REVIEW
GRACEFUL EXPLOSION MACHINE
GAME DETAILS
Title : Graceful Explosion Machine Genre : Shoot ' em up Developer : Vertex Pop Publisher : Vertex Pop Platforms : PlayStation 4 , Switch [ Reviewed ], PC Release Date : August 8 , 2017 [ PC ]
Graceful Explosion Machine is an action game by Vertex Pop . And , despite appearances , is every bit as hectic as any other sidescrolling shmup .
The story is , well , something of a formality . It ’ s told through pictures , and has almost nothing to do with the gameplay in any way . The benefit is that it cuts down on any given translation work . Pretty much the only text in the game is in the menu .
There are also small descriptions of the weapons the first time you encounter them , but they ’ re also minimal . Overall , the devs managed to cast the widest net imaginable for their game this way .
The gameplay , however , is the meat of this one . It is an action game after all . You ’ re given access to several weapons over the course of the first few levels . And you ’ ll make good use of all of them , because you really have to . The game pulls no punches the further you go .
Your primary is a mid-range blaster ; it ’ s unlimited , but it can overheat , so you can ’ t just hold down the button to win . You ’ ll need to ease up on it , or its fire rate plummets . Next up is the Energy Sword ; it ’ s incredibly close range ( about1.5 times the width of your ship in diameter ).
It ’ s your go to when enemies get too close , especially in swarms , but it ’ s costly . There ’ s the Sniper Beam , a long range weapon which is great for nuking large , shielded opponents , but isn ’ t to great against swarms . Finally , you have the missiles . You can fire a cloud of them for crowd control , and even fire them continuously . But they are something of an energy hog , so you want to save them for emergency clearance .
With the exception of the blaster and the short dash ( which can pass through enemies , but not bullets ), all of your weapons work off the same energy bar . The bar does recharge after being depleted , but it does so slowly . The other option is to pick up the crystals dropped from enemies .
That , however , requires you to defeat them and also get close enough to pick up the crystals . What that means is you can ’ t say , spam missiles like this was an episode of Macross or something . You need to be smart about where and when you fight enemies .
Speaking of , there ’ s a good number of them . The game ’ s pretty good about stepping things up every couple of levels . That being said , the most dangerous enemies , in my opinion , are the green guys you wind up murdering by the thousands from the get go .
38 GAMBIT | SEPT / OCT | 2017