Release date: September 27, 2015
Developer: Hucast
Genre: Shmup (Vertical scrolling)
Current retail: £30 (Play-Asia.com)
In the second installment of our special two-part Ghost Blade review, the Junkyard takes a look at the game from the perspective of a genre enthusiast. The Novice Review can be found here.
Ok, let’s get this out of the way up top. I am not a shmup wizard. I like the shmup genre and, since the early 1990s, I have played a lot of them. However, while I consider myself relatively in-scene, I am not TASBot and I cannot one-credit Radiant Silvergun or Ikaruga. I like shmups because they were a core genre of my childhood and today, despite the golden era of arcade shooters being over, I still get a small buzz every time I begin a run. I think, simply put, they help me feel young again.
Good, that now said, let’s move into the detail of the review.
Ghost Blade is an easy game. If you are a gamer with even modest shmup skills, then you will have little difficulty beating the game on standard. Within a couple of day's play, I had familiarised myself with the selection of bullet patterns on offer, run the three ships in the hanger and despite being frustrated at times - we will get to that later - reached the end boss almost anti-climatically. The thing is though - none of that bothers me in the slightest and, if I’m being honest, the never ending cycle of debate about whether a shmup is ‘hard enough’ or ‘bullet hell enough’ is just boring to me now.