ShooMachi is a nice little bullet-hell vertical shoot'em up on android. I love shoot'em ups, but usually of the Tyrian "nice and easy and customizable" style, so bullet-hells usually scare the crap out of me on mobile. Except this one. This one's great.
It's in the fantasy RPG mould, using weapons instead of guns, you can level-up/grind for more HP/damage, and you can take a few hits without instadeath. No penalty on death either, just re-try from the level you were up to, or from one before it. So yeah. A nice, easy bullet-hell made for people like me
There's no weapons customization (each character has a single weapon set) but there's a few different types of weapon setups available early on. It's got a nice little "the closer you are to the enemy when you kill it, the higher the points you get" thing going on, and these points charge your super weapon, which gives even more firepower and points, which levels you up quicker, so there are some nice risk/reward mechanics at play here.
Graphics are bright and colourful, sound isn't bad, and unlocks of "costumes" (additional stats for each character) are easy enough to get for free with a tiny bit of grinding. Pretty small footprint on your phone too. One handed play is standard, because it's just movement and a double-tap for your super. I never thought a bullet-hell would work so well on a phone, but this one does.
If you've ever wondered just how many sprites your phone can manage onscreen at one time before it slows to a crawl, this'll find that out for you within 10mins. It's a lot, even on a crappy phone like mine. It'll also make you feel like you are an arcade ninja master, even though you're not. A really quality example of the genre, so give it a go for some brain-free shooty dodging fun some time.
No energy system, no paywall, no bullshit. No online requirement either, unless you want to check the scoreboards or get achievements. Just a nice fun little game that you can get good at, or get unbelievably awesome at, if and as you want. I highly recommend it for anyone searching for a decent shoot'em up on mobile. Only real IAP is perma-xp gain/no banner ads, and I'm going to throw the dev the $3.49 Aussie for it, simply because I've never liked bullet-hells on phone before this one (and I've tried a few).
(the hit-box is at your feet, despite where the rest of your character sprite is. I think. Or that little heart thing I just noticed, probably. It's incredibly lenient anyway, which is why I like it. The lvl 10 boss has been the only real difficulty bump so far. Easy is easy'ish, hard is actually hard. It's nice like that. I can finish lvl1 on hard with a lvl20 sorcerer character without an outfit, so it is possible, but it gets pretty friggen insane in later levels. Poor 8mil score, but done
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(it loops after 10 missions, then it gets slightly harder, but nowhere near the easy/normal/hard mode difficulty jump. And you unlock more characters. The magician (the flamethrower one) is great for big scores, the archer is good for the lvl 10 boss, and the sorcerer is great for general progression. I only have the +70 alchemy/0.3%vamp/-1hitbox outfit on the archer (killed the boss at lvl24'ish, so late as, but wasn't trying it "safely" before that. Damn scores....), so it's easy enough to loop within one day with a bit of level grinding on easy. I've got a 159mil score on lvl8 already, so I'm pretty sure the highscore boards are legit considering how hopeless I am at this sort of game, and I've only played it a bit)
("Ever wanted to play a bullet-hell shooter, but you're a white guy with poor reflexes like me? ShooMachi is for you!"
This game seems to have the right difficulty curve, progression and lack of barriers to entry to the genre compared to so many others. It still gives a real sense of accomplishment, but it doesn't drag you all the way back to the beginning, sobbing, when you're just learning a level or stuff up a bit. It doesn't really hold your hand, but it doesn't kick you in the nuts either. You feel like you're getting better at it, and it didn't cost you a cent.)