Drainus Review (TheDarkPhantom)
I feel very conflicted on recommending this game.
On the surface, DRAINUS is a very well-made shmup. It looks very good, it sounds very good and it's very fun to play. I would wholeheartedly recommend the game to everyone with any skill level if it wasn't for a very major problem that sours the whole experience:
Tying life points to the power-up system is a very, VERY bad idea.
The power up system in DRAINUS works like this: The game gives you the option to equip power-ups depending on how many hitpoints your ship has. Aside from the first hitpoint which uses the default shot, you can equip a variety of power-ups and weapons to get activated upon reaching their respective health levels; for example you can activate a 1.2x damage booster on hitpoint level 2 and change your weapon to spread shot at hitpoint level 3 after collecting enough health upgrades. And the moment you get hit, you will immediately downgrade a level and lose the benefits.
In the first half of the game, this isn't even a problem; you are just an unstoppable killing machine. But when the second half of the game begins, you will immediately go from overpowered to challenged. Enemies will be more powerful and there will be more projectiles on the screen. So if you get hit and lose your power-ups, that means you are going to spend a lot more time dealing with enemies, bosses, or even obstacles.
There are three sections in the game where you can clearly see this health and power-ups combination utterly failing:
1- The third boss: This boss is armored and normal shots won't work. The best course of action is using the drain function and attack them that way. The problem is, you need to expose the boss' weakpoints on its leg to charge Drainus and the legs are very badly positioned to shoot them with the default weapon. Therefore, you might get stuck here for a while.
2- An energy core you have to destroy in the final level: There's a scripted event in the final stage when you have to destroy an energy core. If you do not have enough firepower, you will be stuck there for a long while, just shooting at the damn thing until it gets destroyed.
3- A door you have to destroy, right after the final level's energy core: After destroying the aforementioned core, the screen will start scrolling again and you will have to destroy a metal door to be able to progress. If you do not have enough firepower at that point, you cannot get past it in time; you have to crash into it and lose a life to be able to progress.
For this very reason, I feel very conflicted on recommending this game.
Is it well-made and fun? Yes. But tying the health system to power-ups is a move that while might satisfy hardcore players, will punish the other crowds (casuals and those with limited time to enjoy games) for simple mistakes and decrease the game's fun factor for them.