Sky Force Reloaded

Despite the fact that I bought this game at full price even though that, usually, you always wait for special discounts before buying the game that you've been eyeing for a long while, especially if it's well-received by the majority of the reviews, let's just say that it was worth it. Or maybe I was just desperate at that time that I didn't bother waiting for this game to be discounted on a special limited sale period, because I genuinely enjoyed the key aspects that solidifies the identity of this game. I've been playing the OG mobile version around 6-7 years ago until ID decided to release the Steam version of the game, much like its prequel, under a price tag. The contents of the game is hella expansive as what I've expected when I first played the mobile version, from the diverse array of planes (9 planes specifically, start plane included) that you can collect parts for and use them to see which play style you prefer the most, with each plane having their own strengths, weaknesses, and niches, upgrading your plane with specific weapons and power-ups in order to challenge the higher stages along the way, more main and bonus stage levels you can grind through compared to the prequel with each of their own fun, unique, and challenging boss fights (with the exception of some stages that don't have any boss fights at all mainly due to level design reasons and lore, ig), and many more. For years since this game came out, I've been eternally coping that ID will somehow make a comeback to create a third sequel because the way the final stage ended when you defeated the boss as the credits segment rolled leaves so much to be desired as it definitely felt anticlimactic as a lore guy myself. I'll never know what they're up to these days since it's been more or less 8 years since the last Sky Force installment for the mobile version and exactly 7 years for the Steam release, which is the very same game I'm giving a review right now. I at least never heard about them making other games, so I really hope that they're still doing fine right now, whatever the peeps at ID are up to. With all that being said, if you're into the Shoot-'em-up genres, especially games with awesome level design, graphics, OSTs, and pretty flexible in-game content and features as a means to buff up your planes if you care about clearing the different difficulty levels for each stage, this game is a solid choice.

First off, this is NOT a bullet hell shmup, ignore the tag. Anyone classifying it as such has never played a bullet hell game.
That being said, it is a solid SHMUP with polish and attention to detail. Highly recommended.

An excellent follow up to the updated Sky Force Anniversary game.
Plays similarly to the previous game with added perks and effects.
Runs on modest hardware without issues, and can give you hours re-playability.
Highly recommend getting this as a bundle with Anniversary.

This is definitely my favourite top down shooter - excellent graphics, excellent music, great and varied level design.
The ship upgrades work well and the ships are also nice and varied. As others have said this is not bullet hell - there are indeed plenty of bullets but they are avoidable with skilful manoeuvring.
Excellent game - hoping for more!

Along with Sky Force: Reloaded, one of the best euroshmups out there, period. Very meditative, with high replayability value, both on PC and mobile.

The best shmup I've ever played, it has it all. Great graphics, great sounddesign and music, wonderful levels and enemies, great difficulty spike to gradually challenge you more and more. An upgradable skilltree for missiles, maingun, winggun, laser, powerbomb etc. There are 4 difficulties on each stage, you finish all the 4 tasks on each stage to unlock the next difficulty. So the 4 ones are, kill 70% of the enemies, kill 100% of the enemies, rescue all survivors and stay untouched.
Some mention that the game is grindy and that might be so quite early on but I still completed upgrading my whole ship way before I was tired of the game and I still come back to it. I have levels left to complete on nightmare difficulty which is very hard but it's super rewarding game on higher levels. It start out slow and that's the point, that way you feel your power later on, think Diablo 2, you start as this little nerd smacking 1 monster at a time to just melting stuff on your screen later on.
Have fun, highly recommended and like I said one of the best if not the best shmup, the only other game comparable is Skyforce anniversary. They are 2 must buy shmups, way more fun and engaging than all the asian psychadelic ones. This is more like an old school 1942, 1943 but with modern graphics.

The perfect old-school top down shooter, infinitely replayable and always satisfying. One of my favorite "turn off your brain" games to just shoot the shit out of everything you see. Becomes more fun when you unlock more planes, now that I have everything unlocked it's ridiculously fun. One of my very few 10/10 games.