I’ve had this game via its Japanese PS4 port ESP Ra.De. Psi for a while, but started getting more into it lately and have found it pretty fun. The theme of magical flying people in a cyberpunk Tokyo setting falls back on normal stuff like tanks and ships pretty often, but they do cool stuff with it at big moments such as the first and final bosses. It’s a nice-looking game that is a lot of fun once you gain some understanding of it.

Mechanically I have sort of a mix of opinions on this. I like the offensive options, as you have a normal shot and a special shot that varies by character. My character of choice, Yusuke, nicely makes up for his narrow normal shot with a special shot that can be flung in the direction of your movement to better cover the screen, a lot of power on that normal shot, and nice movement speed. Defensively, rather than a typical bomb, you have a multi-use shield meter with a somewhat unintuitive recharging mechanic that I don’t really like managing.

Otherwise it feels like a somewhat typical DoDonPachi-like Cave game with really cool and varied bullet patterns and scoring that adds a little more thought to your weapon usage. It can be somewhat frustrating how you die unexpectedly sometimes, and I’m no expert but from my understanding it’s due to unpredictable changes in the slowdown which make weaving through dense patterns especially difficult in this game. Either way, it’s definitely one where you need to route your way through the hard parts in a more macro sense. The first three stages have their challenging bits, particularly in bosses, but are quite manageable. Starting from the third boss, the game gets increasingly difficult until a two-part final stage ending with a two-part final boss gauntlet that has a bunch of phases.

It’s a bit too hard toward the end for my skill level and dedication right now to pull it all off without credit feeding a bit outside the PS4 port’s segmented Arcade Challenge mode, but I’d like to properly master it one day. Like in other recent ports from M2, that Arcade Challenge mode gamifies practice by smartly splitting up stages into sections, tracking your deaths and automatically rewinding to help you master each part of the game. It’s nothing you couldn’t do with some heavy use of save states, but making it all automatic and intentionally structured makes the process of practicing the game feel more fun and approachable. This port lacks English language support, but is definitely worth importing if you are relatively serious about the game.

While it’s not a good intro shmup and not one of the absolute best Cave has to offer, for those who have a bit of experience, it is a really enjoyable and challenging game. Definitely has grown on me over time as I got a bit better at this sort of thing.