Do you have to be good at games to enjoy them? I’d argue I’m living proof that’s not the case: I’m abysmal at the things and I them. Indeed, some of the games I love the most are from a genre with a reputation for being the most hardcore. Shmups, it would seem, are serious business.
Can you be a casual shmup player? Well I’m certainly one, drawn as much to the spectacle and strangeness of the genre. These things are so pure in their abstraction, and often so dazzling in their art and aesthetic, that I’ve always found them irresistible, even if I’m typically drawn to more stately classics such as Darius or Gradius which are more apt for aging players like myself.
Esp.Ra.De Psi reviewDeveloper: CavePublisher: M2Platform: Played on SwitchAvailability: Out in Japan on Switch/PS4
Up until now I’ve never really dabbled so much in Cave’s work, probably because I’d been put off by their own reputation: offering diamond-edged challenge and featuring arcane scoring systems, they’ve always seemed the preserve of the real purist. M2’s Shot Trigger series seemed like a good point to jump in, though, especially now one of them’s finally found its way to Nintendo’s Switch (or at least it has in Japan, where it’s still easily enough to grab a copy off the eShop if you can’t be bothered with the hassle of importing).
Esp.Ra.De isn’t the most highly praised of Cave’s output, nor the most discussed – perhaps because it’s had to wait until now to get a home release. It is, by the standards of Cave’s later output, a fairly primitive game too, which only helps make it more accessible to newcomers – though M2 also does a fine job of that.