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And another 1997 shmup, this time a Sharp x68k boss rush that combines Darius weaponry and fish with Gradius-style powerups to get from boss part destruction, as well as the options and power bar. The end result is pretty cool albeit quite janky.

The early part of the game is prone to restart hell because the default ship loadout lacks coverage and the tools to easily take care of the boss summons, but once you get past that, the game opens up and is a lot more lenient. It feels pretty nice when you have a whole bunch of options and giant wave attacks. The laser generates a horrible SFX so I didn't pick it, but wave does the job for the most part.

The "Force" is a 10-hit shield so better get on that asap! Its shield strength can even be replenished and boosted by applying the Force powerup again and again even if the shield is already active. You'd think that it means you never have to take hits on purpose to lose the shield and then apply it, but since a fresh shield is 10 units and a shield replenish is 2 extra units, you are still incentivized to adapt your strats depending on the amount of shield units.

The game has one major jank problem though : continuous hits inflicted by bullet types that don't get deleted after the damage. Basically if you touch a long laser, wave bullet or a homing laser you're fucked of da world in a flash even if your shield has plenty of units. And the lasers can come back from offscreen, surprise sniping you. It is really ridiculous. You don't have tons of bosses with these attacks but they are all at the end, so it can be a bit annoying going all the way there and insta-die. Recovery might be technically possible but ehhhh.

B-System is actually not a very long game as you can see, so despite the last bosses' laser problems, it wasn't too bad to clear! Also the music is pretty cool.

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