Revolution Ace - aiming low and hitting shmup 'meh' status

I Identify as a Fighter Jet and This Game Offends me

Sure there's highly regarded shmups from established developers or indie breakout hits, but it's also one of the more crowded genres in the lower tier. If you were to scrape the bottom of the barrel you'd see a disproportionate number of small, cheap little shmups that crashed and burned in spite of hitting indie success. The reason is two-fold, indie devs don't always make great games to begin with, and shmups are pretty simple games to design, note that I said "simple" and not "easy". For every Ikagura or Raiden there must be dozens of Unity games that regardless of their aim, fall to the bottom of the shmup barrel. Revolution Ace is one of those games, I don't know if the aim was to land at the bottom tier of the shmup genre, but this game certainly belongs there. The proof being that nearly no-one has heard of Revolutionary Ace, ironic that the player's vehicle is a stealth capable fighter jet.   

The Unity game engine typically powers the bulk of indie games that I play. Either for ease of use or licensing cost, it's been the main draw for anyone from 7 Days to Die to the latest dating sim, not the case for Revolution Ace though, the more than capable Unreal engine provides the framework for high fidelity 3D assets and effects, though as you'll see, fidelity doesn't buy style. The enemies are stiff, flat looking models that don't appear to follow any artistic theme, they're just a bunch of unmanned vehicles that have run amok and need a dose of lead to reset, not the kind of highly stylized re-imagining of war assets like in SNK's Metal Slug series, even the characters craft, a fighter jet, looks like something that belongs on an airstrip instead of blasting it's way through some fantasy shmup nonsense. One of Revolution Ace's bosses is simply an upscaled helicopter, nothing special. Everything is depressingly typical, like the devs didn't bother making the game stand out visually, instead resting on the gameplay, not something that shmups can afford to do, even the mediocre ones can do both. 

The gameplay of Revolution Ace is pretty typical, not a terrible thing but it doesn't stand out with tight controls or satisfying explosions, rather it's the odd choice to divide the player's firepower between air and land targets. One button is reserved for everything in the air, while the other is for strafing ground targets and vehicles. It's not possible to fire at both varieties at the same time and some weapons are either dual purpose or restricted to either high or low firing projectiles. A broken or unbalanced game would let you avoid shooting ground targets all together, though in Revolution Ace even some of the bosses are ground-bound enemies that can only be killed with the right gun. It maybe a purposeful attempt to force players to retry stages with different loadouts, but I avoided the issue all together with one weird trick. 

Progressing through Revolution Ace means making a profit and gaining experience, not the debilitating ptsd variety either. Every few levels of experience, your plane unlocks weapon slots and some passive perks, this is all fine, it's the weapons shop that adds far more complexity and choice that a game of this simplicity ought to have. There's the option to buy, sell and equip all kinds of weapons and equipment: shields, bombs and guns, so many damn guns that fire high, low or both. Now here's the kicker, you can do just fine with the humble autocannons, they can hit high and low, no cooldown or quirk. As your plane unlocks weapon slots, just throw a few more autocannons on there. When the higher tier enemies appear, so do the extra spicy Vindicator autocannons, sell the old ones and buy the new, no need for exotic damage types and weapons other than flavor. I'd rather see the variety and design options in those stages than outside of them, it's like adding flavor to a bland dish, working backwards to fix something with addons. I've played far better shmups that simply throw weapon powerups into the arena and forgo the commerce aspect entirely. 

Fighting the bland robot legions from one stage to another didn't have any peaks or valleys of entertaining dogfights, instead it all blurred into a similar series of bossfights scored to an unenthusiastic soundtrack. The game's finale was just a boss bigger than the rest, lacking any type of personality or style that you'd expect from a more theatric experience. After the final boss there's a newgame+ that is by no means appealing, the first playthrough was enough. It's not like my Revolution Ace is a terrible game, it's a game that checks a series of boxes in the game design list and provides what you'd expect from a homogeneous consumable product. There's no game-breaking issues or unfair elements that I encountered, so it'd be justifiable at its price point, yet there's a lot of superior shmup games at the same rock bottom price, dirt cheap on sale. I'm still on the lookout for budget Steam games, so there's lot's more to come, Comrades.