Rival Megagun

My 2P controls didn't work because I smoked too much weed, so I complained on the Steam forums, next day Developer RJ updated the game so it works and somehow all my brain cells are functioning 100% again too 🤓. Truly a legendary developer!

10/10 I bought this game at full price, not only is it amazing and so very worth $15 but I'm not even dumb anymore which is a huge bonus

Simply put - Rival Megagun is an incredibly fun game for PvP, with a solid Singleplayer mode.

The gameplay loop rewards resourceful, creative plays, with luck playing a certain role, but dodging, chaining skills and situational awareness being the deciding factors. There are 4 difficulty levels both for PvP and Singleplayer - the relaxing Easy/Normal modes for newer or casual players, a Hard mode offering balanced challenge, and Very Hard for the truly skilled and determined. There is a fair variety of equipment, player characters, and weapons to pick from - while some are kind of OP compared to others, it's still very fun to pick a loadout that suits your playstyle. Stay at safe range and turn enemies into fireworks with Exploding Shot, or get up close and personal with Compact Blasters. Save up energy for a powerful Boss (controlled by *you*!), or be an absolute menace spamming the enemy field with your Subweapons. The soundtrack keeps you in the groove and gets more intense when a boss is on the field.

The game now has a free demo which lets you play online with other demo players. Demo content is limited, but should work well as a taste test with your Buddies 2.0. The game came out almost 5 years ago, but there is a small community of players who regularly play online to this day. Sure, most of them are Japanese, but come on - it's 2023, just use DeepL or something. The Arcade mode is okay and has a few fun surprises, but PvP is where the game truly shines.

I recommend trying the demo first to see if the game's mechanics resonate with you. And when you feel brave - tune in on Saturdays for some PvP action! The community is very friendly with newer players and will lower the difficulty for you, so no need to be shy. Hope to see you in battle soon!

Versus shmup that feels the closest to a traditional arcade shmup out of this type of game I've played (compared to say Twinkle Star Sprites which is more puzzle-like and has a lot of unique quirks + neogeo slowdown). Single player is pretty solid too and there are difficulty modes to match any level of player.
Multiplayer games especially on the highest difficulty can get really hectic with the bullet patterns resulting in fun improvised dodging. Highly recommended to fans of the genre if just for this.
Netcode works nicely with input delay not being introduced unless you're controlling a boss form. You can easily play across continents with little issue, and bosses having their control nerfed is honestly justified for most of them.

There is an equipment system which sounds bizarre but in my experience overall makes the game better. The baseline ships feel a bit underpowered to clearing out enemies. While if you are playing with powered up shot + return bullets (these cause enemy kill chains like TSS, or deal tactical damage to bosses!) you can get up to crazy enemy patterns as the game keeps getting harder the longer you survive. Super fun in PVP matches.

For the past few years there has been a japanese & international group playing online every Saturday @ 9pm JST for a few hours. The longevity of that group should be some proof to this being a hidden gem of a game.

Fun and challenging game. Good graphics and good music. Good humour in the writing.

this is some of the best fun to have with a friend or gf i have had in a long time and played with people across the world no lag!

really cool and unique, had a lot of fun playing it with friends who enjoy versus games. in an ideal world there would be an absolutely bonkers esport scene for this

It's a great game, i wish it was cheaper like 2.50$ to get new players

Rival Megagun is a fun multiplayer shoot'em up for local and online matches. It looks great and plays quite well. The single player campaign is alright but gets a bit repetitive, good for practice though. Multiple characters and game styles to choose from. Suitable for shmup beginners and experts.

Vertical PvP gallery shooter. Score chains and defeat your opponent. Good ship variation with configurable loadouts. Play as a boss ship! Level up and collect gear. Awesome retro graphics and music.

Listed on the Shoot 'em up Database

Tons of fun, way better than TSS or PoFV. There's so many possible modes that are all uniquely fun, I lost count. I wish I knew the conditions for the Damage Up upgrade though, because when I play the German META, I'm at a disadvantage. Unless they agree to adjust the rules.

This has such a fun versus mode, I find myself coming back to play it over and over again. I didn't play much of the story, it seems like a generic ladder like a fighting game. It's not super interesting. The versus mode is something else entirely though. Fighting against each other, eventually earning enough power to transform and become a boss against your opponent. It's really well done!

I give it 5 Megaguns and a repair upgrade.

While there are still some issues to resolve, first and foremost that the UI layer needs to have Options at a higher level than the mode select, this is a wildly fun game to play with a friend. One of the best times I have had playing against a friend in many years.

Excellent PVP bullet hell action, a great spiritual successor to Twinkle Star Sprites that stands on its own merits. Shines in local play, with good netcode for online as well.

Highly recommended if you're looking for local versus or a new shmup, and unrivaled if you enjoy both.

1) This is a relatively mid-paced, simple chaining and dodging vs. shmup.
2) "Gear" shouldn't have been introduced
3) Overall, a good introduction to this niche of this genre, but it might be wise to move on to harder games once you master this.
4) Grab it on sale, jump on the discord, ask for a few games.

Rival Megagun is a vs. Shmup. You are on one side of the screen, your opponent is on the other. You both shoot enemy ships and dodge bullets. If you can maintain a chain, you both build up energy and build up drones for your opponent to shoot down. Once your chain drops, the drones spawn, and your energy is banked. If your chain dropped because you got hit, you lose a bunch of that energy. The goal is to make sure your opponent gets hit twice. You have two useful tools at your disposal: you can charge up a shot which fires character-specific objects at your opponents screen, and the ability to transform into a mega gunship, spawning a boss that you control onto your opponent's side.

The main shmup-related skill this tests is chaining. Yet, this game seems to be fairly consistent at feeding you enemies when you need them. Secondary is dodging - the bullet patterns are pretty easy to handle once you have a little experience. The fundamental difficulty of dodging the patterns and chaining the enemies is not high, but it's also not very low either.

Moving on past the core mechanics:

There's 7 characters, one unlocks through arcade mode. The characters have different shot types, special attacks, and gunships. Different characters have different strengths. As an example, Dr. Magic has a very good special attack, but his shot spread is thin, which makes chaining a lot harder. In principle, this is fair. The reality of this has not yet presented itself. However, people argue about which character is best, and a consensus hasn't been reached - this is a good sign.

There's an option to equip a loadout - you can change how drones spawn, you can give yourself two permanent powerups ("Gear") , and there's an alternate attack you can equip once you've unlocked it. Some of the gear breaks the game balance quite badly, but there's an option in multiplayer to turn it off. Turn it off, please!

The strategies for putting pressure on your opponent are often straightforward - you want to fill their screen with stuff when they have lots of stuff on it already. There don't seem to be complex or advanced mechanics regarding this, such as the ones that might be present in other games of this genre (there is no "boss counter" like in PoFV, your bombs and energy are separate...). The end result is that the meta is, at least now, very simple to learn, and the game is easy to get into. There's disadvantages to this, but I like this, because this makes it serve a purpose: it is a good, soft introduction to vs. shmups.

A few other things to tie up:
The soundtrack is about as good as you expect out of a shmup. Not excellent, not annoying.

The aesthetics are bad, and the characters are mostly 1 dimensional and unlikeable. The story is kind of a joke, but it's also aware that it's a joke. It creates this overly gamey feeling, which might leave a sour taste in some people's mouth. In this particular case, the game seems to make a point of pointing out that the characters are 1 dimensional and unlikeable, and it makes a few jokes at their expense. If the aesthetics and story were central to the game, this would be bad. In a shmup, where these elements are almost disposable, I feel like this was a good choice.

All in all, though, I think that a veteran of this genre might skip over it without feeling like he's missing too much - if you already play PoFV or Twinkle Star Sprites regularly with friends, just skip this. However, someone who wants a softer introduction to the genre would do well to grab this...after a patch or two, and maybe during a sale.

Edit: Bullet Visibility was improved through a few options added by the dev, review updated to reflect this.

While not a big fan of shmups in general, these sort of splitscreen vs shmups are always right up my alley, and this one's no exception.

This game does two very unique things with its mechanics:
1. Drones. Every 2 enemies you kill, a drone will appear in standby on the other player's screen. These drones will remain in standby until you drop your chain, in which case they will all activate and begin firing all at the same time. This can lead to near-sure hits if your chain was large enough. However, with this comes a unique risk: getting hit. If you get hit while building up your chain, it's all gone. All of it. All your drones will disappear. This provides a unique way of pressuring someone. You can attack them while they're trying to chain in order to negate this huge attack they've been building up. Other games in the vs shmup genre would just release a projectile as soon as it was ready, so this is quite a different take.

2. Bosses. In this game, you control the boss. Once you build all your meter, you can spend it all with a quick button press to transform into your Gunship form and begin attacking the other player on their screen as a boss battle! This leads to a moment of much more direct competition between you and your opponent. It feels great to be able to flood the screen with projectiles of your choosing, subsequently leading to them getting hit or KO'd.

The spritework in this game is solid. The pixel art during cutscenes and such is well-done and carries a sort of old-school sci-fi anime vibe.

Replayability is alright. There's an entire arcade mode that takes you through 6 stages + a final boss, with unique dialogue inbetween for each character's story. There's an unlockable character through arcade as well. It's fun to play through for the boss fights and getting a high score, if that's your deal. There are leaderboards as well if you wanna see how you stack up to the world.

The music is well-done as well. It's all very fast-paced and upbeat, which is perfect for getting you in the mood for an action game like this.

This game is not without its flaws, though. As nice as the spritework in this game is, it leads to the screen being VERY busy at times, which can make seeing bullets coming at you very difficult. Sometimes you have to REALLY focus to discern what's a bullet and what's the background. While this one is more personal, I also feel like the roster is a tad small. Though I was able to quickly find a character suited to my tastes, this may not be the case for everyone.

As this is a multiplayer game, it's best experienced with friends, but online matchmaking and arcade mode allow you to get plenty of enjoyment from it even if you dont have anyone who's into these types of games.

TL;DR: It's pretty good. Could be better, but pretty good.

WHAT A TIME TO BE ALIVE!

The description already says it all: "Classic shmup action with a competitive twist"

I never played shmups or bullet hell games before cause most of them are singleplayer games and i always seek for multiplayer competition. Then all of a sudden this game launches and caught my full attention:
A 1v1 shmup? how could this be possible? YOU CAN ACTUALLY FLY TO YOUR OPPONENTS SIDE AND ATTACK HIM AS A BOSS?!? Such an awesome idea which is really well implemented. Such an awesome game in general, i just love it.

Cause there are so many reviews with a pros & cons list, here is mine:

------PRO:
- lots of collectables and unlocks
- lots of customization possible, but not too much, so you dont lose the overview
- beautiful art, bringing back nostalgia from past and classical shmups
- many different types of enemies
- lots of different strategies and playstyles possible -> alot of "rock-paper-scissors"-situations
- the music fits very well
- probably alot of more Pros i just can't think of right now

------CON:
- Bullets sometimes don't stand out enough from the background
- "bad" AI (dodges pretty much every quick attack, but struggles with handling boss form)
- no way to communicate with your opponent (for example to agree on certain rules)
( - no rank system )

I recommend this game !

[ shoutouts to Esty who got me into this game. www.twitch.tv/esty8nine ]

I just spent a day as part of a Rival Megagun tourney hosted by a friend on Twitch. Watched something like 30 best-of-5 matches over the course of a day, played in some myself. This game rules. Totally delivers on what you see in the videos/screenshots and then some.

It is more than a clever idea, it is excellent execution. The look, feel, and sound of the game is still 100% shmup, the delicious frosting is the added challenge of trying to outplay your opponent on the other side of the screen. Managing your own attack meter and bomb count make a difference, as does the timing of your cross-screen attacks and boss transformations.

Single Player is enjoyable and polished but it's not the same as finding someone to battle against. You know how niche this genre is, so tell your friends about it and make sure the people who would like this game get to hear about it -- it just means you have more people to play with!

The game isn't particularly bad, but I feel that it's the weakest in it's niche. Pound for pound, I believe Phantasmagoria Flower View (TH9), Twinkle Star Sprites, and Change Air Blade to be better games.

Game controls well, and it does shmupy things. Arcade mode is servicable, although I feel the the very hard difficulty could've been executed better than "Hey, you have to fight a free boss mode first!" every round. Online play feels mostly fine, although controlling a boss straight up breaks sometimes, which is kind of this game's defining feature. A major bummer.

My big gripe is that some characters seem flat out better than others, in a bad way. Nano, after getting full bar, can fill about half the screen with death, whereas the evil doctor gets some bouncy balls that can sometimes trap your opponent, but oftentimes doesn't. Some enemy bullets are literally the same colour as your shot, making them invisble; an extreme design oversight in my eyes. Some stages are incredibly boring, and take too long to get exciting. For instance, earth makes me cry whenever I roll it cause that match is going to take forever due to the ease of enemies, and the slow rate at which it ramps. This games big shtick, becoming a boss, is not very functional online, and in my experience, almost equates an auto loss for at least the next round, because you don't have the resources to kill your opponent.

What confounds me even more is the addition of "loadouts" which in my eyes defeats the whole purpose of having unique characters. Just make your characters more special.

If you're interested, there's stuff to like about this game. I would just recommend checking out some other games of this variety first like the ones I listed above, because I think they're flat out better.

If anyone has ever played touhou, this game will remind them of 'Phantasmagoria of Flowerview'. The main difference from this game and that is you can actually BE A BOSS! This game has been my most anticipated game of the year ever since I saw its demo at Pax South 2018!

Great game and cheap! It well worth your money and totally viable for competition/Tournaments!

Buy It, play it, then fight me! Great game for anyone who enjoys shmups, challenging single player mode with multiple characters to play with, each with their own unique specials and storylines, also has Leaderboards for the singleplayer, but where i think this game will be most fun is against people online, works great! i highly recommend this game!