MACROSS Shooting Insight from Kaminari Games is a brand-new entry into the MACROSS saga that tells a new tale. The game features returning characters that span five different MACROSS anime series and fans will definitely want to grab this title. However, is it worth checking out?
MACROSS Shooting Insight
MACROSS Shooting Insight kicks off with players taking on the role of one of the MACROSS heroes from each of the five respective MACROSS series featured in the game. Once you’ve picked your playable character, the game’s story will kick off. The plot of MACROSS Shooting Insight involves being sucked into an alternative timeline/universe of sorts where some really bad Macross world specific things are happening. Yes, it’s cliché, and yes, it’s been done before in multiple forms of media, but it serves well enough to drive the plot forward and introduce you to new levels.
Don’t expect a stellar story here. This is a game that clearly draws inspiration from MACROSS series over the years and mashes them up together in a fan-oriented storyline “What if” scenario in a way. It’s fun, and if you understand the core underlying character personalities and interactions, you’ll definitely get a lot more enjoyment from the story. This is a game for fans so if you’re a newcomer, you should go check out the MACROSS anime series first before diving into this. You’ll appreciate it a lot more. The story is told by means of visual novel scenes so be prepared to read a lot of text.
Moving on to the gameplay, MACROSS Shooting Insight is extremely straightforward. What you have here is a shoot-’em-up and bullet hell game that is incredibly satisfying to play. If you opt for the “Normal” difficulty level, chances are you will get destroyed. Play the game on the easier difficulties first to get acclimatised and to get through the story. Then you can ramp things up and start chasing high scores because there is a steep learning curve here.
Speaking of high scores, MACROSS Shooting Insight allows you to enable some healing mechanics, which will make things easier at the cost of being able to record your high scores on the leaderboards. This isn’t a bad thing if you want to just enjoy the game for its story and gameplay content.
Gameplay in the game involves taking flight in your Valkyrie and facing off against enemy forces on a top-down or side-scrolling map/area. Players will be able to fire their Valkyries weapons and evade and fire missiles. You can also call in a support strike, which depletes your support strike meter. The support strike deals massive damage to everything on screen and should only be used in a pinch or when you want to really rack up the high damage numbers against boss opponents.
As far as shoot-’em-up standards go, MACROSS Shooting Insight is good. Yes, the gameplay is simple, but it’s extremely fun when you get the hang of things. You will be dodging in between tonnes of projectiles and lasers while collecting resources, and taking down tough boss enemies is incredibly satisfying, especially when you’ve been struggling against them for a while.
Graphically, the game looks fine with its flashy effects. The anime character visuals are top-notch, and the game’s artistic style means that it runs flawlessly with no lag or slowdown on PlayStation 5 even when the screen is filled with lasers, bullets and missiles. Visually, though, it’s not as great as it could be and looks very watered-down compared to some more modern titles out there.
The soundtrack is the real star of the show here since the game features a lot of music from the MACROSS franchise. The idols from the shows also sing during battles for additional bonuses, and while this is a nice touch, it does make things feel a lot more chaotic due to the visual effects that show up. There is some great Japanese voice acting in the game, but not everything is voiced, unfortunately, which is a letdown.
Overall, MACROSS Shooting Insight is a straightforward shoot-em-up title with a MACROSS theme and is clearly aimed at fans of the MACROSS franchise. A lot more could have been done here to really sweeten the package, but this isn’t the case. You can’t transform on the fly either, which is something baffling considering that’s a key aspect of MACROSS’s Valkyries. The game does feature a gallery where you can view the Valkyrie models as well as various other content that you’ll unlock as you play through the story mode.
It’s not going to win any awards, and it’s certainly not going to go toe-to-toe with the greatest shoot-’em-up titles out there, but it’s still a fun game and worth playing in bite-sized chunks. I couldn’t help but feel as if it would have been a much better game to play on a Steam Deck rather than on the PS5, but users can decide which version of the game they’d like to purchase for themselves. Grab this title if you’re a MACROSS fan, and if not, you may only want to pick this up on sale if you’re intrigued.
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The code was provided by the distributor.
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