Sky Hounds

Off white bullets on a yellow background make it hard to see and avoid damage. But then... it's not like you're not going to take ludicrous amounts of damage anyways. Too much of the game has things zipping in behind you at such high speeds you can't dodge them, and even if you could, too much bullet hell-like threading the needle of hailstorm attacks means if you move you get hit, if you don't move you get hit. Pods are neat... bring a lot. They die way too easily. Expect to farm money for pods. There's a second page of weapons and add-ons... didn't even see it until Mission 5. All in all, 5/5 for cute super-deformed sprites, 3/5 for playability. 2/5 for enjoyment.

The game has a lot of good things going for it: nice graphics, sound, and fluid controls, yet it just doesn't seem very fun. I think the problem is that the gameplay seems like it's meant for either a superhuman or a cheapskate. If we spam pods, the game is a breeze. If we don't, things move so fast that it seems impossible to dodge anything without memorizing and anticipating the level and the enemy patterns in advance. Yet the game seems like it was designed to be played for pod spamming, at which point it ceases to become much of an action game and becomes a rather tedious bore -- I beat it in spite of playing terribly on the last level and bumping into all sorts of things. Considering that there's a sequel coming, the game has a lot of potential and I think it could be a hit if this aspect of the gameplay was improved considerably.

...meh 2/5

Hey there, I'm the guy who did the music. Hope you all enjoy it!

The best use for pods is as expendable shields. Get 50 of the cheap ones and you are invinsible, just keep building them directly in front of your ship and have them absorb bullets. NG+ (in which you can only buy pods, no other upgrades) is completely trivial this way.