Alastor

Play

Atelier Yumia - I totally forgot Metroid is out in like 4 days so, erm, well done. This is a game I think I can sink time into in ways that aren't story related though so it's fine. This seems like a cool, unique Atelier game but it's not what I ould point a newcomer to the series to (that would still be Ryza) because it'd overwhelm the shit out them, the map size feels like it came right out of Elden Ring.

Sakura Wars 2 - Should beat this in the next day or two and then agonise at when/if the third and fourth game get fan translated, made a bit worse by everyone saying the third game is the best by far. The fifth is already translated over here so I could jump to that and then the soft reboot for the PS3 game. But as for as the second game goes, one of the best games I've played in 2025.

Sektori went to bed at 5am and stayed up till 8:30 to play this, oops. Laser focused on the campaign mode which has you fighting waves in a randomly shifting arena until a boss. I like the other modes but if I went into them I'd have to readjust my mindset. Also, this game looks pretty nutty visuals wise, deserves a special mention imo.

Want

Metroid Prime 4 - Staggeringly bad trailers aside, I can't deny I'm looking forward to this. The talking guy who points out if you haven't saved and missed a pickup sounds potentially disastrous depending on how much he's in it but bike sections potentially look like the worst part if you ask me, I dunno', I wish I was buying this without stuff like that in the back of my mind but I suppose I should at least play the damn game first. Give me Echoes Remaster and I can at least have that.

Bin
🤐 🤐🤐🤐🤐

So some spiffing chaps have er 'remade' the first Timesplitters game and put it out there for free on early access because this is just the first game as of now, but this shit looks kinda' insane, the detail looks obscene but they've still kept the solid Free Radical shooting that made the series great. And a whole lot of cool shit comes with it too.

Yeah, I think it can feel a bit hard because you wont live for very long in some of the modes but in terms of high scores I kinda' like that you won't need to spin a plate for like 20 minutes and hope you don't die just short of the goal.

Spent hours in the 'one more go' vortex on just one of the 6 modes of Sektori. It's called Crash and you dont even shoot, it's literally just about using the using the ability to ram into things (called a Strike in this). If you Strike into an upgrade you dont get the upgrade in this mode but you do instantly reload the ramming ability so you have this thing of 'shall i weave through these enemies and maybe get into distance of a powerup or shall I Strike now and get some breathing room but have to stay alive a bit longer until the Strike is ready again?'.

Big SHMUP hours

Sektori
This isn't a SHMUP but a twin stick shooter, I'm mentioning it first because it's like Geometry Wars both visually and mechanically and everyone played the shit out of that game back in the day. except I wanna' say it's a lot deeper than Gemotry Wars? Not to knock down GW but I don't recall you doing much than shooting and avoiding, this has roguelike/upgrade paths and levels morphing on the fly.

R-Type Delta: HD Boosted
The game itself is excellent even if the package is a little lacking, if you haven't played an R-Type it's a pretty damn hard horizontal (I think I prefer horizontal to vertical actually, sorry Ikaruga) SHMUP where you get a 'Force Ball' which is an attachment that you can put on the front or back of your ship in real time, this can absorb bullets and also fire whatever weapon type you have currently picked up in the direction it's attached…or you can just fir it and let it act as a turret for say, when you need to fire across the top of the screen but move to the bottom. Mastering when to place the force ball in a certain place part of the fun of learning how to play this game.

This is very memorisation heavy and not for everyone, something I feel this HD release doesn't alleviate at all, you get an unskippable intro every time you want to restart from the beginning and there's a practice mode but that's pretty much it. Maybe it's harsh to expect more but based on then ext games I'm about to talk about that have instant retries and/or save states and rewind, it feels like I get better practice on this using an emulator. That said, hasn't stopped me from playing it so maybe your love of the game will negate these issues?

Gradius Orgins
This isn't just one Gradius game it's like 5 but not even that like every game has the EU/NA/JP version and then they have like, unreleased E3 demo versions and then they top it off with a new game completely, Salamander 3, insane value. Gradius is like R-Type except the 'gimmick' this time is the power upsystem, you collect powerups and if you use it it activates the first powerup you have on the list, if you collect another it moves down the list, in this way you choose how you upgrade: do you get two speed asap and then missilies or gun for the laser upgrade? Also like R-Type if you die you lose every upgrade and start midway through a level with fuck all, oof.

As a package this is absolutely amazing, for the price I got it I can't complain at all…other than Gradius Gaiden not being here, that's like my favourite Gradius lol. But I can probably spend months just playing Gradius 1 which is all I've tried so far and the game still slaps at that, the fact that this has so many options to help you practice is also more than welcome and really just makes R-Type HD look kind of sloppy in comparison.

G-Darius HD
Another horizontal SHMUP and I would say the 'gimmick' here is you can temporarily capture enemies on the field and depending on what you caught you get different 'upgrades', one enemy can just give you homing lasers, another can act as a shield to shoot through and so on. Also you can choose your route down the Outrun style zone map so there's a lot of replay here providing you can even beat it once. Like Gradius (same team behind the HD port iirc) the options here are impressive, and the presentation might be the best of the bunch here, great stuff.

Astebreed
A SHMUP made just for me it seems, feelsl ike a mechanime if mech anime had long combat scenes every week instead of building up to them. This has quite the control scheme to keep in mind, it's not exactly Radiant Silvergun levels of complexity with the 6 weapon forms at once but you got melee and lock on and basic shooting, and you can combine. Feels like an Armored Core SHMUP or something.