(Fangame) Gradius UNIVERSE Very Hard Loop 99 ALL Clear
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Probably one of the best fanmade game for Gradius so far.
The game features most of the basic gradius mechanics and stuffs (powerup system, options, fleshy stage, moai stage, boss rush, revenge bullets,...), but also features some aspects that you don't really see in gradius games like:
-The ability to die and keep going instead of returning to a checkpoint, and also keeping your speed up, missiles, and option upgrades.
-Force field getting a huge upgrade. While it can only take 3 hits it has a small delay between each hit that grants you invincibility, which means you can actually take a bunch of bullets if they all hit at the same time. This also allows you to escape from particular dangerous projectiles like lasers, orbs and missiles.
-Bosses get progressively harder as more barriers are destroyed.
-No option hunters :(
-Purple powerup. This gives you the equivalent of 6 normal powerups at the cost of resetting your movement speed to 1.
-Fast forward (FF) powerup. This makes the game scrolls faster and also unlocks some features in the game. Collecting 3 FF powerups grants a life but also unlocks an extra stage after stage 6, so do it with caution as the stage is rather difficult.
-Hidden extra lifes. One can be found in moai stage and the other can be found in the second half of the crystal stage.
The game has multiple settings for difficulty:
-There are multiple mode: Very easy, easy, normal, hard, very hard, and random. This influences how aggressive enemies and how fast bullets/attack patterns are. Very hard is currently the hardest difficulty, though random can also be very annoying due to it being, well, random.
-Loop: The higher the loop the more revenge bullets spawn from enemies/boss barrier. This becomes especially dangerous on loop 99 where you have to make sure you don't get wall in by streams of revenge bullets when fighting bosses.
Generally a somewhat straightforward and easy game for a gradius title, with a lot of powerups so that you can refresh the shield constantly and allows for mistakes.