Crystal Comet | Fully story mode and a bit of Random | Excellent SHMUP where you're part of a team!
4#steam, #indiegame, #shmup
Wishlist on Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2642920/Crystal_Comet/
Disclaimer: I received a free copy of the game from the developer.
This is an excellent SHMUP, and if that's the only thing you read here - that's the important bit. You have a few characters to choose from, though outside of the ship you fly there isn't a huge difference in what you'll experience from a narrative aspect. The story plays out through various conversations between enemies, bosses, and your teammates. There are branching paths, which encourages multiple play throughs so you can experience new things. I won't say every run is going to be a new experience, but there's enough content here to really have you go through many, many times. It's worth it.
The game has somewhat distinct art, something that makes me nostalgic for the 90s. I personally love this style of pixel art, because I can jump forward 10 years in time and I'm still going to think this looks great. Pixel art never ages. It's timeless. A very cool thing about this game is that there is an immense amount of variety. There are dozens of unique looking enemies and bosses. Even your teammate's ships look fairly unique.
But, combat. That's probably the real reason anyone plays a SHMUP. Is it good? Absolutely. It's great. And it's not even that you're blowing up enemies with a variety of standard and special attacks. Nope. Regardless of how cool and entertaining that is, it's barely a scratch on what makes combat feel so good here. It's your teammates. You're legitimately part of a squad that is working together to defeat enemies. And they are not some mindless drones that just get in the way. They kill enemies, collect health and special weapons, as well as the crystals(used to unlock new ships in Random Mode). It's super impressive, and made me feel like I was part of a team.
Music is a pretty good mix of some rock'n'roll style metal, maybe heavy metal. I don't know music genres. It's good music. It fits the game great. Raptor comes to mind.
There are multiple endings to the game. Given the different endings in the game and the different branches you can take to get there, it really encourages multiple playthroughs. You also have Random Mode after you finish the game. Random Mode is a pretty cool addition and I quite like it as well.