Ghost Blade HD

From their name alone any keen arcade shoot'emup player should recognize Hucast Games dabbles in the Dreamcast-era of what we call retro. With a clear loyalty and passion for this golden age of shmups they've set out to keep the traditions of Japanese STGs alive with an explosive and intense modern polish in both visuals and gameplay. Ghost Blade HD takes this fierce and energetic take on the shoot'emup genre across 5 mesmerizing extraterrestrial stages, seeking to find its spot in history among the most classic of arcade shooters.
The visuals here set a standard in shmups of their own, and unlike its gameplay are not comparable to anything released in any arcade in the past. The settings range from sand-storm inflicted deserts to lush alien planets with autumn-red trees, and always pack a vibrant punch of color. With extra sharp, crispy high resolution textures and mind-boggling amounts of enemies and items on-screen at a time Ghost Blade HD also manages to capture the visuals of its roots through old school polygonal ship designs and giant-robo bosses that'll make any sci-fi anime geek's mouth water. This is a different kind of shootemup that is unparalleled in its visual chaos of bullets and celestial settings.
Ghost Blade HD presents an arcade shmup soundtrack that is nostalgic on levels I cannot articulate properly through words. Somewhere between the surreal and otherworldly compositions of Zuntata and the heavy, chaotic and beats of Manabu Namiki this soundtrack assaults the senses in secret and majestic retro ways that modern game creators and companies have been trying to tap into for a decade. It might not be something someone who didn't grow up with obscure Japanese shmups would get, but the sounds of the warm synth-y and space-y melodies couldn't make me any happier.
The action of Ghost Blade as with any shmup is focused on overwhelming blankets of bullets. It's of a more twitch and reflex based nature, as opposed to the geometrical pattern memorization seen in Cave-styled bullet hells, with curtains of bright shrapnel flying in your direction at all times. Instead of sitting inside of small triangular safe-spots like in the aforementioned bullet-hells, you'll constantly be on the move as to avoid the fire. Luckily, many of these bullets can pre-emptively be cancelled with careful thinking and aiming by neutralizing their source, the baddie firing them. This gives Ghost Blade HD a classic and hyper kind of perspective like Toaplan shmups, and feels to me almost like a much snazzier, snappier, and crazier Tatsujin.
Even on the easiest setting the later levels become increasingly insane and unpredictable leading to many deaths, which is great for a shmup. With such an accessible and exhilarating start but such a daunting and seemingly impossible end it means that Ghost Blade HD has a high skill ceiling, and a whole lot of replayability. It's easy to hop into for a few easier levels but will take you dedication and patience to fully complete without embarrassing errors and endless continues.
The game has a relatively simple scoring mechanic that should be familiar to arcade junkies. With each enemy or crate hit and destroyed your combo multiplier rises, and as they are destroyed shiny and attractive medals pour out. The amount that these medals give you is of course raised by the multiplier, so score chasers will be making a mad dash to kill and collect. It's simple but very effective, and incredibly rewarding watching streams of loot pour from your successful strikes as you rise through the Leaderboards.
When it comes to arcade shoot'emups Ghost Blade HD is the ultimate bliss-out. The Zen-ful state of mind needed to dance between the ballet of bullets, the mysteriously obscure and nostalgic soundtrack, and the gorgeously detailed modern visuals with a touch of retro sci-fi design come together for an unworldly and addictive score-chasing package.

Great game at a great price. Knowing there are 5 levels and the first level being so short, I was thinking oh no, going to be a short game. Not quite the case, its not too short, but not too long either. A lot of action and bullets. There are 2 things that annoy me a little though, but this is completely subjective, many like this in a shmup, is slowdown during heavy bullet scenes(but can be disabled in the options, thank you kindly) and the 3 coins per play. But more credits can be unlocked, so keep trying. This a very good title, its a back to basics arcade shmup with a pretty cool scoring system. Three different pilots to choose from, essentially all the same except for different shot patterns. Lots of power ups, giving you massive destructive abilities. 3 button scheme, regular shot, focus shot and bomb. Although it doesnt have it, a story mode would be a welcome addition considering its already got fanservice, but then the price would have been twice as much most likely. I love shmups but dont really follow consoles, but from what I see this is an awesome console port at a very very reasonable price. 8/10
ps. easy to get achievements, just makes it funner.

Full disclosure: I was a beta tester for both Ghost Blade and Ghost Blade HD, but my opinion isn't tempered or influenced by that fact.
-=The Good=-
Nice graphics
Two soundtracks to choose from
Score Attack mode
Three difficulty settings
Sharp controls and hit detection
Good diversity with the scoring system
Three different ship types to choose from
Lots of gameplay and visual settings to play with in the options menu
-=The Bad=-
Kind of short
Uninspired enemy ship attack patterns
Some iffy boss bullet patterns
Disappointing ending(s)
-=The Details=-
In 2015, the Dreamcast got Ghost Blade; a fan-made vertical shmup that was created by a small team of developers. Upon release, it saw a pretty wide range of reviews. Some enjoyed it, but others found a number of problems with the game. Those problems ranged from gameplay issues such as it being too easy, to technical problems such as numerous frame rate stutters and unresolved bugs. But at its core, was a game that showed promise. It had nice graphics and music, but it needed more time in the proverbial oven. That's where Ghost Blade HD comes in.
Visually, Ghost Blade HD is a nice looking game. The CGI used to create the backgrounds and ships allow for plentiful details on all of the sprites in the game; from the biggest boss, to the smallest bit of shrapnel. The shading gives everything a nice 3-dimensional feel, while smooth levels of animation are featured throughout. You'll find some parallax scrolling as well, giving the pretty backgrounds a bit more visual depth. Explosions kick out debris, the bomb sets off a huge fiery explosion, the ships are colorful without going overboard, the sprite designs are nice... the game has the visuals taken care of.
With the sound, like the graphics, things are handled well. Explosions have a nice little thump to them, the rapid-fire shots use sound effects that don't get in the way or grow annoying, and the bonus item pick up sounds are also not grating. They all do their job and don't get on your nerves by being too loud or unpleasant. With the music, you've got not one, but two different sound tracks. The first OST is the same one that was in the original release on the Dreamcast, featuring generally quicker-tempoed electronica beats and nice-sounding synths to help get you in the mood to shoot and dodge. The second OST is a new one made for this release. The songs are the same in composition, but they've all been remixed to give them a whole new feel and atmosphere thanks to the new synths being used and some tempo changes. Heck, at times, the second OST sounds like something that would fit right in with the soundtracks of Raiden III or Raiden IV (and that's a good thing). Either way, the tunes are good stuff, regardless of which OST you choose to listen to as you play.
The gameplay is a solid mix of scoring techniques and traditional shmup conventions. You have a primary and secondary weapon that can't be changed, but they can be powered up several times. These consist of bullets that fire from both your ship itself and the pods you get as you powerup, as well as missiles that add to your destructive capabilities. You can focus the shot into a narrower beam ala Cave mechanics, slowing your ship down (which helps to make more careful movements) and giving your shots more punch. The powerups are gained from destroying red carrier ships, and even if you end up dying, you still get to keep your powerup level as long as you collect your weapon icons (which is easy, since they get sucked to you upon respawning). There are airborne and ground-based medals to pick up for points by shooting enemies with the normal shot, but there are also bonus medals to be earned by getting in close to bigger ships and point-blanking them (killing them while you're right up against them). You have bombs to clear the screen of weak enemies along with the numerous bullets that are fired both randomly and in screen-filling patterns, and you earn these bombs by killing enemies while using your focused beam.
Yes, this game gives you a choice. You can either kill everything with the normal shot and get more points medals, or you can focus your shot and earn orbs that fill up the bomb meter and earn yourself extra bombs. This adds an interesting little twist to things that forces you to balance your playing between upping your score and getting that handy bomb for those moments when you're overwhelmed. And staying alive is important, as everything you collect is tallied up at the end of the level, along with how many bombs and lives you have left. So if you want to get a big score to put up on the Steam leaderboards (which this game supports), you'll need keep yourself in one piece and get your collection counters high. To survive all of this, you get three ships to choose from. Each one has a different style of weapon (wide shot, narrow shot and in-between), different movement speeds and different focused shot power levels. Add in the difficulty selections that change how hard the game gets by throwing more bullets at you on Normal and Hard, or by letting you have an auto-bomb feature when you're hit on Easy, and you've got a well-rounded game. You even get a Score Attack mode that consists of bits and pieces from all of the stages, combined into one longer, bullet-filled stage.
So... what does this game do wrong? Well, it doesn't have any major glaring problems, but it does have some smaller ones that still stand out. For one, it's not the longest shmup you'll ever play. Once you get the hang of things, it can be beaten in about 20 minutes. Not stupidly short, but it will go by pretty quickly. Another issue is that the enemies don't really have a wide range of attack patterns as they come on the screen. Most of them just appear at the top and drift down to the bottom. They're plentiful and fill the screen with aimed and patterned bullets, but it would have been nice to see more in the way of ships coming in and out of the play area from all sides. Next, there's some of the boss bullet patterns that feel a bit too randomized to be filling so much of the screen. As examples, the final boss' seemingly random puking of pink bullets (mixed with the green lasers and blue bullets) makes it feel more like you have to get a lucky spray, rather than figure out a pattern. Stage 4's boss shares this issue as well on Normal/Hard. Lastly, the endings. This is more of a pet peeve thing, but I like good endings. Ones you can sit and watch for a minute or two with some story text, some images or animations... stuff like that. Even shmups should have an ending like that, as it's part of the payoff at the journey's end. But Ghost Blade HD has what basically amounts to a “congratulations!” single screen and then BOOM!... credits. That's disappointing to me.
In the end, what can be said about Ghost Blade HD? It's a solid shmup, that's what. The visuals, the music, the gameplay, the controls, a solid framerate, a good challenge level, solid hit detection... the quality is there. It may not set the world on fire with originality or fresh gameplay mechanics, but what it does, it does well. There are also lots of options to play with; from setting the screen mode (TATE or portrait) and practicing levels, to changing the volume levels of the music/sound effects and making the backgrounds darker. Sure, there are a few little things here and there that could have been better, but none of them really break the game or make it unplayable at any point. So for those who played the original version on the Dreamcast, this game is a big step up on all fronts. It's what the original release should have been, and it's nice to see the game was finally given the time it really needed to come into its own.
Score- 8.1

Good Linux version, works well on Kubuntu 18.04 LTS. I would recommend this to anyone looking for a bullet-hell similar to Caves games. Technically this game is cutting edge for the genre, high resolution graphics and a nice soundtrack, plenty of options too.

I have a real soft spot for Ghost Blade. Despite its obvious borrowing from dodonpachi I still think its one of the best modern 2D shooters ever made.
Great player ship designs & great enemey ship designs. Its bright fast and has a brilliant soundtrack. The bullets patterns and enemey waves are fast and tough.
My impressions of the steam version so far are great, no issues so far. Although there are a few Cave shooters now on steam I would have to say this easily fits into the top 3 2D shooters curently available on steam.
If you like 2D shooters this is seriously a no brainer. Buy it!

I have LOTS of top notch shmups and this is definitely one of the best, It is very simple, but it does the basics wonderfully- great flow, visuals, sound, and fun. Stylish yet straight forward.
It does have one glaring issue though- the transitions into , and out of, boss fights are astoundingly, annoyingly, and disappointingly abrupt. They obviously didn't play test those bits. Devs, If you are listening, PLEASE fix this. This is a classic that could so easily have widespread recognition as such.
If any DLC or sequels come out, I will be first in line. If you like old school simple shmups DO NOT miss this. Definitely worth full price.

This was my first shmup and I had fun getting all the achievements for it. Also I like the cover art by GENZOMAN.
It's a bullet-hell (not every shmup is a bullet-hell) but it doesn't feel like the game hates you (read: sadistic). The art is good; the music is intense; the game itself is challenging, but I never felt like there was a challenge that I couldn't eventually overcome.
I was poopy at shmups but, after completing this game, now I'm a little less poopy.