Bullet hell shooters are a strange beast for me.  I’m hideously embarrassingly terrible at them, yet I love them to death.

Vatn Squid by Ted Lauterbach is no exception to this.

Gameplay

Vatn Squid features your standard modern vertical shoot-em-up fare.  You are a ship at the bottom of the screen, you shoot at things at the top of the screen until they explode, and then move on to the next thing to shoot.  In this case, however, the levels consist purely of a single creature firing ornate bullet patterns in the hopes you will collide with one and die.  Unlike most other which feature powerups however, Vatn Squid follows in the footsteps of Ikaruga by allowing your ship to absorb bullets and fill a “power” meter which, when filled, lets you unleash a powerful homing blast.

The game is intended to be a sort of middle ground between and entry level and a hardcore shmup experience, and it shows when most of the patterns are easily avoidable and in some cases avoidable completely by hunkering down in a safe spot.  But this belies the fact that for this game it isn’t just about getting through the game, the real challenge is to see how FAST you can do it.  To achieve this, you have to learn to constantly be absorbing bullets, building up the power meter, and pushing out the super blast.  All while balancing the fact your shield meter is on a fairly slow recharge.

Visual

The game graphics are splendid.  There’s a nice blocky 8 bit feel, while still utilizing some higher resolution for effects like the floating background and the bullet glows.  The underwater theme works nicely for the genre, and ties the game together by making all the bosses quirky pixel art sea creatures.  The bullets vary in color and shape by pattern which changes things up nicely as you go.  I also love the bubble particle effect which trails your ship, as well as emits from enemies as you hit them.

Audio

While the game does feature some standard shmup sounds (firing, hitting and dying), it’s the musical track composed for the game which make it shine.  Even though it’s on a loop, I never seem to tire of its smooth techno-ey goodness.  In fact, it reminds me in part of the Serpent Trench theme of Final Fantasy 6, another dreamy aquatic soother.  Even better, you get it in .ogg format so you can loop it for yourself!

Summary

If you’re a shmup master, you’ll find no challenge here.  But for everyone else, it’s a nice short introduction to the playstyle.  In spite of my handicap with the genre, it only took me 4 attempts to beat it, once I had a handle on the shield/blast mechanic.  At any rate, there’s no reason NOT to give it a shot, it’s FREE!  (Windows only.  Works great with an xbox controller!)