The game takes place in 2105 where the Earth's environment is devastated and humankind travels through space in search of a new home world. Upon finding and settling upon the planet Europa, the human colonists are attacked by the space military of an alien colony-people known as the Araxians. After studying downed Araxian fighter technology, the humans develop a powerful space ship capable of using great firepower to be used against the Araxia in the war for Europa.
The gameplay is pretty much classical. You control a space ship and fly in a 2D world, collecting power-ups along the way, and try to destroy as many enemies as possible. At the end of each level there will be a boss, and sometimes along the way you meet mini-bosses too.
The game is very hard if you play it alone. Luckily, the game has a co-op mode, with up to 4 players max. In co-op mode, two players can attach their ships together, resulting in one ship having the ability to fire bullets in different directions instead of just straight forward. It doesn't sound like much, but it can be used to take out enemies without directly being in front of them. However, the bullets' power is halved.
This video game contains examples of:
- Bullfight Boss: The fourth boss mainly attacks by simply circling the perimeter of the screen, attempting to ram the player.
- Color-Coded Multiplayer: In multiplayer, each player is of a different color, and this changes the color of their projectiles and shields as well.
- Coop Multiplayer: The game can be played with up to four players.
- Deflector Shields: You can briefly protect yourself from all damage with a power-up that generates a bubble shield of the same color as your projectiles. The enemies' shots hitting this shield will literally be deflected backwards.
- Flash of Pain: The enemies and and bosses flash white when getting shot with your projectiles. On the other hand, if the boss' weak spots are already colored white, that means it is temporarily immune to all damage.
- Flunky Boss: Every boss besides the third one summons basic fighters for help. The first, second and fifth will summon two lines of basic fighters after receiving enough damage, and this will happen several times per time. Their weak spots will turn white during that time as well, rendering them immune to damage. Meanwhile, the fourth boss will simply fly off the screen right as its back-up arrives.
- Imported Alien Phlebotinum: The player's ship is based off of alien technology.
- Macross Missile Massacre: Your ship will eventually unlock the ability to fire a whole spread of homing missiles, though this obviously cannot be done more often than a few times per level.
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Nintendo Hard: When playing alone. - One-Hit-Point Wonder: All of your ships. Luckily, you can become invulnerable with a shield power-up.
- Pacifist Run: There's an achievement for completing a round peacefully.
- Power-Up: There's a shield power-up, one that temporarily replaces your regular shots with much stronger full beams, one that gives an additional use of the missile attack, and more.
- Sequential Boss: The Final Boss has three stages; the first, where it has two rings of detachable add-ons; the second, where it's down to one ring; and the last stage, where it's just blasting out as many projectiles as possible from its hull.
- Simple, yet Awesome: When combining ships for more firepower.
- Spread Shot: Frequent, as expected of the genre. The first boss, for instance, attacks mainly through rapidly generating spreads of five red projectiles. The Final Boss generates an enormous spread during its last phase.
