DRAINUS (Team Ladybug, Steam) - Out now

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FunktionJCB
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DRAINUS (Team Ladybug, Steam) - Out now

Post by FunktionJCB »

Team Ladybug, the Japanese indie developers behind awesome "metroidvania" games like Pharaoh Rebirth+, Touhou Luna Nights, and Record of Lodoss War-Deedlit in Wonder Labyrinth-, just announced a new game a few minutes ago during the INDIE Live Expo 2022 Day 2 stream, a shmup, and... it's out now on Steam!

It looks awesome!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVTmHZ8acIc

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1975360/DRAINUS/
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kid aphex
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Re: DRAINUS (Team Ladybug, Steam) - Out now

Post by kid aphex »

Wow... finally a new indie shmup that LOOKS good.
A cohesive and well-executed aesthetic... amazing!
Wish I had a PC to play it on.
Make me jealous, everyone.
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Necronom
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Re: DRAINUS (Team Ladybug, Steam) - Out now

Post by Necronom »

Daaamn! Thanks for bringing it up. If it plays how it looks this might end up being my shmup of the year :wink:
FunktionJCB
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Re: DRAINUS (Team Ladybug, Steam) - Out now

Post by FunktionJCB »

kid aphex wrote:Wow... finally a new indie shmup that LOOKS good.
A cohesive and well-executed aesthetic... amazing!
Wish I had a PC to play it on.
Make me jealous, everyone.
Judging from past releases, I'm sure Team Ladybug will release it on consoles as well. :wink:

You'll be able to play it sooner or later. :)
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mamboFoxtrot
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Re: DRAINUS (Team Ladybug, Steam) - Out now

Post by mamboFoxtrot »

If they're still using the same game engine then it's probably fairly toaster-friendly?

Damn this looks pretty good, though. Team Ladybug the legit bros :mrgreen:

but god damn could they have run that title by a few gaijin before putting it out! :lol: :oops:
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Yoshi
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Re: DRAINUS (Team Ladybug, Steam) - Out now

Post by Yoshi »

Thank you for the heads up on this one!
xxx1993

Re: DRAINUS (Team Ladybug, Steam) - Out now

Post by xxx1993 »

Well, when this game gets a console port, give me a call, please.
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Rastan78
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Re: DRAINUS (Team Ladybug, Steam) - Out now

Post by Rastan78 »

mamboFoxtrot wrote:but god damn could they have run that title by a few gaijin before putting it out! :lol: :oops:
Really. Sounds like they were trying to go with something loosely based on Darius and accidentally ended up with a vaguely pornographic name. At least they didn't go with Diranus.

I'm sure it's a matter of time before weebs will be saying uh no actually it's pronounced drye-noos-uh

Liking the look of this so far tho. Anyone check out Deedlit? It's been on my list fot a while due to the excellent looking artwork, but I just never did pull the trigger.
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BulletMagnet
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Re: DRAINUS (Team Ladybug, Steam) - Out now

Post by BulletMagnet »

Gave this a try, and it does indeed look great throughout, though prospective buyers should be warned that, at least on Normal difficulty, it's quite easy: not only do you eventually get a recharging bullet-absorbing barrier, recharging bullet-cancelling bombs, and a passive shield, but on top of generous multiple lives this uses a variation of Axelay's weapon/life system, where getting hit knocks out one of your (up to five, all equipped simultaneously) weapons, and taking a hit when reduced to your pea shooter properly kills you. Unlike Axelay, however, power-up items to restore said weapons mid-stage are plentiful; the only real threat is dying at a boss or other spot where said powerups aren't present, where you can chain-die easily while powered down. On my first try I got to the final boss, of stage 12
Spoiler
actually, stage 6 of loop 2, pretty much
before getting flattened, so I'm sure others are capable of clearing the whole thing on their first go.

It is an entertaining ride, there are plenty of requisite callbacks/tributes to the shmups of old, and I haven't tried Hard difficulty yet, but if you're looking for a challenge you probably won't find it here.

EDIT: 1CCed Hard without much trouble, once you have a better idea of which upgrades to opt for things become a good deal easier. Doing this unlocked two new harder modes, though, so a decent challenge may still await...
Anyone check out Deedlit? It's been on my list fot a while due to the excellent looking artwork, but I just never did pull the trigger.
Much like this game, looks very nice and plays fine, but quite easy.
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Augemitbutter
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Re: DRAINUS (Team Ladybug, Steam) - Out now

Post by Augemitbutter »

Deedlit is okay but somewhat plain. I enjoyed the boss rush. They need to put more meat into their levels if they ever make a 2nd one.
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Re: DRAINUS (Team Ladybug, Steam) - Out now

Post by Bassa-Bassa »

Out of nowhere! It's too bad reading all this about the difficulty level, though.

Rastan78 wrote: I'm sure it's a matter of time before weebs will be saying uh no actually it's pronounced drye-noos-uh
Looked around - they want it to be taken as an English word, pronounced like /drain us/: ドレイナス
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Rastan78
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Re: DRAINUS (Team Ladybug, Steam) - Out now

Post by Rastan78 »

Nintendo Life just did an article mistakenly calling it "Dranius." Author must've subconsciously been like I'm not typing Drainus.

https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2022/ ... -to-switch
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XoPachi
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Re: DRAINUS (Team Ladybug, Steam) - Out now

Post by XoPachi »

Don't regret my purchase. I just hope there's a way harder difficulty. But it is very creative and takes some surprising liberties. You can definitely tell these people made search action games. It's interesting to see some of that design bleed through into an STG. I think it works.

And I seriously love this game's visuals and audio.
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XoPachi
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Re: DRAINUS (Team Ladybug, Steam) - Out now

Post by XoPachi »

Rastan78 wrote:Liking the look of this so far tho. Anyone check out Deedlit? It's been on my list fot a while due to the excellent looking artwork, but I just never did pull the trigger.
Here. This is the only to the point review I think covers it well enough.

https://youtu.be/E9Hx3w9myHQ
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Zaarock
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Re: DRAINUS (Team Ladybug, Steam) - Out now

Post by Zaarock »

Great game but only challenging on the Ridiculous difficulty which unfortunately has no Arcade mode equivalent (Arcade is the same as Hard). I wish there were visibility options to tone down screen shake and player shot brightness (kinda too many shots sprites at max power).
Rastan78 wrote:Liking the look of this so far tho. Anyone check out Deedlit? It's been on my list fot a while due to the excellent looking artwork, but I just never did pull the trigger.
I don't recommend this game, the level design is the most bland I've ever seen in a metroidvania. Many corridors just filled with enemies and non memorable locations moving from color keyed door to the next. Some cool boss concepts but.. those actually work better in the pure shmup format here. The visuals are still great and control solid but there are tons of similar games out there that do more than this.

DRAINUS on the other hand doesnt feel uninspired to me at all, whoever worked on this seemed to be really into shmups. Just the difficulty balancing is a bit all over the place, player shots/missiles/bits are too busy on the screen, some powerup combinations are broken and many enemies/bosses seem to not have timeouts or have bizarre safepoints. The scoring system is a little too bare bones with boss fights getting down to absorb as many beams as you can instead of firing (probably exploits on multiple bosses to only hit zakos with the reflect laser and continue this forever). Would love to see future updates or some more polished arcade version of the game down the line. This feels like a location test from that perspective but 10/10 on the visuals.
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kid aphex
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Re: DRAINUS (Team Ladybug, Steam) - Out now

Post by kid aphex »

I just watched an uncut play through of the first stage and … wow.
Even the awesome trailer doesn’t do this game justice.
Set-pieces, amazing boss design, incredible attention to detail…
We need more shmups like this.
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To Far Away Times
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Re: DRAINUS (Team Ladybug, Steam) - Out now

Post by To Far Away Times »

That barrell roll in the beginning is perfection.

Is this too easy though? Kinda afraid I'll blow through it on a first or second attempt and never touch it again.
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BulletMagnet
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Re: DRAINUS (Team Ladybug, Steam) - Out now

Post by BulletMagnet »

As Zaarock mentions, "Ridiculous" difficulty, which both ups the enemy bullet count and institutes one-hit deaths, will probably keep you busy for a bit, though you need to unlock it first. "Arcade" mode, which is unlocked alongside it, isn't as intense but does only allow you to visit the upgrade screen once per stage and boots you out if you take too long, so that might also be of interest.
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Re: DRAINUS (Team Ladybug, Steam) - Out now

Post by Bassa-Bassa »

BulletMagnet wrote:you need to unlock it first.
Read, devs - THIS IS RETARDED AND HAS NO USE. STOP DOING THIS, PLEASE.
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SPM
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Re: DRAINUS (Team Ladybug, Steam) - Out now

Post by SPM »

Bassa-Bassa wrote:
BulletMagnet wrote:you need to unlock it first.
Read, devs - THIS IS RETARDED AND HAS NO USE. STOP DOING THIS, PLEASE.
.

I wouldn't go that far... Some people enjoy unlocking stuff (modes, credits, ships, ...) and actually dislike the opposite.
And given the low difficulty of the "main" game I don't see the problem. It won't be a grind.
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Re: DRAINUS (Team Ladybug, Steam) - Out now

Post by BareKnuckleRoo »

I wish there were visibility options to tone down screen shake
I was kind of disappointed when I saw there was a fair bit of screen shake going on and wondered about this. There's some games I've played that have so much screen shake without any option to disable that they've turned me off from playing them seriously (Downwell).
And given the low difficulty of the "main" game I don't see the problem. It won't be a grind.
Yeah, if they don't want new players to stumble into the hardest mode right at the start it's nice when they implement an unlock code (Vanquish's God Hard difficulty for instance) but if the unlock requirement isn't particularly difficult or grindy then it's not the end of the world.
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Re: DRAINUS (Team Ladybug, Steam) - Out now

Post by Bassa-Bassa »

This may sound like alien language, but there're people who just don't want any spoilers, which is the only thing these perfectly unchallenging modes serve for.

It's indeed a natural thing to enjoy unlocking stuff with progress, but stuff like new stages and with actual effort. Extra difficulty modes by completing dumb-easy tasks just doesn't belong to this genre.

if they don't want new players to stumble into the hardest mode right at the start
I wonder what could be a reason for that.
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BareKnuckleRoo
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Re: DRAINUS (Team Ladybug, Steam) - Out now

Post by BareKnuckleRoo »

Bassa-Bassa wrote:I wonder what could be a reason for that.
Is this sarcasm? I can't tell if it is or not.
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Re: DRAINUS (Team Ladybug, Steam) - Out now

Post by Bassa-Bassa »

Honest question, I promise.
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BareKnuckleRoo
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Re: DRAINUS (Team Ladybug, Steam) - Out now

Post by BareKnuckleRoo »

They probably want to broaden mass appeal and avoid the problem that sometimes happens where someone claims "this shmup is too short and too easy because I can credit feed the hardest difficulty in 30 minutes". Or complain because they're the sort that says they (stubbornly) only play games at the highest difficulty, then complain when it's too hard for them. As strange as it sounds, it is a thing some people who aren't into shmups have genuinely complained about.

From a design standpoint I'd say it's not as annoying or baffling as the recent Pocky & Rocky remake where multiplayer is literally locked away from the start despite having no real reason not to offer a multiplayer option for the story mode.
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Re: DRAINUS (Team Ladybug, Steam) - Out now

Post by Bassa-Bassa »

BareKnuckleRoo wrote:They probably want to broaden mass appeal and avoid the problem that sometimes happens where someone claims "this shmup is too short and too easy because I can credit feed the hardest difficulty in 30 minutes".
Then don't let them credit feed in that mode? Otherwise, it's like they're doing two wrongs in order to make a right, and that never works.

BareKnuckleRoo wrote:Or complain because they're the sort that says they (stubbornly) only play games at the highest difficulty, then complain when it's too hard for them. As strange as it sounds, it is a thing some people who aren't into shmups have genuinely complained about.
These latter cases are beyond any help, I'm afraid. Hopefully they're just a few.

BareKnuckleRoo wrote:From a design standpoint I'd say it's not as annoying or baffling as the recent Pocky & Rocky remake where multiplayer is literally locked away from the start despite having no real reason not to offer a multiplayer option for the story mode.
I indeed remember myself being the first complaining about that (and more) in its own thread here as well.
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Zaarock
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Re: DRAINUS (Team Ladybug, Steam) - Out now

Post by Zaarock »

Talking and testing the game with Jaimers, seems like a lot of bosses don't timeout on modes outside of Arcade so you can milk them for infinite powerups and score.
Very weird design choice & this kind of ruins Ridiculous mode since the scoring system is shield milking but you can't know what the time limit on fights is supposed to be.
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ChurchOfSolipsism
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Re: DRAINUS (Team Ladybug, Steam) - Out now

Post by ChurchOfSolipsism »

Sounds like the brand name of a drain cleaner. Looks impressive, though...
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To Far Away Times
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Re: DRAINUS (Team Ladybug, Steam) - Out now

Post by To Far Away Times »

Watched a few minutes of it in motion. Insta-buy.
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Re: DRAINUS (Team Ladybug, Steam) - Out now

Post by BurlyHeart »

This looks so good, and I love that it just dropped out of nowhere. Decent price too.

Also, I don't mind the unlock difficulty mode. However, I can understand why better players would find it pointless.
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