Welcome to Doujin Powah! where we will go on a virtual expedition to far eastern lands and bring back souvenirs of digital entertainment. Independent publishing has always been a phenomenon on the other side of the continent and has produced some of the best examples of especially shoot’em up and fighting genres. Oh, and also the place is a visual novel factory. Let’s keep the tradition and start with a brilliant vertical shooter, GENETOS. Pop-up our unofficial theme song in a new tab, grab a fine cup filled with your favourite blend of tea, and please disable your camera flashes; seriously, it makes the rabbits go blind.
Rollin' low with huge glowing red laser blades.
Let me state the bitter truth beforehand, GENETOS is not a too good to be true perfect oh my God experience, but it’s very -imagine this word “very” written in huge bold impact font- close to that. The most satisfying thing about the game is that you play through generations of shoot’em ups. You start from the very basics and advance towards a more complicated gameplay featuring bombs, secondary fire and movement speed control. You will first have a taste of nostalgia and then feel the rush of modern shooters.
This evolution theme is not just a cosmetic feature but really adds up to the overall gameplay experience which keeps you busy by forcing you to adjust to different conditions. Let’s take the movement mechanic: the first generation ship only lets you move horizontally; then you will be able to use the lower half of the gameplay area with the second generation ship and upon advancing to a newer generation, you will finally be able to use the whole gameplay area -and later in the game even more horizontal space will be available with newer generation ships-. While gaining more space to move during gameplay, you will also gain the ability to move slower by holding down another button.
In real life, don't shoot traffic signs and always wear your seat belt.
Speaking of buttons, let me try to explain the evolution of gameplay in this way: you will first use left-right directional keys and a primary fire button, making it three in total. Then you will additionally utilize the up-down buttons. Later in the game bomb, secondary fire lock/slower movement buttons will be added to your button arsenal. This prevents the game from being repetitive and adds a nice sense of progression throughout the game. I also have to mention that your ship evolves independently from the stages which means you can have a 3rd generation ship in stage 2 or if you want to go extra-hardcore, you can try to keep your first/second generation ship throughout the game. What’s even more interesting about the gameplay is that GENETOS learns from how you play and upgrades your weapons and bombs accordingly. The game challenges your style, if you want to use specific weapons. I usually found myself trying to unlock different weapons or bombs by checking the tips on how to unlock them -there is a separate menu for unlocked weapon/bomb types with some additional info- and applying the required style to my gameplay.
GENETOS has a pro-active upgrades system in original mode which makes unlocking items interesting and challenging.
The menu system of GENETOS is practical and you can easily adjust various parameters to your liking. There’s even an option to invert colours. Some word choices might look weird here and there but it's not too confusing. Various difficulty settings provide an enjoyable experience for everyone and the high score list also includes fastest stage completion times. Moreover, you can fully customize the gameplay in “Freeplay” mode. You want to start from a specific stage with a specific ship type or just want to do a boss rush? Freeplay is for you. Overall, GENETOS has a very friendly menu environment for non-Japanese speakers and doesn’t require a trial&error adventure to figure things out. The audio department has no major problems and is quite fine considering GENETOS is a one-man project.
My journey has always been a pleasant one with GENETOS. When I first played, I thought the last level was too long compared to the others but I came to realize that it would be natural for a first generation stage to be much shorter because that was how it used to be, compared to the last stage which represents today’s bullet hell shooters with extra long multiple phase boss fights. Putting all these things aside, GENETOS is definitely a game with substance and gets a big shiny “passed” sticker from our Rawket Imports Office. GENETOS has the Doujin Powah!
#art
#critical role
#artists on tumblr
#the amazing digital circus
#paige bueckers
