httpvhd://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jt-Jaz1oRAU
They’re called bullet hell SHMUPS (shoot-em-ups): Galaga style arcade shooters where enemies puke so many bright bad bullets at you that surviving even for a few seconds requires muscle memory down to the pixel… and Cave’s one of the most devious development houses out there at creating them.
Consider me more than impressed, though, by this video from Cave, demonstrating their upcoming iPhone port of ESPGALUDA II. You wouldn’t think a SHMUP requiring pixel-perfect positioning would work on the iPhone, but it’s amazing how good the controls here look.
According to Cave, ESPGALUDA II will be released on Saturday and cost $4.99. Considering beating a game this difficult at the arcades would cost you a couple grand in quarters, that’s a steal: for an unabashedly clumsy and inept SHMUP fan like me, that’s basically like buying a game and getting a MacBook Pro for free.
