i played rogue flight
the game has multiple routes: the branch comes after stage 2, and you have three routes to take. routes A and B are both a further two stages; each leads to a different Bad End. route C is playing all of those stages in sequence, plus a final stage; it concludes in Mission Success but bad end for the protag. after you've completed all three of those routes, new game+ unlocks, which allows you to start with the full arsenal of four weapons (each route has its own), and play through seven stages for the true end. two stages in ng+ are turned into a harder variants, and are treated as separate stages in stage select etc... so the full count is nine stages across the game
the meta-progression system is that various play maneuvers award you upgrade points in four categories for outfitting the ship. it's just two "stats go up" slots where there are hardly any interesting choices to make, just make number go bigger over time. more shield strength, more missiles, more shot power, aoe upgrades for all the weapons
right trigger is main weapon, left trigger is missiles (they have the itano circus smoke trails, and the game literally says they're powered by "itano turbines", which is one of those tipping-your-hand-too-much no fan filter things that puts me off). square changes weapons freely, and throughout the stages you pick up options to circle your ship and augment firepower
both shoulders are used for a barrel roll bullet parry. right stick is for three kinds of special maneuvers: up is boost, the least useful and one that i couldn't really figure out any real need for--enemies always come to you and you're never in a hurry to reach them or to use it for evasive purposes
down is vortex, which sucks in pick-ups. it's handy
but left/right is what the game calls a wingtrail attack, which is a horizontal, entire screen width straight shockwave that has the ship flip all over itself for an animation that 1) activates slowdown for about four seconds that it lasts 2) unleashes that aforementioned giant hitbox 3) is not totally invincible while performing it but i do think it has some kind of i-frame factor 4) can lock on and shoot missiles while it's being performed 5) vortex usually has a slight delay when coming out of it, but you can cancel it with wingtrail 6) the combo meter stops counting down while it's being performed 7) hitting multiple enemies (many of which come in horizontal formations) generates missile pick-ups every time 8) allows you to micro-adjust position while the animation is playing out
all the game's systems essentially come to revolve around it. you want combos to go on forever because while the meter is active (after four enemies are destroyed in short order), your shields constantly regenerate; it's the main way of keeping yourself alive and restoring health. combos is how you score and also how you survive, so you have to play the game this way for the "intended" rhythm, and what it means is that essentially every few seconds or so you lock yourself into a barely interactive slowdown crawl, and then repeat this for the entirety of the game's runtime
it's like if a street fighter post-4 match was interrupted by a super animation clip at those intervals, instead of once or twice a match
it's so single-minded about it, since every situation is resolved the same way. under heavy fire? wingtrails and launch missiles to thin out the crowd. combo meter about to expire? wingtrail to stall it out and hope a popcorn enemy flies into the hitbox, while you scan for stuff to lock onto with missiles. need breathing room from a boss pattern? none of it ever changes
it's incredibly trivial to use and none of it creates any sort of kinetic mastery of movement and positioning to strive for. it didn't take long until i was hitting combos that consist of most of a stage's length, and i'm usually really trash at chaining systems in shmups. in here i had like 3-minutes long, 500+ hit chains
nothing really alleviated it. tried putting the game on hardest difficulty, tried playing the randomized-arsenal roguelite mode. game is always easy and plays exactly the same
so i ended up reaching Platinum Trophy (lol) for it without really even trying
really it's death by the twosome of the wingtrail and also the aforementioned parry. you can just keep pressing parry and basically never stop, and there is no downside to it; you don't move slower and it doesn't make aiming harder. when it protects you from bullets so efficiently and without downsides... why was it even an input at all? just always keep the ship spinning. that's how players will treat it anyway. the wingtrail suffers from the same kind of mechanical imbalance: it's free to use, and its cooldown even at its slowest is maybe two seconds. when upgraded, probably a second. you're never encouraged or limited not to use it
there's really not a lot to the game's selling point of being like "old prestige anime." you have three talking heads who just talk about The Mission and its logistics, but there's no space drama or interpersonal angle to any of it, and really no flash at all. the music in its main instrumentation is all very boring harsh e-guitar-driven hard rock, which is absolutely not what any of the shows that you can assume and imagine that inspired a game like this ever sounded like, musically. unlocking the retro mode and its pcm music (sadly behind a new game+ clear, at the point when you'll likely be done with the game because i see no scoring or survival depth in it) helps significantly, but the compositions, especially for the stages, aren't very thrilling
bosses have long transitionary animations and just lots of waiting around involved, making replays more of a drag than they should be
you should probably play after burner/burning force/galaxy force 2 instead of this
