Archvale

Archvale is just plain fun. It does what it does well, and as a bullet hell provides a serious challenge without feeling unfair. I cannot recommend this game enough.

Archvale is a triumphant bullet-hell/RPG genre mashup. Although you could argue its similarity to one or two recent releases, it trumps the competition with incredibly slick combat, simple and satisfying progression, and varied environments and enemies. The difficulty ramps up heavily as you progress to the later levels, so the inability to change difficulty on-the-fly may prove a bit of an issue for some players. Push through, however, and you’ll find Archvale to be one of the most satisfying twin-stick games available right now.

Archvale is a fun, charming bullet hell with some incredibly enjoyable combat. It's also a satisfying role-playing game on its own, with tons of satisfying progression.

The mixing and matching of genres in order to get a unique and memorable gameplay experience is a difficult field to walk. Sometimes you get brilliant combinations, like Action RPGs, Visual Novel Simulations, or Time Management Waifu. Bullet hell, sometimes called danmaku, is a weird one to try and intermingle simply because it is a very demanding game type unto itself. Whenever you add more to the mix – be it a cohesive storyline or any kind of additional focus – it can take away from th...