Jamestown+

Before anything else, I must explain that as a Steam Deck user, this game works flawlessly without any tinkering. It may say Silver on ProtonDB and Unsupported on SD compatibility, but I assure you this runs flawlessly! Jamestown+ is genuinely one of the best sprite based games I've played yet. They managed to make a widescreen vertical shmup work so well and make it look fantastic, despite the complications most games of this genre have trying to make it work. As a shmup it's really fun, though as a multiplayer experience, I'm not sure since I've been exclusively playing this solo, but I imagine the experience would be just as engaging as it is alone. The ship variety is making me actually want to experiment with different shot types as it contains more than 12 different ways to shoot your enemies down, though you have to unlock and buy them by progressing the campaign. I personally like it since I have a reason to use the money I earn from each stage clear on the harder difficulties. The main and special shots are still as destructive as I'd like, though there are some that are just outright better than others. There are about 3-4 ships so far that I've unlocked that I clearly spend more time with than others, but maybe it's just preference? My only gripe with the game is a lack of any clearly visible hurtbox for the player. I find myself getting hit by bullet patterns I can clearly dodge efficiently in other games like Touhou or the many many CAVE games. Those games and many others have either a standard dot that shows your hurtbox, or a clever design detail that acts as a subtle sign that you'll die if you get hit here. Jamestown has nothing like that. The only way you can tell where it's at is when you're selecting your ship before a mission and the game has to point it out to you somewhere on the characters back. It is invisible otherwise, or possibly very unnoticeable. If only they had the spot visible at all times, then the bullet swarms on the harder difficulties would actually make sense. Other than that, I highly recommend this game to anyone curious! Either you're already well versed in shmups or you're new and would like to play something that scratches that beautiful sprite work itch that makes you gawk at the visuals. If you're interested, it's worth it!

another cheap shmup with bs level design and no unlimited continue, refunded