Karous (Dreamcast)

 You might notice that the screenshots on this review are a combination of arcade and Dreamcast shots. This is due to my own technological ineptitude, and it doesn't really matter, since I mostly played the Dreamcast version and that's what I'm writing about, and also they're identical anyway, the only difference being that the Dreamcast version has a fanmade English translation. 

 

Karous is from Milestone, a developer mostly known for shooting games, especially their late-release Dreamcast duology, Radirgy and this one. It came out a year after Radirgy, and the first two things you'll notice about it are how much it doesn't look like its forebear (Radirgy had a very colourful Akihabara-inspired look, while Karous goes for a moodier tone, with muted colours and lots of grey), and how much it appears to play like its forebear. 

 

Like Radirgy, Karous arms you with a gun, a sword, and a shield. The gun and sword are each assigned to a button, and the shield appears in front of you when you aren't using either of the other two. You also, like in Radirgy, have a forcefield that projects outtwards to protect you and continually damage any enemies it touches, and it can be used whenever a meter that incrementally fill every time you damage an enemy or cancel an enemy bullet completely fills up. You can even hit power ups and points items with your sword to change them into different things!

 

What's different, though, is the scoring system, which offers a stark contrast to that seen in the earlier game, which had you constantly trying to fill meters as quickly as possible and collect items and so on, and never taking a break. In Karous, the scoring system and the power-up system are linked. Whenever you use one of your three main weapons, they gain experience, and gradually level up (don't worry, it's still a completely linear STG, so there's no grinding and the levelling is more like Radiant Silvergun than an RPG), increasing their power very slightly every time. You also have a constant multiplyer that's made up of all three weapon levels combined. So again, like Radiant Silvergun: playing for survival and playing for score are one and the same. You want you weapons to be more powerful, and making them so is also how you score more points.

 

Though I was initially put off by the miserable look of the game, and the fact that the 3DS sequel/spin-off Karous: The Beast of Re:Eden was awful, but Karous is a game I just keep going back to! The basic Milestone mechanics are enjoyable as they are, and the ways in which it's less stressful than Radirgy have their own appeal, too. You should definitely give it a try!