Voidblazers

I’ve been keeping an eye on vertical shmup Voidblazers’ development for months, and it’s worth the wait. It’s not a new Gun Trails or Angel Pop, with millions of bullets on the screen at any given second – it’s more like Galaga or Xevious got story cutscenes and an upgradable ship while being pushed into the modern era. In a Shovel Knight way, it feels like the old games you loved, but new.

You play as Jyn and Echo, partners in crime and love. They escaped space prison but are immediately caught again, so they have to do what the space cops say or else. And what they say is to use your shmup skills to take out their enemies. But there’s more to the story than that, and if you’re good enough, you can figure out who your real enemies and friends are.

One who’s always your friend, though, is Cosmeau, a salesman and pastry chef from what appears to be Space France. Every few levels, he will show up and offer you ship upgrades, collectibles, and baked goods (every third pastry is free!). You earn credits to pay him by doing well in each level – collect more spendable points by getting more takedowns, having more shields left at the end of the level, completing it quickly, and firing accurately. The things you buy from him will give you different conversations in the pre-level cutscenes, and don’t worry if you can’t afford them all the first time through… there’s a New Game+ mode waiting for you if you make it through the game’s 25 levels and save the day. I was able to afford all the ship upgrades (faster shots, better engines, and extra shields) in my first playthrough, but not all of the extra items. Guess I get to hop back in! There’s also a sort of boss rush mode after you complete the game, but with less life and eight stages in a row… I might never beat that one.

The game gets tough, but not unfairly so. And if you die too many times in one level (even on the final boss!), you earn access to Assist Mode, which gives you a shield for that entire level. I made it through without using Assist, but I was really close to giving in sometimes. You can also adjust screen shake, flashing effects, and background motion, and there are also multiple inputs for shooting depending on your personal preference (tap, hold, or toggle).

Like in the original Galaga, you do only shoot in one direction. There’s no split shots or screen-clearing bombs, so it’s all up to your reactions and skills. The bullets are easy to see on the black-and-white screen, and the hit box of your ship always feels fair! That trench run level though, woof! Took more than a few tries and had to set it down for a while. The levels are just long enough to let you build your skills in the early part and use those skills at the end, and each seems to have a sort of theme to differentiate them from each other. Some levels there will be ships sneaking up from the bottom of the screen, or you’ll only be fighting a certain kind of ship but there will be more and harder versions by the end, or you’ll get increasingly more difficult asteroid fields to navigate. The learning curve is pretty perfect.

One trick I missed in the tutorial that I want to spell out for you: press B to make a wish and recover one unit of shields, but it only works when there’s a shooting star in the background! I was trying to make wishes just whenever, but it doesn’t work like that. The shooting stars are random and appear every once in a while, so keep an eye out and restore some health.

The music by Andrea Baroni is great and worth mentioning, too. I had to play a little bit of Voidblazers on mute so I wouldn’t wake the cat in my lap, and it was a greatly diminished experience. And the characters! Giving us a story cutscene at the beginning of each level, no exceptions, really helps flesh them out. It lets you know the reason for every enemy you’re fighting. And, Jyn and Echo keep a running codex about the enemies and other characters you meet, with updates as the story progresses. The protagonists will usually use space swears like “Blast it!” or “Oh my galaxies!” but they did drop a random F-bomb once and it was… jarring. Like, oh, they still have regular swears in the future. Like in a PG-13 movie, everyone gets one.

The developers are also lovely people and gifted me a copy for this post (and also helped me with an explanation on what I missed with the “wishing on a star” healing mechanic), but you reading this should buy it right now on Itch for only six dollars, with an eventual Catalog release maybe down the line. It doesn’t use the crank except to scroll through the codex, but even Playdate exclusives don’t need to use the crank all the time – it’s really down to the game. And this is an instant-classic, classic vertical shmup. Can’t wait for the Blazers to return someday!

(Released August 1, 2024, on Itch. Coming to Catalog August 27, 2024. Copy provided by developer.)