I love bullet hell shmups. They look beautiful, they feel smooth and you get some of the most ridiculously insane power-ups known to mankind. There’s only one problem. I suck at them. For the most part, bullet hell shooters throw you in the deep end head first and if you aren’t well practiced (like myself) then you’ll find that your games don’t tend to last very long.
For those that don’t know, a bullet hell shoot ‘em up (shmup for short) is generally vertically scrolling with enemies that fire a lot of bullets in various patterns. As you can imagine, most of the genre are tough as nails and offer very little reward unless you are prepared to put in an awful lot of practice. Self Destruct changes this. In reality, Self Destruct isn’t all that different for the inexperienced bullet hell player: each game only lasts a short period of time but the difference is that each game feels designed to last a short period of time. In turn this helps it feel a lot more accessible, a lot more fun and a lot less frustrating than your average bullet hell shooter.
The retro visuals and bouncy, fast paced soundtrack fit perfectly with the breakneck pace of the gameplay. The game itself is played in (very quick) waves, where singular or groups of spaceships will fly down the screen. The eventual aim is to survive 250 waves (and score as much as possible on the way) and this is no easy feat. There are time-limited power-ups available and you can also carry one ‘nuke’ at a time, which will allow you to destroy everything on screen if you are in a tight jam.
What makes Self Destruct so rewarding are the little things: the voice that tells you how many waves you have left every 50 waves and the message at the end of each game telling you the score and how many waves you completed (and whether you bettered your own record). Unlike so many others of its type, you aren’t made to feel like a failure if you lose and you don’t have to take it seriously. If you want to take it to the next level and put in a lot of practice – well that’s fine too. You can even have a crack at making it onto the online high score table or you can just choose to try to better your own best score.
Play it however you like. Just make sure you play it, even if you might not be big on bullet hell shmups.
If you're a fan of fast paced action games, quick thinking reflex games, or intense shoot 'em up games - you ain't seen nothin' yet. This is probably the fastest, most intense shooter I've come across in my years of game reviewing. In fact, it's probably called Self Destruct because that's what you do half the time instead of fighting.
You shoot with Z and your secret weapon is X. The X weapon clears the screen instantly of any enemies, if you can use it. The most important thing to remember is the C button - this is your shield. You will need to use it often, so keep collecting those power-ups for it.
While the enemies do arrive in patterns (V-shapes and the like), the order of those patterns is random each time you play, throwing pre-planning and organisation to the wind. That said, it is really very fun to play and is - I'm serious - one of the fastest paced games I've ever seen.