Cycle Chaser H-5

whispering to my girlfriend in the theater:
That’s the fish boss in Darius.
That’s the big mothership stage in level 3 of R-Type.
That’s the Gradius ship in the shape of a C you have to shoot the middle of.
That’s like ah, treasure games where they display a bunch of nonsense text before a boss fight…

A good solid shmup! Lots of patterns from enemies and bosses, multiple player ships... all the things you'd expect from a fully-featured shmup.
I like that chiptune soundtrack is FM-synth based, like how old arcade games or the sega genesis were, when most other modern indie chiptune soundtracks go for the expected NES sound.
Normal difficulty is pretty easy if you've played shmups before, but there are hard and very hard modes. So I'm sure it would take a while to master.

This is really good, even more considering the asking price.
The graphics have a very distinctive look, which also makes bullet visibility a non-issue, I can always see everything very clearly. The soundtrack is awesome.
And the shmuppy part, well, it's incredibly good. You have a ship with 3 different weapons that you can change as you wish (and you can unlock another 2 ships)... the different weapons don't make a heavy impact in the game - this is not Hellfire - but the system works nicely.
The score system is also very simple, you raise your multiplier by using your bomb which spends 100% of your shield. You can raise up to 300% by hitting enemies, and when you get hit you also lose 100% (And also a bit of your multiplier), if you get hit with less than 100% you die (And lose a big chunk of your multiplier). So it's basically changing safety for multiplier, and then try to kill as many enemies as you can.
Everything so far is really good, but level design really shines, with excellent and very variable attack patterns. There are a couple of attacks here and there that feel a little unfair as they will get you off-guard the first time you see them, but that comes with the genre.
The game has 7 levels, and a full run lasts for about 30 minutes. I 1cc the game both in the Basic and Advanced modes, which are very generous with the shield. Those are great for newcomers on the genre, but experienced shmuppers will have no trouble beating them (though the score system gives you a lot of room to try to improve your score)
There's a harder mode where the shield only activates at 300%, and from what I saw, the amount of enemy bullets raise by a lot on this mode, so I'm sure that one is pretty challenging.
There's no reason why this game is not getting more love in the shmups community. It's an awesome game, one of the best indie shmups I've ever played in a while.

Fun, simple, shmup.

Pure nostalgia
I love it

Very short, but fun for what it is.