Playing Every Game in the Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality
PEGBRJE: ‘BulletHell Planes’ and ‘Xander the Monster Morpher: Universe Breaker’
One short, one LOOOONG
BulletHell Planes is a… bullet hell (gasp) by Gijs Westerdijk, an indie dev in the Netherlands. Players will strap themselves in to their high-tech aircraft and prepare to shoot down as many enemies as possible before their inevitable demise.
Armed with only WASD and the mouse (unless there’s a controller involved) players will dodge and blast their way through each level in the hopes of not taking too much damage so that they can keep doing it over and over again.
The mouse can fire consistent shots, but holding it down will charge up the cannon and cause the gun to stop suddenly; so that it can release a laser instead of a shot. It’s a great panic button so to speak to clear out everything in front of the ship, but it can also cause some stray bullets to hit if players get greedy and just laser instead of shoot. Most of the game is balanced around this idea of laser versus mass mobs, as the sheer number of enemies can get to ridiculous proportions quite early on, especially if left unchecked.
The game is a small one, made to entertain those that just want an infinite shooty shooty with a plane and a lot of enemy planes. That’s a specific niche, but one that has stuck around for decades thanks to people’s continued enjoyment for them.
If that’s your niche, then boom here’s another one for you to shoot your way through.
Xander the Monster Morpher: Universe Breaker is a twin-stick action RPG shooter (good lord) by Karatkuro, a solo indie dev in the USA. Players will follow the titular Xander the Monster Morpher, a curious frog that can talk and shoot bubbles, on his adventures to take down the legendary monster king through the only way he knows how: Monster Morphing.
At its core, Xander the Monster Morpher is a game about creating a team of monsters and twin-stick shooting down all of the enemies. Each region will have different monsters, and Xander will be forced to dodge their attacks and mow them down with his own, or those of his buddies.
Each monster has two attacks, which both utilize the MP bar under HP to avoid holding down a button and just running. These attacks come in all different flavours, even attacks that are not attacks at all, such as buffs to strength or just healing.
Areas all have different monsters with different strengths and weaknesses, so trying out different attacks will be useful for uncovering all the little secrets. Speaking of which, areas are in tile-sequencing, meaning that players will go from one ‘tile’ to another in an area, causing all monsters to spawn upon his entry; returning to a previously cleared region will respawn all of the monsters to allow for some sweet XP grind.
The levels themselves are nice to bolster up Xander, but the shooting and the levels are not the reason players are attracted to the game; its the monster collecting.
Those familiar with Japanese monster collection games such as Pokemon or Shin Megami Tensei will immediately recognize the formula and become giddy with excitement. Xander does not just hope monsters join his team, he must mark and destroy them in the hopes of catching an egg that spawns a friendly version for his party.
This ‘mark’ is issued by a different fire (Space on Keyboard for reference) and will increase the percentage of capture by a set amount. It can be spammed as much as the bar beside the player’s level can take before depleting, so getting a hand on timing a high percentage with a monster’s destruction will ensure that Xander’s monsters do not take more damage than they need to.
These monsters can be equipped by a very confusing person that shouts AWOOOOO a lot, but pay him no mind, he just does his job.
There does not appear to be a limit on storage (don’t quote me on that) so catching as many unique monsters as possible is a great way to ensure that Xander has deep pockets to draw on.
These monsters are also handy for the greatest purpose of them all, and hinted at in the title: Morphing. After some time, players will find a man who will teach them how to morph two monsters together. This will change the final product to a model of the player’s choice (stats change based on model), along with choosing between the monster's attacks and passives. This gives players a whole new world of customization, looking for different monsters that have good stats, unique attack combinations, excellent passives, and even just fun models that one may want to run around with.
It also increases the level cap on the monsters, which means there is even more scalability for these morphed monstrosities. Knowing who to morph and when is a crucial skill, and it opens up the whole world to possibilities like capturing certain bosses and morphing them in to mega versions of themselves. The possibilities are endless.
This is what makes Xander the Monster Morpher: Universe Breaker so much fun, outside of just saying the lengthy title. It does not appear like it at first, but the sheer depth of customization and exploration is ridiculous, as there are even new paths that open up in old regions to go back and explore. Certain high-level monsters are hidden back in regions that could not be explored early, so you who have wanderlust may be rewarded — or die horribly, who knows? The only caveat is that I did not find a map to help me navigate regions, which definitely adds to the difficulty of remembering where things are. Thankfully the maps are simplistic enough that it didn’t feel necessary, but it is something to keep an eye on.
Whether you love monster collecting, customization, or just shooting bad guys as monsters and becoming them to shoot more monsters, this is a game you’ll not want to miss.
