Andro Dunos 2

Andro Dunos is a pretty bog-standard horizontal shmup, Picorinne Soft’s modern sequel Andro Dunos 2 is a lot of fun to play. I picked this game up for like $3 during a Steam sale on a whim and… WTF this is so good?

It’s a super-polished horizontal shooter that picks up where the original left off. Short and sweet with 5 stages and 5 credits, three modes of difficulty. This is another of those cycling-weapons shmups a la Thunder Force, but in this one the upgrade powerup applies to whatever weapon you’ve currently got equipped. At the end of the stage, you get additional upgrades based on the number of point orbs you nabbed, up to 3.

This is a case of “does the thing well.” There is not anything new here, it just does the thing very well, and it’s a joy to play. A truly excellent intro to the horizontal shmup genre if one is so inclined, you can’t quarter feed this one so you gotta earn it but it’s not an impossible task. Honestly it’s kind of refreshing to play a shooter that’s still engaging without being hard as balls.