Completely agree, perhaps the best lifebar in a shmup so far.BIL wrote:Steel Empire's real problem is the weak-feeling player firepower, at least on Hard where everything has more HP. I'm very fond of it overall (enough to own the JP MD ver), but it never quite manages that essential feeling of tearing through enemies. You have to work a bit too hard for even popcorn kills. Not surprised it isn't a community darling.
Such a cool production overall, though. It's one of the few sidescrollers to make me feel like I'm playing a horizontal Gun Frontier with all the bullets, rockets and grenades whizzing past the craft. I also respect it for having tight, well-designed patterns and using the lifebar as a crutch for poor players, not poor game design. It'd be pretty hard but entirely no-missable with one-hit kills.
To me at least, the health enemies have is 100% perfect, bosses however are seriously too hard to kill.
(eventually, you had to shoot the birds popping out of the clouds at 4-3)