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6 days agoI recently got hooked on Twinkle Star Sprites, a Neo Geo versus shmup. Chaining enemies on your screen sends attacks to the opponent’s screen. Those attacks can be bounced back, and reversing a reversal can create special attacks or even a boss summon. There’s a lot going on and it’s tragic that no spiritual successor ever tried to recreate this formula.
It did get a JP-only PS2 sequel, but it looks to just be largely the same game, just with a different cast of characters and the lovely spritework replaced with a much worse low poly 3D.
It’s quite common in retro shmups, particularly bullet hells putting way too many sprites onscreen. Designers were always aware of it and intentionally balanced the difficulty around it, and some later games even include artificial slowdown just to preserve that feel.