YMMV / Caladrius

• Best Known for the Fanservice: The game is very well-known for the characters suffering Clothing Damage when damaged in certain ways.
• Complacent Gaming Syndrome: Most score-chasing players do customized Element Shot loadouts due to being able to mix together the best possible Element Shots for a Game-Breaker build; default loadout runs are comparatively rare.
• Game-Breaker: Being a shmup with a wide array of characters and weapons, there's bound to be some that basically render all the other options obsolete unless you're doing some sort of Self-Imposed Challenge, especially once you unlock Element Shot customization:
  • Sophia's Defense shot, Acid Reaction. Unlike other shield-type attacks that usually have some sort of gap in their defenses, Acid Reaction completely envelopes your ship as you fire your main shot and blocks not only conventional bullets, but even some attacks that other shields cannot. You can even just leave it at level 1 and focus on leveling up the other two Element Shots, only bothering to invest in Acid Reaction once the other two weapons are maxed out; while leveling up this attack does increase the damage radius, it's not necessary to do so to enjoy the defensive benefits. As such, some players make it a point not to use Acid Reaction or else the game gets too easy for them. To quote the Shmups Forum strategy guide on the game:
    "This [Element Shot] in my opinion is totally broken and cheapens the game immensely. Anyone should be able to easily 1cc^note 1-credit clear, also known as a no-continue clear the game using it, but just know you aren't really experiencing the game if you do it that way. It really appears like it was specifically designed to allow novice players to 1cc. Isn't that what easy mode is for? Lame..."
  • For building up multiplier, none compare to Noah's Life Stalker. It sends out vines that instantly seek and latch onto enemies, with the number and power of vines increasing as you level up the attack. Once you have at least two vines, you can destroy entire screens of "popcorn" enemies just by briefly pressing a button, racking up multiplier in record time.
  • Most Element Shots are designed to take up one of three different roles: damage, multiplier-building, or defense. Kei's Defense shot, Tempest Willow, can do all three pretty well; it's a tornado that extends out from the front of the ship, doing high damage and cancelling enemy bullets, and moving your ship sideways causes the tornado to sway in the direction of your movement, allowing it to take out large hordes of enemies and neutralize screenfuls of bullets. Since it does not fire your main shot (which will not raise the multiplier when destroying enemies with it), you can quickly rack up multiplier just from a Zerg Rush of enemies. This makes it a fantastic all-arounder, especially in Arcade Mode where you can activate Fusion to use it with no gauge cost for a significant period of time that can be extended by collecting the hidden green recharge towers. Now, for maximum broken-ness, equip this with Life Stalker and Acid Reaction, and ideally pair it up with a high-mana or rapid-recharge ship. You now have a ship that can rack up multiplier, defend itself, and deal both concentrated and wide-area damage, perfect for a relatively easy 1CC.
• Low-Tier Letdown: Many characters besides Sophia and Kei are regarded as "meh" but Layis is perhaps the single worst character for scoring. Two of her three magic attacks fire her main shot which means she can't score with them, and her last one fires spears with pitiful range and damage, yet is the only way she can attack without her main shot.
• Moe: The titular Caladrius may be in the form of a bird, but he speaks in an absolutely adorable voice by Akane Sanada.
• Porting Disaster: The PC port of Caladrius Blaze is locked to 720p whereas the PlayStation 4 version can run up to 1080p, no graphical settings whatsoever, has barebones keyboard support with very limited keys that can be remapped, and for the Steam version, requires constant internet connection at all times to play the game and cannot be played if Steam is in Offline Mode due to its online leaderboards feature (thankfully it is also on GOG.com, although it uses a different leaderboard than Steam).

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