Game:

Sanvein (2000)

Duration: 25:22

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2

This relatively obscure game from Success deserves more love! It's more of an arena shooter rather than a pure shmup but it's very fun regardless.

It's also super damn stylish. I love the visual theme, the music (even if you mostly listen to just the beginning of the tracks lol), the atmosphere and all the crazy details everywhere. Even the engrish makes it more awesome haha. And I wouldn't be surprised if Evangelion was an influence for all those cyberpunk-ish visuals, as there are some similarities.

The goal of the game is to clear several floors, arranged in maps with hexagonal tiles. Each tile is a short fight against a few enemies or a midboss in an enclosed arena and you have to clear them as fast as possible because time is almost always ticking and reaching zero time means game over. Even on the hexagon selection map, there are ways to lose time if you are too slow! Once you beat all midbosses, you fight the stage boss. All those (mid)bosses are also actually the only time when you get score and some time back.

It seems like focusing on midbosses and ignoring the regular hexagons would be the best way to go, but the power system makes it so that you get much stronger the more surrounding hexagons you have cleared. And bosses can take soooo much longer if you aren't powered up when fighting them, so any time loss in the regular stages is made up for when speedkilling the (mid)bosses in like 2 seconds lmao. Even for the scoring, the power level you're at multiplies the score bonus you get from a boss, so clearing all the hexagons sounds like the intended strat.

Several primary and secondary weapons are available before starting a run, and same for the stage order for the first three stages. I went with a handy spread shot and a powerful beam sword. The other combinations can be fun (I especially love sniping with Graviton primary weapon in the early stages) but this one was the most reliable for me, and still tons of fun thanks to tha sword.

When you have a plan and know how to deal with the waves, the game isn't too hard, but the time-based nature of it can be a bit stressful in case you get hit by accident in some bad spots. Some of the layouts don't also allow you to get as much power as you'd want for some fights (this is mostly for Stratum center midboss in my case).

I usually died in stage 4 (Mine) but this run is the first time I got past it as I learned how to deal with its waves, and while I knew the last stage was a boss rush with many opportunities to replenish time, I had no idea what was awaiting me in that rematch against the Stratum boss. When fighting it in the earlier stage, I have tons of power and just annihilate it quick. But here I was so weak that it could keep re-spawning more units, and I thought I was done for because of the DPS check nature of the fight. Somehow I managed to kill it before my time was up but boy was it close! The other fights went more smoothly and even the final boss was a bit more chill since I had stocked up on time again and had loads of power for it, so even going in mostly blind it was fine.

Played on Duckstation, recorded with OBS Studio
#STG #shmup

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