Samurai Aces

Hard as balls vertically scrolling bullet hell with nice pixel art & several waifus.

Man, this game is really fun, but I feel like it gets a lot of unwarranted hate, but still it definitely has it's fans. I really dig the music, and the game play is solid... A thing to keep in mind is not all the characters are equally good, so play around with the different ships to see which one suits your play style best. If you beat the game in normal difficulty or higher, you will be able to play through a second loop with some differences and a much harder difficulty, just a little fyi for any that are interested.

Oh hell yes! 1993 arcade beauty. This is the art of the game right here.
You get all these new titles offering art books, but this is the kind of thing I'd happily buy that for. Sadly not offered here, but the point is it's worthy of such attention.
Pure pixel perfection and a solid controller friendly PC port - in the pipe, five by five

Compared to other Psikyo shooters I've played, Samurai Aces isn't quite as impressive, but it's still interesting enough to warrant a recommendation in my opinion.
Positives:
- The playable characters are unique and have fun and humorous stories to play through. Most of their endings are silly and basically serve as cheesy punchlines (which I prefer to stories that take themselves too seriously).
- The characters play differently too, with different weapons of course, but also different speeds, bombs (some of which can save you instantly from being hit, while others have a delayed reaction during which you are still vulnerable), and charge attacks.
- The bosses are varied and well-designed, including some that are huge with destructible parts. A team of robot ninjas make repeat appearances, giving a sense of cohesion to the flow between stages.
Negatives
- This is way harder than the other Psikyo games I've played so far. Even in Monkey Mode (the easiest difficulty) I had to increase my life count to be able to get through the game. Now, I'm FAR from an expert in these games, but the difficulty seemed to stem from the following two issues:
- When you get game over, you need to re-start from the beginning of the stage you were in.
- Your power-ups will not drift to the bottom of the screen. They'll bounce off the bottom third of the screen, forcing you to move up and in harm's way to collect them. This is especially frustrating during boss fights, where it's exceptionally difficult to get close enough to pick up a power-up without also getting exploded by the boss's projectiles. And since they drift off-screen after a limited amount of time, I found myself having to make do with an underpowered weapon where I most needed extra firepower.
- The charge attack is not particularly useful since most of them seem to take an obscenely long time to charge up. I basically only used them to hit bosses just a bit harder when they first appear, and not at all other than that because it wasn't worth the high risk of leaving myself vulnerable.
- The levels themselves, while serviceable, are not terribly unique or interesting.
Despite its flaws, I enjoyed the fun characters and the simple pleasure of shooting everything in my path. Recommended for Psikyo completionists, particularly when it goes on sale (I picked it up at a heavy discount).