ZeroRanger

Short one: Why did I wait almost 8 years to play this game... Long one: I remember seeing Dunkey recommending the game in his top of 2018 vid, always intrigued but I think I wasn't too deep into shmups at the time. In recent months I've been playing rabbit and steel, star of providence and undertale(again) so got sucked into shmupping a lot. Decided to finally pick this up and good god it delivers. I'm not gonna be here to praise the gameplay that inspired from many shmup greats like Radiant Silvergun, instead I want to focus on the perspective and vision of the developer. This game transcends and like many amazing work of art that makes you reflect, ZeroRanger made me felt hopeful and optimistic about the world and a bit in myself. It's getting more and more difficult to sit down and enjoy video games in a world that makes you feel guilty for enjoying. ZeroRanger's overall design in both gameplay and its narrative, in my opinion, alleviate its player to feel more grateful and appreciative of their time and effort. This is a hard game and shmup/danmakus is a difficult genre that not many people are willing to try, even more people play souls game than shmup from my experience. Similarly to Celeste's ludonarrative harmony design, the buddhism thematic of attaining enlightenment and escaping samsara-both figuratively and literally-quite resembles the zen like state of players when they're hyperfocusing on a game...like like a god(at some point idk if theyre even playing the game anymore *looking at Ikaruga dualplayers*). You will finish the game and get the real ending, you will suffer and die a lot, some might even want to give up and uninstall and go play Enter the Gungeon or smthing; but break through hell and you too will attain enlightenment. (This game will not waste anyone's time). In my head, I was wondering what if the devs actually saw a buddhist monk 1cc-ed some crazy danmaku and they both go damn... So yeah I guess you can say this game's quite the fruitful endeavor xd... maybe some could even say it sours away my depression xDDDD. 4.5/5 game, better than Eva, still doesn't top Gurren Lagann tho. I'm gonna get some vegetarian food after this... P/s: I got the achievement and beating the last phase without save scumming. Yes I know I'm pretty wicked *sunglasses on*

Took me a long time to finish this game, but it's pretty incredible! If you love shmups, it has more references than you can count, but even as someone who isn't that into the genre, its a great time.

An extremely interesting contribution to the genre. ZeroRanger combines excellent production (visuals, sound design, music) with a novel story and meta-progression while still offering plenty of challenge. It's also challenging while still remaining accessible for mortal humans, such as myself. (I quite like the genre but I have very few 1CCs to my name). Best to go in blind, by the way.