Back before Firi Games put themselves on the map with Phoenix (Free) in October of 2010 and its excellent sequel Phoenix 2 (Free) in July of last year, they had released an unassuming shoot ’em up called Flare Elite ($0.99) in March 2010. While pretty basic overall, Flare Elite did lay the groundwork for the later Phoenix games, and in fact used a pretty novel energy system in place of a more traditional life bar. No, not a free to play energy system, but one that required you to constantly be defeating enemies in order to suck up the orbs they leave behind and keep your constantly diminishing energy level above zero. It was a fun concept and game, but never really set the world on fire and with Firi going full steam into the original Phoenix development Flare Elite has never received even one update.

Well, “never say never" as the saying goes as today Flare Elite received its first ever update. It’s not exactly bursting with new features or anything, but it does bring the more than 7-year old game up to today’s App Store standards, including 64-bit support so it won’t be getting swept up in the 32-bit Appocalypse. Firi has also brought over the fantastic controls from the Phoenix games over to Flare Elite, and improved some of the rough textures used in the game. It’s still quite jagged and blurry in areas, expecially in-game text, but it does look a lot better. It also supports all iPhone screen sizes now and runs at a smooth 60 fps. If you enjoy the Phoenix games and want to see where it all started, or you just want to check out a cool shooter despite its outdated elements, check out the recently updated Flare Elite for 99¢ with the link below.