BLACK BIRD

One of the most *UNDERRATED* games on Steam,
A hidden gem!

Black Bird is one of the more silly and outlandish shmups that I've played (I mean all of that in the best way possible), and honestly, this is easily one of the most memorable IMO. There is a lot of replayability here. If you like shmups, do yourself a favour and play this.

Genuinely the best shmup I've ever played. I know my playtime says like 2 hours but I ive played for dozens of hours on switch, even got into the top 100 on the leaderboards. SO much fun to get high scores in, the levels are so intricately crafted and the opera soundtrack goes absolutely crazy with all the bonkers shit going on. I really adore the premise, i love genuinely creepy or dark plotlines that arent afraid to get silly with their presentation

A great little side-scrolling shooter, I'm not really into the genre but not only is there a lot of love and artistry put in every detail of the game (soundtrack and visuals are both really unique and very well-made) but it strikes a good balance of challenge without being too crushing (for me), at least if you're not trying to beat it with no continues, and the gameplay, especially the scoring system, is very engaging and well-thought out.

It's a masterpiece, one of the best shmups on Steam, one of the best shmups ever made.

My only gripe is that you don't have the option to lock to one side of shooting, as one would find in DeathSmiles.

However, it just means that Black Bird requires an adjustment from me to play.

I felt like Moon RPG has some issues regarding time wasting... this wastes no time at all and you get a satisfying loop in about 20-25 and you get story incentives to play it again.

Basically, Kimura and Co understand Shmups and this game proves it :)

It's a pretty fun and simple game that's elevated immensely by the style and polish put into it, which is kinda the running theme for Onion Games. As a schmup it's fairly welcoming to newcomers, though a bit overwhelming to get used to. Black Bird's hitbox and bullet hurtboxes are pretty generous and easy to recognize at a glance which generally makes it feel fair when you make a mistake, and most enemies have just the right amount of aggressiveness to keep up tension without feeling overbearing. It's the sort of game where you're rewarded heavily for maintaining your proverbial momentum, which makes it enjoyable to practice and get better at. The amount of moving parts and small destructible details in each stage also lends it this chaotic fun factor that I haven't really seen captured this well before.

The whole game has an atmosphere of grim comedy to it that does a lot of legwork towards making it a memorable experience. All the cartoonish designs and overly-dramatic music feels at odds with the eerie atmosphere and apocalyptic scenario in a way that (at least for me) really draws you in and makes you want to see what else it has to offer, and for the most part it delivers. The escalation from zooming around blowing up a bunch of little Mario-lookin' dudes to becoming the Antichrist and fighting the anti-Antichrist is really a treat to see.

As with most games in the schmup genre you should go into it with the mindset of playing it to have fun and not to reach 'the ending' or whatever. It's fairly short overall and the only content you miss out on by not beating True Mode is a bonus final boss and L O R E , so don't feel too pressured to shoot for that if you don't want to. Play how you like and have fun destroying the kingdom however you wish. :)

Also play the rest of Onion Game's games. They're all good.

For real...an Onion Games shmup. It's more challenging than it looks at first glance and the soundtrack is one of the best I have ever heard in a video game. The ambiance is top notch and the gameplay is simple but addictive. This is a no-brainer purchase for fans of the devs or anyone who wants to play a weird, challenging, and quirky shoot 'em up.

A very simple and fun schmup from Yoshiro Kimura's studio Onion Games. While not the most complex game made I do recommend it as an enjoyable mindless game to play, with a deep story to discover if you want that. I do not think it is for everyone but if you enjoy Yoshiro Kimura's games it will be a treat for you.

"When is the best timing to create my own world?

It is night.

And I think that it is night of before I fall asleep.
The last moment of the day is my favorite magic time.

I would play with creatures in my head a little.
I speak with tiny onion some time. And I speak with small creatures sometime.
This is my play.
But,If I get good inspiration,I stop that I play with them.

Tiny onion says “why don’t you continue ? Please play with us ,Please chat more with us”
I answer “Don’t disturb me. I got a Idea that I want to write about. And I am going to work now!”

And then, they disappear slowly."

Yoshiro Kimura

I stumbled across this game via Limited Run funnily enough. I had never heard of the game before, but i love my shmups so I was intrigued. There is something about the wonderful pixel graphics and simplicity of the gameplay that just keeps you coming back for that "one more go" feeling. Like alot of good shmups this is simple to play and hard to master, and yes it only has 4 levels but to hit those really high scores you will have to maximisie all the scoring opportunites in a level which is not an easy task. The game is a ton of fun!
You also have some pretty difficult achievements to aim for if thats your thing (it is mine :) ).
Highly recommended and I will be picking up the Limited Run Collectors Edition for Switch (I have one of those also) but it will stay sealed. :)

Quirky, chock-full of little things to discover and a very approachable shoot'em up that's a spiritual successor to Fantasy Zone. All the action coupled with a very hectic music makes it a really engaging experience even during early levels. Whether you're a shmup fan or just like weird games I wholeheartedly recommend Black Bird.

It's abit too hard for me, a rather new player in the shmup genre, even after the difficulty patch, but the visuals, music, atmosphere, story and ideas are great. I hope this game will be succesful enogh for Onion Games to continue making weird, bold and whimsical projects.

This is one of those thumb ups that shoud actually be a thumb in the middle because it's not really worth a thumb up, but it's not worth a thumb down either so I have to go with the thumb up.

This could have been great. The graphics and attention to details in each level are really astonishing. You keep discovering little details long after starting the game. The surreal style is very nice and well done. It's one of those crazy quirky games that only the japanese can create.

Unfortunately the maniability is not the best, and this is really problematic for a game such as a shoot'em up.
The game suffers from the fact that it can't display more than a certain number of bullets on screen at once. Once you've fired half a dozen bullets you have to wait that a bullet hits the border of the screen (or an enemy) before you can shoot a new one.
This is a very archaic system that should have disapeared with the Atari VCS and 8 bit consoles and I have no idea why the devs chose to replicate this mechanism.
There are other little problems that make the game hard to enjoy, like the fact that you can only shoot in the direction you're facing, which can be unnerving since you have to constantly re-position yourself while facing some enemies.

I didn't finish it, because I don't have that kind of patience.
I have a feeling this game will only be truly appreciated by the shmup masochists and those people who like to talk enthusiastically about games just because they are obscure and known by only a few.

But the artistic merit is undeniable.

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BLACK BIRD is awesome! Yes the story doesn't make much sense but the mechanics are great. I love how the gems are used as score and upgrading the bird.

It's a tough bullet hell with an interesting look. Here's your warning that it's going to be short. It took me an hour to be good enough to complete Normal Mode and while True Mode is more difficult it's not impossible. It's arcade game where you'll be making many runs working on your online ranking.

Full video review: https://youtu.be/Wj1KA0wQbvg

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A charming little shoot-em-up with interesting level and boss designs and a silly (yet very catchy) soundtrack. There are only 4 levels, but there are many more secrets, including multiple score-based endings and hidden characters as part of a harder, 'True' mode. Worth the price of entry if you enjoy score-chasing, maybe wait for a sale if you're worried about replayability. Either way, definitely pick it up.

I typically don't write reviews but I wanted to call attention to this game that most people probably will never see. BLACK BIRD is a side-scrolling shoot 'em up with deceptively deep progression.

In terms of mechanics, it's a very familiar setup: you got movement, Shot and Bomb at your controls, and your bird's hitbox is the visible eye at the center of the creature. Enemies drop green crystals that essentially level you up, giving you more damage and better coverage on your shot. There are pots holding worms that you can shoot to cycle between life/bomb/movement speed up. Get through four stages and their bosses and you'll get an ending.

As someone who's played through various bullet hell games, normal mode felt easily manageable, and I was wondering where the game sinks its fangs into you. After beating it, you get access to true mode...and THAT'S when the game's intent becomes apparent.

In true mode, the danger accelerates VERY quickly. The screen starts turning into bullet-filled chaos, some enemies start taking a lot of hits, and the stages are filled with more destructibles that give varying amounts of score. The mechanics become more evident as well: similar to Mega Man, you have 4 projectiles that can be fired at any given time, and if all 4 are out, you cannot fire until one of them disappears. This means that if you're close enough to an enemy, you can attempt to rapid fire shots by pressing the button as quickly as humanly possible. This makes positioning much more important when you need to take out high value targets. Not only that, but enemies will occasionally spawn and fire in response to cues in the music, allowing you to bait enemies into spawning in a specific area and anticipating their incoming shots. Bombs vary in strength depending on your form, and a well placed bomb nets you even more green gems, allowing you to get more damaging forms faster.

Not only that, but the reason for the depth becomes evident: the ending is strictly dictated by your score. Suddenly, the stages require an extra level of finesse, trying to max out your score combo by continually killing enemies, then finding and hitting the unique score targets on the map in order to get big points. In addition, bombs also get MASSIVE point bonuses from your combo, influencing your choice between getting life to keep the run going or taking a risk and getting bombs to round up enemies amid the chaos and blowing them sky high in order to get closer to a new ending.

Personally, I knew about Onion Game's penchant for an insane and weird asthetic, story, and intricate secrets from their mobile game Million Onion Hotel (which is also fantastic, but a MUCH different playing game). But even still, I was not expecting them to nail the gameplay of a shmup so damn well. Everything is in sync in this game, and I think it's one of the more satisfying shoot 'em up experiences available on Steam for both low and high experience players. If anything in here describes a game you'd like, then I know you won't be disappointed. If the price point is a little offputting to you, then keep an eye on this game for when it goes on sale.

Onion Games is my favorite developer right now.

They made a game for phones called Million Onion Hotel, which is really really good, but nobody heard about because the mobile app markets for games essentially are Fortnite, Candy Crush, and 98% digital slurry. It's a tragedy that more people don't know about Million Onion Hotel, because it is a masterwork of screen-bashing and combo-building until you reach that sweet SWEET SPACE ZONE, WHERE THE COWS LIVE. (Also, it's three bucks, which is a shockingly low price for a game of that quality. Go buy that.)

Onion Games' followup is BLACK BIRD and it is about a little girl who dies on the street and becomes the titular BLACK BIRD, an evil spirit that kills little Mario people and knocks over towers, then gets into fights with giant monsters. You punch out the little human beings, then you take their gems and get bigger and stronger and scarier. And you keep going through different towns in time until you run out of worlds to conquer.

That's the first playthrough. It's short and easy and it looks really cool, but that's not the end of the game.

A thing about Onion Games is that they are not content with you playing their game once. No, if you want to know what happened to the poor little girl who dies, who killed her, why she became the Black Bird, who are all these people she is trying to destroy... well, you gotta get on the ride again.

Because the better and better you get at the game, the more ways you discover how to get a higher score, the game blooms. It throws harder opponents at you. It gives you more little crumbs of story. It dares you to play better, to exploit the mechanics, to get as powerful and as awesome as you can be, and the game escalates with you. To know the mechanics of the game, to fall into the rush of perfecting your run and timing your bomb blasts to rapidly get more powerful to take on bigger enemies to perfect your run even more, that is why I love playing what Onion Games has to offer. It pushes you towards higher and higher vistas and encourages you to go in and play it again. See what else is there. See how you'll conquer or be conquered again.

Black Bird is really good and Onion Games should be as closely watched as the latest trend going on in video games right now.

BLACK BIRD has easily been one of my biggest shmup related surprises of the year. I follow shmup releases as close as possible and as a result I feel that I’m aware of most upcoming STGs on Steam. The first time I heard about this game was around the time CAVE employees streamed it on their Twitch channel. I came across it again by chance in the 2018 Winter Sale and decided to purchase it.

This game is the debut of Japanese indie developer Onion Games on Steam. I’m not familiar with them but evidently they’re known for a few games including Million Onion Hotel. BLACK BIRD’s story is about a little girl that dies in the street. After dying she is reborn as a crow and starts to destroy everything. The story, graphics, music, and environments are all well designed. I'd call it almost a steam punk style opera type of aesthetic. When I originally saw the game on CAVE TV the style didn’t connect with me, but when I actually played the game I enjoyed it.

Although it may not be immediately obvious, enemy spawns are often synchronized with the music. This is useful not only for knowing how to avoid attacks, but also for creating a scoring route. Obtaining a high score in BLACK BIRD is important as it determines which of the eight ending you’ll receive. There is also a leaderboard where you can compete with other players. While I have cleared true mode, I haven’t been able to get the true ending yet. I feel that locking multiple endings behind score is a clever way to encourage players to learn the scoring mechanics.

From what I’ve learned so far, scoring is based around building a max multiplier then using a bomb on as many enemies as possible. As you kill enemies green gems are dropped which allow you to power up the character. There are pots in each level that contain an item and by shooting the item you can change it into a different one. There is a health up, bomb, and speed up. This system allows newer players to clear the game easily by choosing health, but people playing for score will want bombs more often. The game has 4 stages and is roughly 20 minutes long so you can easily pick it up and play a run. There is a normal mode which is very easy and a true mode which is a little harder.

BLACK BIRD has great gameplay, excellent presentation, and a high level of originality. Out of all the new shmups I’ve played in 2018, BLACK BIRD is probably one of the coolest. The only two things that come to mind that I wish the game had are a replay feature and an option to reset the game from the pause menu. I recommend BLACK BIRD to fans of Fantasy Zone, shmup beginners, and people that enjoy shooting for high scores.

this is the best thing from onion games, developers of dandy dungeon and million onion hotel and headed by yoshiro kimura, who played a significant role in the making of moon remix rpg adventure, chulip, rule of rose, little king's story, no more heroes, and more. if you've played or heard of any of these, it has a charming personality that's familiar to kimura's games, but is also the most sinister of onion games' output. flashes of rule of rose in this one, though definitely nowhere near as dark.

im no shmup expert, especially not ones focused on horizontally looping levels, but the gameplay is pretty enjoyable. simple at first sight until its unfurls itself through play, with cute extra details that you can find in all onion games. its good at getting you into this bloodthristy rush to shoot everything in sight, keep up a combo, and rack up gems to upgrade. it demands practice though: its an arcadey one run affair, and the final boss is hard as hell. i haven't even unlocked the more difficult, and supposedly more revealing for the story, true mode yet. EDIT: ive now gotten to true mode and honestly...THAT is where the game really starts. there's more to it than i assumed.

the music composed by hirofumi taniguchi (him and kimura are tight) is a big highlight here, might be my favorite soundtrack of his since chulip. and enemy spawns and projectiles being timed to the music work to both help the player anticipate how the levels work throughout their multiple runs, as well as being a really really quality touch.

i bought this to support onion games but its fun enough to keep me coming back to hone my runs. check it out, especially with the sale price its going for right now.

There's a very particular niche for the kind of people who like 1CC-ing shmup games. Replaying stages again and again until you know them inside and out, learning and memorizing the locations of every single secret, every single attack pattern. Black Bird is definitely a game for those people, but it's one of the most interesting and most stylish games of its kind - and who knows, with a style like this, it might even convert a few nonbelievers.

The aesthetic of the game is entirely on point, from the dark and dreary fairy tale steampunk pixel art to the surreal operatic soundtrack that syncs up with the gameplay, and the in-game mechanics reinforce the need to replay and memorize every aspect of the game. Kill enemies to collect gems that strengthen your character. Kill every enemy in a group to get larger gems. Gems degrade over time, so for maximum efficiency you need to swoop in the moment that last enemy dies. Secret pots containing extra lives and bombs, golden birds hiding in the trees filled with a treasure trove of gems, giant flying man-faced asparagus hiding in the ground that serve no purpose but to grant points - and in the game's hard mode, the ending you get is directly tied to your total score. Play, play, play. Challenge yourself to find the secrets, to avoid all damage, to upgrade your monstrous player to the highest level and become a being of pure devastation.

If I have just one complaint with the game, it's that the final boss has a nigh-impossible bullet pattern to dodge. Like, the very final form of the very final boss (in the regular mode). Random patterns of massive amounts of bullets, literally thrown at the player at random angles. It's so oddly balanced compared to everything else in the game, which felt like a more fair, if steep, difficulty curve. But aside from that, the game is masterfully built, and deserves to be in any strong game library. Of course, the $20 price tag is admittedly steep, and you'd be forgiven in waiting for a sale, but by all means, get it once the price drops. Do not let this one pass you by.

Do you like Touhou? Do you like great music? If you answer "yes" to both questions, then this game will blow you out of the water. Enemies appear in time to the music and you kill them as a gigantic murder-bird of death! All in a pseudo-Victorian setting! This game is objectively better than Touhou because I said so.

Imagine a remake of Fantasy Zone with Tim Burton's flavor of adorable bleakness, japanese attention to gameplay detail and quirkiness. The game starts with a young girl reborn from despair as a Black Bird to destroy the world. The more you kill, the bigger and more powerful you'll grow. This dark premise is offset by cute spritework, silly animations and a very eccentric soundtrack. It's just a delight to consume the cruel world, which left you to die. The gameplay and its scoring is well tuned. The player is constantly managing risk, reward and greed. Nuking a whole screen at max combo with a completely pumped up bird is the most satisfying climax very few shoot 'em ups manage to pull off. The first play through is easy mode and completion unlocks the slightly harder true mode. Online leader board for global score chasing just adds to the replay value.

Fantasy Zone + score mechanics + insane music = win!
A shooting game with replaybility and score chasing is always welcome in my book, especially one oozing so much originality in its visuals and aurals. Anyone can finish the first 4 levels with a little practice (and there's even practice modes to help you!), but True Mode is where things start to get tough.