Review scoopings 4/5 · Aug 6, 2024
Good Shmup, Bolstered By Epic Look And Sound
Preliminary: Nothing spectacular, but good tunes neat power-ups able to shoot away some of the enemy projectiles and the usual addictive shmup pull. Like I mentioned when I playtested it, I wish you could shoot backwards, but I understand 89/90 shmups better now and better control the dragon as a weapon that allows for hitting backward like a lot of …
Preliminary: Nothing spectacular, but good tunes neat power-ups able to shoot away some of the enemy projectiles and the usual addictive shmup pull. Like I mentioned when I playtested it, I wish you could shoot backwards, but I understand 89/90 shmups better now and better control the dragon as a weapon that allows for hitting backward like a lot of other shmups from this era had a power-up for that. One-hit deaths are never great, but thank goodness for savestates :-p First stage of 6 done, here goes nothing.
Good thing for the cool Look and Sound, and that there are only 6 stages. Without savestates/infinite credits I'd probly burn out. It's not obnoxiously hard (yet) but the one-hit deaths definitely add up and it's of that era where they clearly built arcade games to eat up coins.
Pro-tip: you can do this neat little thing where you sorta I dunno swing the joystick from upper left to upper right or something, and it makes the dragon wrap around you and seems to even increase its current power-up for a moment. I started to just repeatedly do that Stage 4 and on :-p It seems to cover you from projectiles too
Stage 5 started getting to that un-fun level of difficulty, but I mean it is the second-to-last level and the mechanics were reasonable just frustrating. The regular enemies basically blocked your path and wound up in some frustrating situations (PUT IN ANOTHER COIN, right? lol) But the Look and Sound continue to be unique each level and cool.
It had that R-type gory/body horror look but with a cool dude riding a dragon shooting from a bow \m/ And most the bosses were intuitive, I didn't have to look any up for strategy, tho I did die plenty.
Nice a beautiful ending with great calming music after such an obnoxiously hard final boss. I always appreciate Golden Hour colors at the end of a game. 
Look: 8.5/10 It was hard to get screenshots but yea a definite highlight.
Sound: 8.5/10 Nothing spectacular but consistently good and with a great ending calming tune.
Play: 7.5/10 One-hit deaths will always bog down a good shmup. But this is one of the best 89/90 shmups despite its flaws/coin-eating antics like most of its contemporaries.
Feel: 8/10 It all culminates to an epitomally 89/90 fantasy shmup
Attachment: 8/10 Since we have this on arcade machine I surely will be returning to it. If only it were more forgiving so my family members and friends could enjoy it without getting frustrated with the one-hit deaths.
Overall: 8.1/10
Completion: All 6 unique stages and saw ending (glad they normalize having an ending sequence, even if levels re-cycle)
Playtime: ~45 mins