Mecha Ritz: Steel Rondo

Vibrant and interesting graphics, great visual clarity. Sound design lovingly reminiscent of Genesis/Megadrive. Gameplay feels fantastic. Smooth controls, multiple routes, and each high-octane wave leads into a new and unique and boss fight. The action and flow is continuous and straight out of a Treasure Co., Ltd. game like Alien Soldier. (If encountering issues making V2.0 boot from steam, what worked for me on Win10 was to browse local files, compatibility, change settings for all users, and finally check the setting marked Run as Administrator.)

So while this is a recommend from me, I'm also going to throw in a disclaimer; in my personal experience this game is a bit iffy whenever I wanted to play version 2.0 (no issues with 1.53) ; basically being a coin flip between getting to the main menu or just crashing right before then. But once I make it to the game proper, everything's fine. I was able to play it through to the end without any technical issues. Trying to quit to desktop always seems to result in a crash though. Despite that, Mecha Ritz: Steel Rondo is great shmup. The variety in shot types, the stylized and colorful graphics and the satisfying sound effects paired with the FM soundtrack, all wonderful. I really like the rank system, it starts at 0 at the easiest and well over 200 at the hardest. Things can quickly get out of hand the longer you go without taking hit so that becomes its own thrill. Hard to go wrong with branching paths in a genre like this, nice way to mix things up. Survival isn't too bad, actually. You only lose a life once you take a hit without any shields which are generous enough and of course there are bombs too. So you can make it pretty far even if this game has no continues to rely on. I do wish HEY would do a little more bug-fixing for this game; apparently other people have had different issues beyond what I've experienced. But both that and discount for this game are probably unlikely at this point. P.S. There are some other options at the bottom of the key config menu, including the fullscreen toggle.

A manic crackhead game for anyone who loves blowing stuff up, no genre experience required. Crank the music, dim the lights, and let the dynamic difficulty split you in half between elation and panic. Overwhelmingly charming.