Lightning Fighter

[thewiirocks]

Originally Posted by medianotzu

Ah, what the heck. This is a safe 99 cents for me to spend. I can never get enough shmups on my iPod it seems.

Fixed that for you.

[medianotzu]

Originally Posted by thewiirocks

Fixed that for you.

Well, I don't have any other gaming system really, so those statements are actually one and the same.

[medianotzu]

The video doesn't do the game justice.

It's actually very nice, and a kind of combination of Super Laser and Dodonpachi Resurrection. It's somewhere between them in terms of pace, and the controls are very responsive and I like the idea of having a combination of tilt and touch at the same time, even if you rarely get the breathing room to take advantage of the less exact tilt controls.

The levels are brisk and seem to have a good variety of enemies (the description boasts 40 different enemies over 7 levels which works out to just under 6 unique enemies per level) and the bosses are indeed very bullet hell. The graphics are better than they appeared in the Youtube video; maybe some of the bullet assets are taken directly from Espgaluda/Dodonpachi as they certainly look very similar. Also the sprites are of a high caliber, even if a lot of the visual design seems to mimic Super Laser. This isn't a bad thing as far as I'm concerned, to draw close "inspiration" from Cave and Epic Force as they have made some of the most gorgeous games I've ever played. The backgrounds look really good also.

I'm not sure if you get unlimited continues, but something nice for those who simply want to see the end of the game is that after you die three times, you can continue directly where you were destroyed instead of needing to start over at the beginning of the level. I assume scores are reset after you lose three lives and need to continue. (Edit: You get two continues and your score doesn't reset until you run out of continues. Levels unlock as you reach them so you can start later games at any unlocked level. This means you will have 9 lives to finish a level if you start on it and simply want to get to the next level to experience the entire game.) GameCenter support is greatly appreciated and make high score chasing even more enjoyable.

I need to play more, but it's definitely worth the 99 cents. Glad I picked this one up.

[strivemind]

Originally Posted by medianotzu

The video doesn't do the game justice.

It's actually very nice, and a kind of combination of Super Laser and Dodonpachi Resurrection. It's somewhere between them in terms of pace, and the controls are very responsive and I like the idea of having a combination of tilt and touch at the same time, even if you rarely get the breathing room to take advantage of the less exact tilt controls.

The levels are brisk and seem to have a good variety of enemies (the description boasts 40 different enemies over 7 levels which works out to just under 6 unique enemies per level) and the bosses are indeed very bullet hell. The graphics are better than they appeared in the Youtube video; maybe some of the bullet assets are taken directly from Espgaluda/Dodonpachi as they certainly look very similar. Also the sprites are of a high caliber, even if a lot of the visual design seems to mimic Super Laser. This isn't a bad thing as far as I'm concerned, to draw close "inspiration" from Cave and Epic Force as they have made some of the most gorgeous games I've ever played. The backgrounds look really good also.

I'm not sure if you get unlimited continues, but something nice for those who simply want to see the end of the game is that after you die three times, you can continue directly where you were destroyed instead of needing to start over at the beginning of the level. I assume scores are reset after you lose three lives and need to continue. GameCenter support is greatly appreciated and make high score chasing even more enjoyable.

I need to play more, but it's definitely worth the 99 cents. Glad I picked this one up.

Ditto. Lightning Fighter is turning out to be one of the better shmups on the app store. It has nice clean graphics and effects, and plays well. It's also quite challenging. It plays a lot like Super Laser, but with more of a bullet hell pattern on the bosses.

My one suggestion, if the developers come across this forum, is have the bombs that are dropped when you die cancel out bullets. Too many times it felt like cheap death by getting hit multiple times in quick succession. It's also pretty hard to recover your powerups, since they tend to float in one small area, making it easy to grab the wrong weapons all at once and overwrite each other.

But anyways, great game. I'll be playing more of this.

[medianotzu]

Originally Posted by strivemind

Ditto. Lightning Fighter is turning out to be one of the better shmups on the app store. It has nice clean graphics and effects, and plays well. It's also quite challenging. It plays a lot like Super Laser, but with more of a bullet hell pattern on the bosses.

My one suggestion, if the developers come across this forum, is have the bombs that are dropped when you die cancel out bullets. Too many times it felt like cheap death by getting hit multiple times in quick succession. It's also pretty hard to recover your powerups, since they tend to float in one small area, making it easy to grab the wrong weapons all at once and overwrite each other.

But anyways, great game. I'll be playing more of this.

Good points. Although I'm not sure if that explosion when you're hit is supposed to be a bomb or not, it would nevertheless make sense if the explosion did cancel out the bullets on screen, especially since there is a delay of a second or so after you reappear before you can really regain control of your ship.

[strivemind]

Originally Posted by medianotzu

Good points. Although I'm not sure if that explosion when you're hit is supposed to be a bomb or not, it would nevertheless make sense if the explosion did cancel out the bullets on screen, especially since there is a delay of a second or so after you reappear before you can really regain control of your ship.

I'm pretty sure it is a bomb, since it's nearly the same animation. That, and some other popular games like DoDonPachi use a similar auto-bomb mechanic. I'll have to check again, but when your last hit goes off (death -1) I'm pretty sure the bomb button grays out.

[medianotzu]

Originally Posted by strivemind

I'm pretty sure it is a bomb, since it's nearly the same animation. That, and some other popular games like DoDonPachi use a similar auto-bomb mechanic. I'll have to check again, but when your last hit goes off (death -1) I'm pretty sure the bomb button grays out.

You're probably right, I just wasn't sure it was because the explosion is a different color.

Thanks for adding me on OpenFeint and GameCenter by the way, your high scores give me something to aim for.

Edit: Actually you do detonate bombs if you have them when you're hit. I didn't even realize that happened because I was getting killed without bombs. No big surprise then, that they used another genre trope. Anyway, definitely agree the bombs should cancel bullets.

[eugekava]

Does everybody else gets a pause just before the Boss? I think with me it has something to do with the music track change.

[medianotzu]

Originally Posted by eugekava

Does everybody else gets a pause just before the Boss? I think with me it has something to do with the music track change.

Yeah, it is slightly distracting...

[strivemind]

Originally Posted by eugekava

Does everybody else gets a pause just before the Boss? I think with me it has something to do with the music track change.

I get it too. I figured it was because they were loading the boss graphics or something, but music might be the reason. I wonder if it happens on newer hardware? Anyone have an iPhone/Touch 4?