The game’s overworld is a joy to navigate. Its execution feels very old-school JRPG. There’s something incredibly charming about manually moving around the map from mission to mission in a dinged-up cruiser. The game’s levels unlock two to three at a time so you never have to play them in order if you don’t want to. I often found some missions were harder than others and beating one and then coming back to another would often help. This was a blessing as the game would often have weird difficulty spikes. One level might be harder than diamonds, then the next would be as easy as pie.

The detailed pixel art and simple 3D modelling that make up the game lend it a very classic old school feel. The backgrounds have the gorgeous mode7 style effect on them, the sprite work for the fighter jets is just detailed enough the be recognisable without being ugly. Character models are anime-lite without being obnoxious. And the 3D models, though used sparingly, are perfect. Add to this the game’s killer chiptune/electronica soundtrack and you’ve got yourself a winning formula.

As mentioned previously, the gameplay is exactly like Luftrausers. You control a customisable fighter jet in a small gameplay arena and have to complete set objectives before you can progress. Sometimes that may be surviving wave after wave of enemy fighters. Other times it might be hacking radio towers. Either way you’ll find yourself dodging, ducking, and weaving as you try to avoid sky pirates and their bullets. As the game progresses this becomes increasingly harder as the game starts to resemble a bullet hell rather than a 2D dogfighter. And while the game does what it can to diversify content without moving too far away from that core gameplay, it’s still going to be instantly familiar to anyone familiar with Vlambeer’s work.

This also means it has the same problem Luftrausers did, which is sustained playability. It’s hard to spend any significant amount of time with the game. The prolonged play led to the game either becoming frustrating or boring. Short bursts of gameplay were the only way this game could cut-the-mustard for me. Be prepared to still be playing this one week down the line because of that.