Developer: KAMINARI GAMES Inc.
Publisher: Red Art Games, Bushiroad
Platform: Switch, PS5, PS4, PC
Tested on: Switch
Multi-Dimensional Shooting Game MACROSS -Shooting Insight- – Review
What we initially expected to be a dime-a-dozen shmup game led us down an intellectual property rabbit hole. We’ll spare you the unnecessarily complicated details, but the gist is that back in the ‘80s, an American company bought the rights to three anime series and combined them into a single one, called Robotech. One of those three anime series was Super Dimension Fortress Macross, and I’m sure you can already see where this is going. The legal hornet’s nest of who owns which rights marks the Western release of Multi-Dimensional Shooting Game MACROSS -Shooting Insight- as a small miracle. The sheer existence of a game doesn’t guarantee its merit, however, so the question is whether or not Shooting Insight is a title worth adding to your collection.
Story
We should note that we’re familiar with neither the original Macross anime nor its Robotech counterpart. This turned out to be an issue, as Shooting Insight’s overarching story apparently expects you to be at least somewhat familiar with its massive cast. From what we understand, the story brings together various characters from across Macross’ multi-decade history and different series and spin-offs. For long-time fans of the series, this is probably a treat, but as complete newcomers to Macross, we felt very lost. The idea is that characters from five different Macross stories have come together, in a contrived multiverse plot, to deal with the kidnapping of the songstresses. It’s clear that these are important, but the awkwardly translated dialogue and lack of contextual clues made it so that we quickly gave up caring about the story altogether.
Graphics
Visually, Shooting Insight is a mixed bag. The character designs look fantastic, being taken straight from the anime. The in-level graphics look great as well, and there is a surprising amount of visual variety for a game with a setting that is essentially just happening in space. However, it’s that same variety that hurts Shooting Insight, as the level backdrops are often busy and cluttered, making it difficult to discern what is going on. Adding to this is that the story plays out during the levels, but with only Japanese audio and the tiniest possible subtitles, this ends up being even more of a distraction. To Shooting Insight’s credit, the performance is surprisingly smooth on the Switch, and we only experienced slight stuttering when the action was at its most intense.
Sound
With how much importance Macross’ story puts on songstresses, it shouldn’t be surprising that the game boasts an impressive soundtrack. The in-game music changes depending on whether you can achieve specific objectives in a stage, and with the shift in soundtrack come buffs as well. Even without being familiar with the source material, we’d say the soundtrack stands out here and is well worth checking out even if you’re not interested in the game. The game boasts Japanese voice acting, and a serviceable set of sound effects, but everything audible paled in comparison to Shooting Insight’s impressive set of songs.
Gameplay
As far as shmup gameplay goes, Shooting Insight covers all the bases. The game’s arcade-style shooting action dynamically changes even within the same level. A stage may start as a traditional side-scrolling shooter before shifting to a top-down perspective, for example. At other times, Shooting Insight turns into a Star Fox-style game where you’re playing from a third-person perspective, or it becomes a twin-stick shooter. As if that wasn’t enough variety, each of Shooting Insight’s five playable pilots brings their own arsenal of different weapons to the table, adding even more variety to the smorgasbord of different gameplay styles. Like most shmups, Shooting Insight relies on players replaying levels over and over again, familiarizing themselves with when and where enemies appear, in order to continuously optimize their runs.
It’s the aforementioned visual clutter that proves to be the biggest obstacle for this approach, adding some unnecessary difficulty and frustration to the game. Just take a look at the above screenshot and try to see which of the meteorites are part of the backdrop and which ones you should avoid. Familiarizing yourself with level layouts is all fine and dandy, but it’s often difficult to tell the difference between high-speed asteroids in the background and other obstacles and enemies in the foreground. This led to some early game losses that felt unfair. Adding insult to injury is the way the songstress mechanic works. The idea is that if you can destroy jammers, then a songstress begins to sing, and her song applies buffs to your ship. However, this adds even more visual clutter, as the song is accompanied by flashy effects taking up more screen estate. There’s a good shmup hiding in Shooting Insight, but it requires overcoming a steep learning curve and overcoming unintentional obstacles.
At €39.99, Shooting Insight carries a rather hefty price tag for the amount of gameplay you’re getting here, even keeping in mind how much variety and replay value you’re getting here. This is something that genre veterans are probably familiar with, as the game sits in the same price bracket as other shmups like the Darius and Cotton series. We should note, however, that the Western release of Shooting Insight is by definition incomplete, due to those intellectual property issues. In Japan, the cast of Super Dimension Fortress Macross is available as DLC, but in the West, this DLC simply doesn’t exist. That’s not to say that Shooting Insight feels like you’re not getting enough bang for your buck though. Most of our time with the game was spent playing through the story, but there are four additional unlockable modes, including Boss Rush and Arcade modes, allowing you to go for a coveted spot on the online leaderboards.
Conclusion
Ultimately, Shooting Insight caters to two very specific niches, and we’re part of neither. If you’re a long-time fan of Macross and its various spin-off series, you’ll probably enjoy the game because of the sheer amount of fan service. For newcomers, the story isn’t very accessible, however. The other niche that Shooting Insight will appeal to is diehard shmup fans who are willing to overlook the game’s visual clutter, or that perhaps even consider this as an additional challenge. For anyone else, Shooting Insight’s steep difficulty curve and high price point make this one a difficult sell.
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