EDF! EDF!

The shmup genre gets the EDF treatment, fighting giant insects and godzilla-like monsters, hilarious B-movie like lines, EDF's familiar grind for more max hp and grind for a seemingly endless supply of exotic weaponry. It also has the weak, repetitive, level design and terrible animations the series is known for that still manages to be charmingly bad.

Unlike most shmups your success is not based on precise movements but by how well you can manage and use your energy, a regenerating stat, that allows you to perform dashes that grant full invulnerability during their duration; while also doubling as ammo for the more powerful weapons. It's a very shallow system as just dashing through a hail of enemy projectiles is a lot less intricate than actually navigating them. The fact that grinding is so effective also lowers the skill aspect and replaces it with a loot treadmill where you must manage the risk/reward of various missions and difficulty settings (you get almost nothing if you fail a level, but if you do a level too easy you will only get lower tier weapons and significantly less max HP growth).

Still the dash system is sufficiently exotic so that it's enjoyable for a brief time and the game's style is awesome. Unlike most EDF this game is really short, it took me only about 2 hours or so to reach the 5th of 6 stages on one credit. If you can get it for a cheap price it's a fairly enjoyable (if brief and shallow) experience for someone that wants a casual shmup, people that like loot treadmills or EDF fans (and if you're somone that likes loot treadmills and never played a mainline EDF game you're seriously missing out).