Having grown up in the arcade scene in its heyday, you could find shoot ‘em-up games pretty much everywhere. Hell, Capcom made a killing off of them with their 1940s series, which probably gave the company enough money to get us in the street fighting mood. I digress, historically it was common practice that shoot ‘em-ups were the first arcade pool dips for most game companies. I mean, Radar Scope, anyone? Probably not Nintendo. What an awful game.
Anyway, Kaminari Games recently brought Macross – Shooting Insight to the U.S., a shoot ‘em-up of sorts. It takes pretty much every possible type of shoot ‘em-up game and throws it into one nice Macross wrapper. From side to top, and even 3D from behind – Kaminari did their best to make this shoot ‘em-up veggie soup contain every bit of goodness that the genre had to offer.
Did they pull it off and deliver the goods thanks to this bold and experimental method of shoot ‘em-up delivery? It certainly hit well in some areas while missing in others.
Let’s get this game review going.
Multiple Layers to this Burrito
While the concept of shoot ‘em-up games is older than dirt in the game industry, it still has a place in modern gaming. Gamers enjoy a good challenge especially when it is built on an old concept. I’ve seen shoot ‘em-ups bring some insane gameplay that essentially delivers a Dark Souls-esque experience. Some of these were built to make the gamer fail repeatedly, while others just bring the bullet hell they promised. All these methods seem to push the right buttons for some gamers, as the genre thrives thanks to these types of designs.
Now, Macross – Shooting Insight seems to push some good buttons for gamers to throw their hats into its ring. It’s a difficult game, even on normal difficulty, which bodes well for people who enjoy challenges. You will get this unfair bullet hell game that will take more than it gives with player failure. It will get players to come back and try to conquer the uphill challenge of getting through massive amounts of enemies and ultimately coming up against a boss that is near impossible when the difficulty is set right. It will push all the right buttons of a gamer’s ego to goad them to try again amid multiple losses. Its leaderboards will taunt gamers to do better. In this respect, the game is brilliant, as it will challenge players to get good or get gone.
Beyond that challenge, the game falters just a bit. The biggest issue I had with it wasn’t the fact that the devs wanted to try every which way in the shoot ‘em-up genre, rather it was that the game brought repetitious enemies that were somewhat uninspired in their designed attacks. The patterns were thick here.
While the enemies were helped by creative bosses who were massive, unique, and fun, the mundane trip through patterned enemies that were easy to take down didn’t help to keep my interest locked in. There were times during the playthrough when I was just moving the controller back and forth in a sweeping method, knocking the hell out of enemy forces before an enemy could get set. Again, the challenge kept me engaged but the enemies didn’t seem like anything but easy targets. I didn’t mind winning, but I’m an enormous Robotech/Macross fan, so I wanted a bit more inspiration with the design and execution of the enemy attacks.
Now, that doesn’t mean that the enemies weren’t fun to navigate and destroy. There were times when so much chaos was going on with the game that I easily became confused and would fall into enemy fire, which had my eyes glued to the screen. After a while of shooting and navigating, the game just slowed down a bit and showed its patterns. It was still fun but I wanted just a tinge more out of the gameplay and enemies.
Leveling up
The other issue I had with the game was the level design related to the four different ways of playing the game. Four different types of fighting can occur in the game. You’ve got top-down, side-scrolling, isometric, and 3D. All bring their flavor of level design that sometimes hits well and sometimes just misses due to repetition.
The first two on the list, top-down and side-scrolling, bring a lot of repetitive level designs that remind me of the days of Silpheed on the Sega CD. The levels within both of these shoot ‘em-up modes had details that were gorgeous and seemed interesting, but were merely there for moving the actual level around visually without bringing much difference to the action. For example, when my VF entered an asteroid, I was traversing caves and simply going with the video flow. I had no real control of how the level moved with my VF ship, as it just flowed on its rails which helped distract me from the fact the enemies were still coming in patterned waves. It’s a neat trick but was more of a video sideshow than an actual level design that was unique from everything else.
The isometric and 3D levels were far and few between compared to the above two. The isometric designs were just blowing up centralized defenses in space that led you to one final large machine to take down. These levels were timed and the challenge becomes intense as you raise the difficulty, but they don’t change much with their design. They are fun, as they gave me a Sinistar vibe, but a little bit of variety between these types of stages would have been great.
On the 3D level side of the tracks, the game will occasionally shift from 2D shoot ‘em-ups to a behind the VF ship 3D viewpoint. These levels were somewhat tough to gauge when it came to aiming, positioning, and targeting enemies, which caused a little frustration, especially since the game was unforgiving when you were blown up. Now, that said, the 3D viewpoint was a nice shift away from the 2D designs. It showed the devs were trying to deliver some unique shoot ‘em-up experiences that felt different as the game continued. I love that they took a chance with the different types of gameplay vintage point shifts.
The levels that were included with the above flavors of shoot ‘em-up vantage point types were certainly different when compared to each other but didn’t vary too much within their own space. I just wanted a bit more variety with levels and their design to make me feel like I wasn’t doing the same thing repeatedly.
All this said the game was still a treat. You get a good story to go along with the gameplay that is worthy of the Macross moniker, while still having the ability to see a VF ship once again going into an arcade battle. Again, I’m a huge Macross and Robotech fan, so seeing a game in 2025 release with those stories in mind is a treat. It may not be the best gameplay in the world but I’m glad someone is keeping this IP alive. Ultimately, the game just needs a spruce up with its gameplay a bit, some variety with levels and enemies thrown in the mix, and it will be on the road to being a great game.
Bells and whistles
While the game does deliver fun, frustration, and challenge, it also brings a lot of characters, music, and personality with it. Familiar faces loom in the character selection screen, as you can play a variety of different pilots and ships in the game. Each brings their way of fighting, while also bringing their collectibles to gobble up while you take down baddies.
To help give these characters an extra push during battles, the game will kick into a speed-up mode that breaks out in song. I think this might be one of my favorite parts of the game, as Robotech was so much better thanks to singing. I owned the double CD from the show eons ago. It was lovely to listen to and it’s nice to see the tradition carried on in its game form.
While these little bells and whistles don’t completely make up for some of the dull gameplay, they’re nice touches in the overall design that will certainly remind the player what series they’re taking part in.
On that sweet note, let’s wrap this review up.
Conclusion
Macross – Shooting Insight from Kaminari Games takes the shoot ‘em-up genre to a bold and brash stance. While it does everything to break the mold of a regular shoot ‘em-up formula, including bringing a thick layer of challenge to the gameplay that will most certainly motivate hardcore shoot ‘em-up players, it lacks variety in level design and other small aspects of gameplay.
