Reviews

• 

  anglerman

  Nov 22, 2021

  Quick but sweet SHMUP with a simple but engaging leveling system in which your Score is your Experience to level up and get bonus stats such as bullet speed or recharge rate. Took me around 3h to beat with a lot of retries on the last few missions, but there was absolutely no filler, no stages where I actually knew what was going to happen, it was exclusively good content from start to finish. Might be a bit overpriced for the time you'll likely spend on it but it's really fun to replay as levels have are many separate parallel paths to complete.
• 

  galox-♥

  Aug 30, 2022

  asd
• 

  Ʀ ʊ ƞ Ʃ ۝ qUANTUM pHYZX

  Jan 16, 2017

  [h1]Flawless blend of classic SHMUP gameplay and new school elements[/h1] A challenging yet heartfelt ode to the arcade SHMUP classics of the 80s and 90s. Shoot, dodge, switch weapons, blow up bombs, repeat. [b]Zone of Lacryma[/b] takes the genre into a role playing direction by introducing a leveling system that provides the player with [u]Upgrade Points[/u] upon leveling up. You level up by, you guessed it: [i]running missions and earning experience[/i]. The player can repeat any mission after completing it as many times as the player desires, which allows for the possibility of upgrading your ship as much as you want before proceeding ahead. It adds a nice replayability mechanic to the game that helps soften the blow from the crippling dearth in campaign content that [b]Zone[/b] suffers from. You'll find the first few levels pretty easy. The game then hits a massive difficulty spike on the fourth mission when you're required to tail a bogey in front of you with the Turbo Boost™ enabled (queue Knight Rider theme) through a majority of the mission. As of this review, I'm still on this mission and have yet to beat it. I can only surmise that the game gets more difficult after the 4th mission, probably incorporating more of the cat-and-mouse chase tactic on top of also most likely deploying more hostile baddies shooting at you. That's a promising future, to me. Unfortunately, there's only a remaining 4 levels, hence the dearth in content I mentioned earlier. But, as also mentioned, the game's brevity is offset by its ability to fully upgrade different aspects of the ship's functionality. You're expected to rerun missions to get enough [u]UP[/u] to flesh out your ship's capabilities; so in effect, you have to recycle content. [i]This is the only negative aspect of the game to me, so far[/i]. The game itself has enough layers in the combat that it requires a constant sense of spatial awareness; the game is great at keeping your brain engaged. [b]Zone of Lacryma[/b] is an arcade-em-up in the truest sense, and its design reflects this authenticity very well. The story line is short, and to talk about it in bits and pieces would give large chunks of it away, so I won't -- but there IS a story here. I'm still wrestling with whether or not I feel the price tag is justified. I generally find 1$ / 1 hour of play time to be an acceptable metric of "did I get my money's worth?" As one can see, I haven't hit that playtime yet, so I won't yet make that value judgement. I can, however, say that I definitely enjoy the gameplay, and from THAT viewpoint, the purchase price is justifiable. So while the content is lacking, the satisfaction and reward of completion is definitely tangible. [h1]Gets a thumbs up from me![/h1]
• 

  TripleHelix935

  Aug 2, 2017

  A bit of a hidden gem, i've just started but i'm liking what i'm seeing so far. Good Shoot 'em up gameplay with a nice leveling system and a neat story.
• 

  Derpo

  Nov 7, 2017

  Another hidden gem in the steam store, I honestly believe that this game should have more of a fanbase. The story is interesting, the gameplay is great, and the graphics, even though they're just pixels, are amazing. I'm going to spend a little bit of my time to promote this just so people will experience this gem.
• 

  Wieprzek

  Jan 6, 2018

  It's a nice little shmup. I love upgrading and having the choice to invest and change my playstyle, it has that. That's nice. I like the graphics, the color pallete isnt a rainbow mumbo-jumbo like most titles of this genre and the pixel-art is from the better part of pixel-art, not from the lazy-ugly-Undertale group. The soundtrack is there, nothing special, it fits the industrial-space theme of the game. It has some bugs, but they arent gamebreaking nor do they destroy the playthrough. Dev is friendly, gib him some monies. Have fun.
• 

  oren

  May 21, 2018

  A great shooter with an interesting graphical style using a limited palette. It has upgrades between levels (so doing well in earlier levels will help you in later ones), and it has a cool story.
• 

  blissfulayn

  Feb 14, 2019

  ---{Graphics}--- ☐ Masterpiece ☑ Beautiful ☐ Good ☐ Decent ☐ Will do ☐ Bad ☐ Awful ☐ Paint.exe ---{Gameplay}--- ☐ Try not to get addicted ☑ Very good ☐ Good ☐ Nothing special ☐ Ehh ☐ Bad ☐ Just dont ---{Audio}--- ☐ Eargasm ☐ Very good ☐ Good ☑ Decent ☐ Not too bad ☐ Bad ☐ Earrape ---{Audience}--- ☐ Kids ☐ Teens ☐ Adults ☑ Everyone ---{PC Requirements}--- ☐ Check if you can run paint ☐ Potato ☑ Minimum ☐ Decent (Depends on your craft) ☐ Fast ☐ Rich boi ☐ Ask NASA if they have a spare computer ---{Difficulity}--- ☐ Just press a bunch of buttons ☐ Easy ☐ Significant brain usage ☐ Easy to learn / Hard to master ☐ Not so easy ☑ Difficult ☐ Dark Souls ---{Grind}--- ☐ Nothing ☑ Only if u care about leaderboards/ranks ☐ Isnt necessary to progress ☐ A bit grindy sometimes ☐ Average grind level ☐ Too much grind ☐ Insanity ---{Story}--- ☐ Doesnt have ☐ Something isnt nothing I guess ☐ Not great ☐ Average ☑ Good ☐ Lovley ☐ Will make u cry or smile alot ---{Game Time}--- ☐ Long enough for a cup of tea ☑ Short ☐ Average ☐ Long ☐ Depends on u ☐ Endless (Custom levels) ---{Price}--- ☐ Just buy it ☑ Worth the price ☐ Wait for sale ☐ Maybe if u have some spare money left ☐ Not recommended ☐ Dont throw money into a trash can ---{Bugs}--- ☑ Never had any ☐ Minor bugs ☐ Few bugs ☐ Can get annoying ☐ Ruining the game ☐ The game itself is a big terrarium for bugs
• 

  whispers2095

  Jul 1, 2019

  Fun and interesting shmup. It has upgrades between missions so different builds are possible. Can't go wrong if it's on sale.
• 

  Rizky Biznu

  Jul 27, 2019

  It's refreshing that the difficulty doesn't come from having a million trillion bullets on screen but some of the mechanics kind of ruin the experience. The limited energy/ammo is a good concept but requiring you to turbo through the stage to recharge it makes the whole thing frustrating if you want to play slow and try to kill every enemy. Often times the game will force you to turbo and dodge enemies because you just don't have enough energy to play aggressively and the little energy pellets they drop usually are not enough to keep up with the waves. I wish the game would allow you to play the way you wanted to instead of making you play in one particular style if you want to beat the level. It's a good game but it's neither your old school shooting game or your modern bullet hell. It's hard and sometimes frustrating. I'd only recommend it to fans of weird/experimental space shooting games.
• 

  Khalim

  Aug 15, 2019

  No
• 

  fri_freeman

  Sep 15, 2019

  A unique shmup I've never seen before. A speed-based, story-heavy shmup, where your ship gain energy while in boosted speed, and you use energy to shoot, activate shield, or bomb, but of course when you're in boosted speed it's easier to collide to enemies or environment. The artstyle is also unique, and how the game structured is also different than ordinary shmup, it's almost more like a racing game. You have to roughly remember the layout of each stages to succeed by the nature of the game, and you do it by dying over and over again. But since each stages are relatively short, and you restart from each stages without losing anything, it feels less frustrating. Definitely recommended
• 

  Samvega

  Nov 30, 2019

  I feel that this game requires memory and replay of levels. That's not necessarily a dealbreaker, but then there don't appear to be checkpoints, so after restarting a level for the fourth time I'm out.
• 

  Lar

  Dec 31, 2019

  Pretty mediocre and boring, with a strange game logic and completely uninspiring opponents and weapons. Nevertheless, I had the intention to go through it, but ... An escort mission is just stupid.
• 

  limelight1210

  Apr 13, 2020

  This game is a pretty good shmup with some very light but well told story. You can also upgrade your ship with points earned via destroying enemies to get xp and be able to switch it around any way you want for each level which is a huge plus.
• 

  Vantier

  Jun 10, 2020

  Disclaimer: My scores/reviews are almost always based on having bought the game at close to the "lowest historical price" on steam at time of purchase. Quick score: 4/5 Notes: Finished the game in under an hour.
• 

  Rzep

  Jun 28, 2020

  A fun little shooter/slasher with a story thats seem decent but ends too early and generally on a very unsatysfying note. Not very long, took me 3 hours to pass the 11 missions, but only a few percent of people finished it so for most it might be longer.
• 

  magmia

  Dec 7, 2020

  I liked it.