I wish that were true, then maybe the screen-in-screen wouldn't limit the actual gameplay to about 35% of the screen. I absolutely cannot stand when bullet hell games do this. Why can they not port their games to widescreen the same way so many other devs do? It really detracts from my enjoyment of the games
True bullet hells cannot be played full screen -- and especially this one, which regularly features enemies attacking from behind your character. The developer could have perhaps made more screen space available by expanding the play area horizontally, but having an open space for your finger outside of the firing line is imperative. BTW 35%? Talk about Internet hyperbole! More like 65%.
I don't think that's hyperbole at all. Look at the black bars at the top and bottom, and look at the surrounding border of the screen-in-screen. It's not even half the screen real estate, 35% is my most accurate guess, maybe 40%. Even if it were 65%, that would still be completely unacceptable to me. I see your point about enemies attacking from behind, but that could be accomplished by reserving a very small section at the bottom of the screen for that purpose. I'm not trying to flame the game itself (I haven't even played it, by impressions it sounds like a good game), but the sole reason I haven't is because these screenshots and the itty-bitty screen-in-screen has prevented me from buying it. If it's updated with a larger screen-in-screen, I'll plop down the cash, as I do love a good shmup.
@Quazonk and squarezero: I'm with Quazonk, I definitely prefer the full screen and its absence is keeping me from buying this one... I think that the ideal solution, to please both the point of views, would simply be giving the players an option to choose with which screen size they prefer to play it...
The iPhone screen is 4" diagonal. The playable area is 3" diagonal. Obviously, the exact proportions would require a calculation based on both width and height, but we can say that the playable area is roughly 75% of available screen space. Yeah, I know -- math's a bitch. Bullet hell shooter require pixel-perfect precision. A small patch at the button of the screen (otherwise known as a virtual stick) would not provide the required precision. As I mentioned earlier, I can see the play area expanded to fill the screen horizontally; that's what Cave does with their portrait-oriented shooters. But you will always have large control area. Bullet hells are simply not playable without it. Want a full-screen shooter? Play Sky Force. It's a great game, just not a bullet hell. It could very well be that bullet hell games are not for you. That's all well and good. What I'm trying to get across is that there is a good reason why bullet hells on mobile are designed with generous margins. It's not (necessarily) developer laziness.
Aw man there hasn't been a decent premium shmup on iOS in ages, the last CAVE release was like 2 years ago, and when something finally does arrive its in japanese and unplayable on iPhone 6? That makes me sad.
I think going as far as to say bullet hell games aren't for me is taking it to rather silly extremes, simply because I'm of the (seemingly popular) opinion that this game has too small of a playing area. Tolerating unnecessarily huge playing margins is not the defining quality of a bullet hell fan, I'm sorry.
Insulting my ability to do math because I disagree with you over screen real estate in a video game. Very mature.
I agree that making the play area size configurable is the way to please the most people. That's what the Cave games do, as well as some other shooters I've tried. Personally, when I first tried the iOS versions of shooters, I tried playing them full screen because visually I find that more appealing. I soon found that having my hand covering part of the playable area compromised gameplay too much, especially in shooters where enemies can come at you from the sides and behind. I've ended up configuring the playing area pretty much how this game is configured. So for me the playable area in this game is how I'd want it anyway. Now, if they added controller support, like Phoenix HD has, then I'd hope they also added support for a full screen playable area.
I just measured it by hand, and by my measurement the playable area is a little over 60% based on the screenshots in this article.
Unfortunately it is a niche genre. If we could get a bullet hell for every gazillion RPG's or CoC, then we could buy one every month. This is out for four days now, and only 195 people on the (overall) leaderboard doesnt give me too much hope for a wider screen, a translation nor a better placed special attack button update, sigh. Still, i'm so glad i took the plunge, even with this tiny little iphone screen. The six character are so differently to play, specially with the variety of their special attack, well worth my money. Edit: Chiller One: i love Angerforce Strikers, a mix of shmup and bullet hell. But i guess you know this game as well but didnt touch your taste.
I like a lot of things about Angerforce. The main thing I don't like though is it doesn't have configurable difficulty levels. I really enjoy bullet hell shooters, but I'm not all that good at them. One thing I really appreciate about the Cave games is they have a bunch of difficulty levels. I usually set the difficulty to Normal, the middle difficulty, and then I really enjoy playing them. In Angerforce, I enjoy it for the first few stages, and then it just gets too hard for me. There are also some smaller annoyances like long load times. Regarding this game, I just tried on my iPad 4, and it's great. It performs flawlessly, looks close enough to retina for me, has fun and interesting bullet patterns, everything loads fast. For me the playable area is just the right size to use as much screen as possible while allowing me to not block the playable area with my hand. I tried a few difficulty settings, and Normal feels about right to me again. I was concerned about the lack of English translation, but it seems like most of the important things, like button text and menu items, are translated, so it's completely possible to play the game. Oddly, the buttons when you're actually playing the game are not translated, but a little trial and error soon revealed what they all do.
It's exactly 62.5% of the iPhone 5 screen. Certainly less than 75%, but way closer to it than it is to Quazonk's original 35%. I should add that my original estimate was 65%. All that, though, is missing the point. Traditional bullet hells are simply not playable on a full screen. Even Cave's more recent ports allow for expanding the screen only so much. @Quazonk: I wasn't insulting your math skills. I was just remarking on the fact that you weren't using any in your original post. Rather than act all insulted, you could just accept the fact that you made an incorrect statement and move on. That would be the mature thing to do.
Yep, Angerforce was missing a bit in shorter loading times, difficulty settings and some sfx sounds. Proud to say that i managed to beat the game in one go, but only once, though there is a select level option to exercise. I just read Shaun's spot on review from april again, and i say the same as he did: Hell of a game for their first attempt ! I'd really like to have a stage selection in this beauty as well. My best result is stage 3-2, so far. I manage to die with four bombs unused because i'm still so overwhelmed by looking around instead of dodging, then i completely forget to trigger a bomb. To me, this game is harder on easy mode for a whole play through than any of Cave's on hard mode. On one hand i fail to memorize the pattern and on the other i probably switch the characters too often. I'd say, this game is in the same league as Cave. (Flame on discussion) Edit: i just started the app, got distracted for a minute in the kitchen and what do i see ? A demonstration how to use your special attack, how to raise your weapon level and as a result of both your highscore. Just don't tap and wait, if you have the patience. Within around three minutes you'll see three of the six character, unfortunately not all. You can always repeat it by tapping the exit and wait again.
Thanks for the tip about the demo. Yeah, I've played all the way through this game a few times now, and even on "very easy" difficulty level, stages 3 and up are ridiculously hard for me. There are some sections in stages 4 and 5 where I end up having to use a continue every minute. Partly I just haven't gotten the hang of how to play, but the bullet patterns seem impossibly dense sometimes also. On the plus side, continues happen very fast, so frustration is minimal. One thing I like throughout this game is it almost never makes you wait for things. For instance I like that the score screens between stages can be immediately skipped, rather than making you sit through an unskippable 30 second score tally like some other shooters do.
