The title of this post is a reference to how Nintendo has been titling their 2D game releases lately. Murf, this one’s for you.

Hangeki

Hangeki is a shooter from Pentavera, and as far as I can tell it’s their first game. Hangeki at first glance bears a very large resemblance to Space Invaders, but it plays pretty differently once you get past initial appearances. The objective is to kill enough enemies to earn a screen-clearing super-weapon (referred to as a Hangeki) and then use it to move on to the next wave. Repeat until you face a boss. Along the way, you can level up and earn some abilities that are powered by your chain meter (it goes up as you shoot things and down when you don’t). It’s somewhat moba-like in that you start each stage at level 1 and unlock abilities as you play, but you can choose what abilities to take in each slot. You can choose what abilities to take and in what order. Additional abilities unlock as you complete and perfect stages.

As for difficulty, the first stage is very easy. The second stage is slightly less so. Things ramp up quickly from there, as enemies expand from simple bullets to lasers and bombs and dashing. (Unlike a certain other game, lasers are telegraphed before they fire, to make dodging possible.) Your ship shoots automatically, but if you’re not hitting anything your chain will break and your power meter will drop, so positioning and planning is fairly important. If you destroy a column all at once, you’ll later break your chain if you’re forced to move to that column to dodge. I’m still learning, and I clearly have a long way to go if the global score table is any indication.

Hangeki comes highly recommended if you like arcade shooters. The combination of pretty lights, customizable weapons, and global high-score tables makes for a pretty enjoyable experience. I liked it more than I was expecting to, and at $10, the price is right.

For more posts about… everything, check out the Blaugust initiative. For why I don’t browse kickstarter anymore a good look at a shooter on Kickstarter, see C.T. Murphy’s post about Hive Jump.