Psyvariar 2: The Will to Fabricate

Here's yet another new shooter from Japan for the defunct Sega Dreamcast. This system, or more specifically its fans, refuses to slip away, and with releases like this, we can all thank the deity of your choice that this is the case. The difficulty appears un-daunting at first, but once the strange technique of the game is fully understood, the enemy waves are nothing but an entr?e for the delicious boss main course. I don't know that anyone's tried to make a game sound delicious before, and I doubt I have succeeded here, either.

Psyvariar is a single player game, which is unfortunate. Notwithstanding, the fun factor is indeed hearty, serving up rich, steaming portions of sumptuous good times. Yeah, I'll stop with the food metaphors. The main objective is, of course, to exterminate with extreme prejudice, everything you possibly can. It's the method in which you accomplish this that's important. The immense waves of projectiles are far too great to simply avoid. Instead, you must rotate the D-pad rapidly between the right and left directions to cause your ship to spin, as if it were Olympic Gold Medalist Shizuka Arakawa (don't act like you didn't watch it!). Once the spin, or axel, is achieved, your ship can absorb enemy fire to a certain extent. This is called "buzzing" the bullets, which gives you a higher score.

The graphics are exactly what you would expect from a 2004 shooter game; sensational. The feel is very similar to Ikaruga, but I feel the enemy explosions, particularly the boss explosions, are far better. You really feel like you just blew up a giant enemy craft when you're playing this thing! The sound is also done really well, with excellent gun effects and very fitting music.

This is a game that seemed impossible to me when I started playing, but, as is usually the case when facing insurmountable difficulty, I put on my headband, blasted my Transformers: The Movie Soundtrack, and let em' have it! Well, not really, but still, though it looks too hard to be fun, the spinning technique adds an extra element of enjoyment to this new but slightly old game.