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BLUE REVOLVER released on Steam. Indie STG that is definitely worth your time

G

gngf123

Member
So this game was released on Steam yesterday with pretty much zero attention. It received some good word of mouth on the Steam community thread and on the STG thread, including comments like these:

PepsimanVsJoe said:
Blue Revolver is damn good - http://www.cubed3.com/review/3156/1/blue-revolver-pc.html (My review)
Everything about Blue Revolver is well done. It nails the most important aspects, while looking and sounding fantastic. There's enough depth to the various sub-systems to keep experts entertained, but at the same time it doesn't put off or condescend newcomers. Within minutes, anyone can understand how it all works. The levels are thrilling, the bosses are tough, and the variety of weapons offers many different ways to play. This is a superb pick-up for STG fans, and there is even a demo available on the official website for those that want to try before they buy. It's well worth checking out.

8 / 10
Click to expand...
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Rayge said:
Just echoing Pepsiman. Blue Revolver is legit. The game feels so good right when you start it up. The soundtrack just screams "new age arcade shoot'em up" to me. I love it. I'm in no way good at shoot'em ups either, but the way the game is set up it basically caters towards your skill level. The better you are the harder the game gets. It's definitely for people who are looking for an entry level shmup. The game is also well done technically. I mean just look at this 5K support!!
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awwyeahgurrl said:
Blue Revolver is great from what I've played of it so far. I really like that bombs are made to be actively used for score rather than hoarded for end-stage bonuses. I think my only complaint is that due to the colour palette used I sometimes find the playfield to be a little muddy making it hard to notice what I was hit by but that may just be a me issue, I've yet to try out the alternative bullet colours to see if that makes a difference.

Soundtrack is also fantastic so far. Haven't heard all of the arrange tracks just yet.



It's leagues ahead of Super Galaxy Squadron.
Click to expand...

After now playing it, I can agree with all of these. The difficulty is just about right, the pixel art is nice, the soundtrack is amazing (actually might just go ahead and buy the OST as well), and the scoring system seems very simple but good. I can see myself playing this for some time, and think it deserves a bit more attention than it has so far.

There are 2 main pilots to pick from: Mae, or Val. Each has 3 gun types and a number of special "devices" which act as a secondary weapon. There are 3 difficulties, and it has adaptive difficulty scaling so the game will tailor itself to how you are playing. You can also access all the levels, or just parts of missions from the menu, making it really easy to practice bosses or sub-bosses.

Tate/Vertical mode is supported for those with vertical monitors, and you can pick between two graphics options - pixel perfect, or proportionate.

There is a Steam copy, which currently sells for £9.89 with the 10% launch discount: http://store.steampowered.com/app/439490/

Alternatively, you can buy it from the developers website and also receive a DRM free copy of the game: http://bluerevolvergame.com/#buy

Both copies support Windows, Mac, and Linux.

CqHKeNl.jpg
krw2ydB.jpg
tRWRYQb.jpg
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D

Dachande

Member
Glad there's a thread for this!

I'd put this on the Watch list a while ago from when I bumped into it during its Greenlight campaign. Forgot about it completely until an email from Steam announcing its release the other day, and I've been umming and aahing over getting it since.

Dodonpachi Resurrection is out in a few days too, and since I've been getting a bit pumped for that, wanting something to scratch the shmup itch, I went for this and I'm reeeeeally fucking glad I did.

It feels wonderful and Cave-like, with some lovely patterns and good, flexible handling. The sprites are cute and colourful, but the bullets are designed well to not blend in. Loving the cool character sprites, and promo art/pinups used throughout too.

The scoring system is excellent and easy to grasp, and made to satisfy with constant big bonuses if you time it right. I'm only a couple of hours in but I'm finding it fun working out the best ways to score in stage 1 alone.

Not pushed past stage 2 yet, but I'm only playing one credit at a time, purposely sticking to Hyper mode and avoiding the easier Normal mode as I don't want to get used to autobombs, and I can feel myself getting further and further already.

My partner gave it a go on Normal though as he's not as good as shmups as I, and he got to the end of stage 2 on one credit after 15 minutes or so, so it really is friendly to non-shmup fans.

I hope more people pick it up, it deserves to do well and it's doing everything right to let everyone play it and have fun!
 
B

Beckx

Member
Great thread! Just started to dive into this after following it for a while. Loooove the aesthetic and the music.

The official twitter is posting a lot of great fan art too. (twitter.com/BlueRevolverSTG)

(no seriously the music and the art it's all soooooo goood)
 
T

TGMIII

Member
To elaborate a bit on what I said, there's something here for fans and newcomers alike without sacrificing too much that it becomes a game for no one.

Normal keeps the difficulty curve linear meaning you'll experience the same patterns regardless of how well/poorly you're doing along with the general difficulty being lower and auto-bombs if you're hit. Hyper removes the previous changes allowing the games difficulty to change based on rank which is decided by scoring and time since last ship death. On a ship death the rank decreases by 1. Parallel is the games hardest difficulty which locks the game to max rank at all times and makes gaining extends harder.

Soundtrack is great on its own and well worth picking up too.

At its easiest it's certainly not the easiest Shmup out there but even for casual players there's something to be found here and for the price it's a steal. If you've any interest in Shmups then you should be looking to pick it up. According to the developer there's plans for online leaderboards, replays & achievements coming sometime after launch.

If you're in the US, or possibly other regions, buying it through their Itch.io page gives them a little extra cut compared to steam store and based on what they've said you'll receive both a DRM free copy along with steam keys.
Sadly it works out much more expensive if you're in the UK due to VAT being added.
 
M

Momentary

Banned
I wish all STGs would use a reward system for scoring. This one doesn't have a super deep rewarding system, but it gives casual players something to strive towards while trying to push ahead in the game. The artwork in this game is just so awesome. I wish that there was a way to zoom in on some of the pieces to use as desktop backgrounds.

I also went ahead and bought the soundtrack and haven't regretted it one bit. It's amazing how fantastic the sound track is.

My only qualm with the game right now is that I wish they would increase the volume of some of the sound effects in the game. Other than that I'm having a blast with the scoring system and figuring out a good weapon combination for the two ships.

The game just feels good to play. The announcers give it a great arcade vibe. If you're picking up DoDonPachi, go ahead and throw Blue Revolver in your cart as well. Hell, I put down Gears of War and Forza Horizon just to play this game.
 
M

Momentary

Banned
psyfi said:
What does STG stand for? Never seen the term before, I don't think.
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ShooTing Game.

Edit: beatin.

It used to just be called shooters. But now that term is mostly associated with FPS games.

STG, Shmup, Shoot'em up are all terms used to describe these sort of games.
 
T

Tyrant Rave

Banned
psyfi said:
What does STG stand for? Never seen the term before, I don't think.
Click to expand...

Just another abbreviation for shmups

Thanks for posting this OP. I'm not very well versed in shmups myself but this looks really cool. Gonna grab it and DoDonPachi tomorrow!
 
@

@MUWANdo

Banned
psyfi said:
What does STG stand for? Never seen the term before, I don't think.
Click to expand...

Beaten about fifty times but "STG" is the Japanese abbreviation for "shooting game". It's goofy but it's no less goofy (and a little shorter) than "shmup" so genre enthusiasts tend to stick with it.
 
M

Momentary

Banned
This and Danmaku Unlimited 3 were my 2 hypest STGs for this year. I'm going to say that DU3 is probably going to end up being a 2017 release.
 
J

Jockel

Member
Saw this popping up on Steam yesterday, will have to get if after all the praise it gets here. Last game I bought due to good impressions was MechaRitz, and that delivered.
 
S

StayDead

Member
Ive been following this from the beginning as I know one of the devs. It really is amazing and is a love letter to Cave shooters.
 
D

Dash Kappei

Not actually that important
D3VI0US said:
Is STG the new name for shmups now and what does it stand for? If so are metroidvania's still a thing?
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It actually is the old and original Japanese name for them.
It stems from Famitsu (I think) using the 3 letters abbreviation for game genres (RPG, ACT, SIM...) where STG = ShooTing Game.
 
O

oni-link

Member
I've had this my wishlist for a while, it looks great. Has it come from arcades or is it an indie game?

Slightly off topic but when did Dodonpachi Resurrection originally release, was it a Saturn game?
 
D

danmaku

Member
oni-link said:
I've had this my wishlist for a while, it looks great. Has it come from arcades or is it an indie game?

Slightly off topic but when did Dodonpachi Resurrection originally release, was it a Saturn game?
Click to expand...

No, the original release was the arcade version (2008) and then it was ported on 360 in 2010. The Saturn would melt trying to run Daifukkatsu lol. Maybe you're thinking about the original Dodonpachi, it had a Saturn port.

Blue Revolver looks awesome, along with Daifukkatsu I'll have a nice shmup weekend! :)
 
D

Dio

Banned
Oh fuck, woof's the artist for this. He's a really cool guy, talked to him occasionally over the years and followed his work on pixiv and tumblr and stuff.

If you want to check him out:

http://woofycakes.tumblr.com/

I've always fantasized about having him work on a game project with me, so it's nice to see him getting exposure here with a nice game.
 
S

StayDead

Member
oni-link said:
I've had this my wishlist for a while, it looks great. Has it come from arcades or is it an indie game?
Click to expand...

Indie game made by (from what I understand) a relatively small team.

Woofy was tweeting yesterday (the artist) that he noticed Cave have tweeted saying they were playing/enjoying the game. That's awesome. :D
 
KainXVIII

KainXVIII

Member
Interesting, but indie visuals with muted color palette (why every indie game us it?!) is really putting me off.
 
G

gngf123

Member
StayDead said:
Indie game made by (from what I understand) a relatively small team.

Woofy was tweeting yesterday (the artist) that he noticed Cave have tweeted saying they were playing/enjoying the game. That's awesome. :D
Click to expand...

Oh, that's really awesome. You can't really get better praise than that.

This game definitely feels inspired by some of Cave's work, must be great knowing that they are enjoying it.

KainXVIII said:
Interesting, but indie visuals with muted color palette (why every indie game us it?!) is really putting me off.
Click to expand...

I've not played around with it yet, but I believe there are alternate color palettes available so maybe that could help.

I don't really mind it anyway. I think it looks great, and the bullets stand out from the background which is important.
 
H

HyperHip

Member
Bought this game yesterday and put in about two hours so far. Not really good at shmups but I managed to reach stage 3, feels good :D.

Also how does the break work? I've been taking out certain parts of certain enemies yet sometimes I don't get the bonus.
 
N

novabolt

Member
Looks really good, I hope it gets the love it deserves. Shmups have a hard time in the gaming world.

Is there any Shmups that have made over 1 million in sales?
 
D

danmaku

Member
novabolt said:
Looks really good, I hope it gets the love it deserves. Shmups have a hard time in the gaming world.

Is there any Shmups that have made over 1 million in sales?
Click to expand...

I doubt there is. When shmups were popular the market was a lot smaller, and the big studios focused more on arcade games. Console ports happened only for games that had enough success in the arcades.
 
S

Snkfanatic

Banned
Gonna have to buy it soon! Dodonpachi is this week so I will limit myself to one Shmup for a bit lol...but this game is on my wishlist for sure. Love that art style.
 
G

gngf123

Member
@MUWANdo said:
In the last, say, 15 years? Geometry Wars, maybe, but that's the only one that'd even come close.
Click to expand...

Jamestown might get close also, if we include all the sales and bundles it has been involved with.

Really, just hitting 100k is a success for games like this these days. Crimzon Clover only sold about that many.

epmode said:
I'm in. Thanks for the thread!
Click to expand...

No problem. Enjoy it, it's a fun game!
 
R

Remembrance

Member
I really love how the weapon choices very obviously telegraph their advantages and disadvantages. The default choices are clearly the safest, but don't let you destroy bosses or get chains optimally. If you take the other choices, you immediately feel the difference in what you can accomplish, but you also feel the tradeoff in that survival is now that much harder.

HyperHip said:
Also how does the break work? I've been taking out certain parts of certain enemies yet sometimes I don't get the bonus.
Click to expand...

It's not always as simple as destroying all the parts. Sometimes you need to time it correctly so that regenerating parts don't come back. Sometimes you need to not destroy certain parts.

The developers have left these conditions up to us to figure out. Pay attention to visual cues, such as what icons flash on which boss part when a boss phase starts.
 
A

atomic moth

Member
I keep CTRL+F for "tate" or "vertical."

Can anyone tell me if there's a tate mode?

Not really into anime or large borders, or large borders with anime.
 
G

gngf123

Member
atomic moth said:
I keep CTRL+F for "tate" or "vertical."

Can anyone tell me if there's a tate mode?

Not really into anime or large borders, or large borders with anime.
Click to expand...

Tate mode works brilliantly, and is how I've been playing it.

Maybe I should include this in the OP.
 
Wonko_C

Wonko_C

Member
Man I'd love to purchase the game directly from the devs so they keep their full share of the profits to support them even more. Unfortunately that would mean I'd have to pay more than twice the amount I'd pay on Steam due to exchange rates. Steam's regional prices are a wallet saver, how do they keep the prices as if the exchange rate was from the mid 90's? I hope Steam keeps it like this for a long time.
 
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