Gleylancer fuckin rules
THIS POST WAS ORIGINALLY MADE ON COHOST AND HAS BEEN ARCHIVED HERE
I randomly decided to try the recent translation for Advanced Busterhawk Gleylancer, and oh wow am I glad I did, this is exactly the kind of shooter I can get into.
I’m not very good at hardcore SHMUPs with limited lives or continues, which is a shame because some of the coolest and most interesting games in the genre are also often the toughest (Treasure games, bullet hells, Gate/Lords of Thunder, Thunder Force, etc.) and even after several attempts, I can never get very far in them. Gleylancer, however, meets me on my level but with all the bravado and confidence of the genre’s best.
Sporting very forgiving difficulty options with unlimited continues and homing shots for your orbiting power-up guns, along with level designs that require you to use those orbital guns in creative ways. It gives me a challenge that doesn’t feel punishing. Playing this one with RetroAchievements even encouraged me to actually hone my SHMUP skills a bit on my own terms!
Those levels also look gorgeous, if you’re a Genesis parallax sicko, then you’ll salivate over this one. And extra points for full-screen anime cutscenes with a female protagonist, along with a crunchy voice sample announcing each boss fight. *chef’s kiss *
I want to find more shooter games like this, they’re exactly what I wanted - a gateway drug to a cool game genre with a traditionally-high skill ceiling. Maybe I’ll luck out and find something similar for 2D fighting games sometime soon, lol :P