contact the developers(unless can speak japanese) to address this type of problem. If the problem is addressed then the recommendation will change. Update 9/14, had to work around it on Steam's part in their folders, but it working again. So the recommend changed. Plus the assistance from the developer in the discussions put a good feel in customer service for not giving up.

Shmups! Lots of bullets, lots of enemies, lots explosions, lots of fun :3 This is a very nice package. Good oldschool formula wrapped into a story mode wonderfully reimagining a myth of two rival dragons, randomized endless mode for keep beating your highscore and chaos challenge mode to get best score in given environment (actually I have no idea how to describe this one but it's nuts in a good way). Even though it's not really my genre and decided to try it mostly because dragons (duh) I actually had a real blast anyway until I hit the wall with how many achievements I can hoard. Clearly one of those titles where only the most hardcore and committed bullethell fans will dare to try to earn them. Oh well, sometimes can't have them all and it doesn't even hurt when the journey until then was so enjoyable and adrenaline spiking :3 Agh I can't complain. It's about derg firing lots of lasers to stop the bad derg. What not to love if one already loves action games? :3

Let's get this out of the way: This game is ridiculously hard. Normal is tolerable. Arcade is okay and a good challenge if you want to sink some hours into it. Expert and insane...idk. The final level is looong, and it includes 3x bosses that if you die on the last one (the true final boss), then you have to start from the beginning of level 5 again. LoL, yes it is that stupid. Let's get one more thing out of the way before moving onto the positives. The subweapons. They are not that great. Half or a third of the subweapons follow your movement so you move forward and the subweapon fires backwards; therefore, you end up having to constantly adjust to get the weapon to fire in the correct direction. Sometimes Enemies can also fly thru objects and walls, other times they can't. This happens a lot on level 5. Side Dragons can block some types of bullets, but it's no r-type where you can throw them around to block bullets, nor are the little dragons big enough to really be considered a useful shield. Onto the good stuff. I enjoy the theme, the color palette, and I enjoy the dragon blast attack which is used to increase your multiplier. The dragon blast is replenished by simply firing your main weapon. So there's some simple memorization and strategy here to blast large waves of enemies for score. Unfortunately, the multiplier only affects score. It would be nice if the multiplier also increased attack power. The main story is okay. The level intros could keep the text on the screen longer so one could actually read the paragraph long story being told. It does feel like a quest with you flying in the clouds, down into caverns, etc. Tho Level 2 or 3 does confuse me as it starts and ends with an industrial feel, but the middle is filled with an odd inside someone's intestines feel. Like I said the game is rather hard, but the developer has made it so that each Continue adds a 1 uP to your next run. This must all be done on a single run tho. On my first Hard playthrough, I needed 14x Lives to beat Level 5 b/c of the long level coupled with 3 bosses. Without the +1 Lives I never would have seen the true last boss So what exactly is good about this game? The Mugen modes. They are two extra modes. One is a survival mode and the other is a single level Score Attack where the level never changes. Both are high energy and focused. These levels compliment this game as it is overly hard and the whole thing feels like a survival game that I'd never be able to 1CC on Hard or Beyond anyways. Just google Mugen Vritra if you want to see this mode in action. Obviously, not a lot of action chasing High Scores. The game is dead, and every 1st run with a different subweapon ranked me 10-40th place lol. As I write this I'm wondering if I really should recommend it. And this is my conclusion: I'd say this game is worth about $2.99, but it only drops to $6.99. If you had a group of shmup friends on Discord or whatnot, it would be fun chasing each other's survival scores for a week long tournament, but that's it because you are not missing anything here. There's no community, there's no one to discuss it with. It's just another forgotten shmup in the sea of shmups with robot insect bosses.

The gameplay is great, plays like an old-school shooter like gradius, r-type, dragon breed - the controls are solid, the button combos are simple. I love the endless and caravan modes.

Really glad I bought this! Great Horizontal STG that feels like a true japanese shoot em up. No laggy/floaty controls like most euro/us shmups of today (personally can't stand this). Music fits perfectly with the action and graphics are pretty nice. Reminds me of good old games like Dragon Spirit/Saber mixed with Thunder Force gameplay. Give it a shot you won't be disapointed!

Vritra is a solidly competent SHMUP, in brief something I would describe as a fusion of R-Type Leo, Thunder Force III, and Dragons. Before playing on higher difficulties, this is very much like a classic hori game where you have walls, landscapes, and various obstacles that you need to play around while dealing with enemies coming from various directions. It is not a bullet hell game at all until playing Expert/Insane difficulties so fans of R-Types or Thunder Force games or older horis may still enjoy this game on Normal/Arcade difficulties. The mechanics behind the game are simple to understand at face value: you have a Boost bar tied to your Boost shot, a damaging attack that varies based on your current weapon and quickly builds up multiplier whenever you destroy or damage enemies with Boost. You can only refill the Boost bar by holding the fire button or collecting weapon pods. Trying to not shoot will freeze the Boost bar's refill, which means you need to strategize when to fire and when to wait a moment to go for a huge Boost shot clear. The game starts off light with only Normal/Arcade difficulties available and needing to beat them before the rest of the game content unlocks, forcing you to spend a little time focused on getting to the end after a few runs. Once you finish your first playthrough, you unlock a 2nd weapon set for the regular game. Secondly you unlock Mugen Vritra which is an infinite mode with unique mechanics and procedural level generation, leading to replayability in a mode you can jump in and go HAM on. Thirdly you unlock Setsuna Vritra which is a Caravan Time Attack mode. You have up to 8 shot types to mess with across the modes, so there is a fair bit of replayability overall. The soundtrack is also pretty good and feels fitting with the game thematically. This definitely feels like an unknown gem deep within Steam.

Surprisingly solid STG with an awesome soundtrack. Get the combo that comes with the OST because it's really good! Anyway, quick analysis: while nobody is here for stories, the game does use the folklore of Indra and the titular Vritra and sets them in a future world with extremely spiritual vibes, similar to what you could see in Treasure's staple titles like Radiant Silvergun or Ikaruga. It's really good, stylish and well presented, with biomechanical and mechanical enemies that have a sort of 'magitech' feeling. The final stage is especially exhilarating once you reach the final box climax. There are some calls to other horizontal shmups like R-Type, Darius or Gradius, with a Stage 3 that's a huge battleship destruction, almost a trademark of horizontal STGs and some enemies whose attacks may feel familiar. You have a plethora of secondary weapons divided in Types A and B, where I found B to be the best for higher difficulties since some have more reach with the options (which can block a lot of the incoming flak if used carefully) while you're focused micrododging the bullet hell. The game's difficulty is balanced towards slowly increasing difficulty, with the first clear being actually fairly easy but locking you out of the True Last Boss if you do so. It's not impossible to reach it though: you get an additional life with each continue so eventually you can power through it if you're curious to check it out so in that regard it's a very fair affair. (Now, that 1cc on the highest difficulty is another matter!) Mechanics-wise, there is not much around: you can control the speed of Indra and you have a special weapon bar that you can use to fire the multiple special weapons. The scoring system is not too complex (which I think is a virtue for a change): you rack up a rate meter every time you destroy enemies and the meter goes down if you stop chaining enemies. It's a sort of soft chain system thank heavens, and not a hard chain challenge like in DoDonPachi. However, it's not without risk: death will reset your rate and this number carries over across stages so you're kind of expected to do a full chain/no death run if you plan on reaching the highest scores. For that purpose, once again, your dragon-ship doesn't die in one hit. You get three hits (which refill after clearing a stage) so that at least makes it so that one mistake doesn't completely destroy your run. Again, that's just fair design and less punishing. The game also comes with a Caravan Mode and a "Mugen" option where you have to survive for as long as possible. Both modes do extend the playime for sure. Vritra runs pretty well an almost all modern hardware and detected the Xbox Controller I use right out of the box so that's another plus. All in all, for STG fans this is a great pickup and for those not familiar with the genre, you may want to wait for a sale but if you do, get it with the OST. Worth it every penny. STG NEVER DIE!