Recent reviews by ggmaximo

I really wanted this port to be great, as I've played the game extensively throughout the years on MAME and my physical Saturn copy.

Good things about the port:
- Has a 30hz super rapid shot option (which must be enabled in options). This increases your main shot damage and will help players get much further into the game.
- A stage select option with stage, shot lvl, laser lvl, and rank options. Although I would have preferred if the rank numbers correlated to their stage counterparts to help with practicing strategies similar to an actual run.
- Button remapping for controllers
-Ok scanline option

However, the current state of this port has a lot of issues:
- terrible audio stutter, music will just slow down & become distorted at times, even with v-sync on & no frame rate drops.
- sound effects play repeatedly, and are sometimes delayed. This is incredibly annoying to listen to while playing and makes it pretty unbearable for people listening to the game on streams.
- control feels somewhat sluggish at best. It felt very difficult to execute many 7/8-chain strategies that I can do consistently on the original arcade version.
- online ranking submission didn't work even if the option to record your score is on. Online leaderboards are also not separated by internal/external autofire, and only include scores of their respective platform.
- Only has 1 save state which is laughable.
-No keyboard support, which makes no sense considering the emulator it is based on (SSF) supports keyboard mapping.

At its MSRP of $30, I would hard pass on this S-Tribute port. Every other port I've played runs more consistently & doesn't have the weird audio issues I experienced here. I hope that City Connection can patch this version and reduce the input lag, because I don't think that any of their S-Tribute releases have been good so far, and they don't reflect the quality of the chosen titles.

Psyvariar Delta is a fantastic package that contains updated HD ports of the Success arcade classics Psyvariar: Medium Unit, Psyvariar: Revision, and Psyvariar Delta, a brand new arrange mode that puts many M2 ShotTrigger arrange modes to shame.

In addition to these three modes, you can select three different soundtracks ( from Medium Unit, Revision, and Delta), three different ships with varying playstyles ( Axion-mu, Axion-R, and Cybattler). The game also contains a practice mode for every single stage, sound and screen adjustments, a number of extra gadgets that can be adjusted to different corners of the screen, and additional options that show your player graze radius, along with shot/enemy radius. These gadgets are extremely helpful when learning the game, as they can help you manage boss timers and health, monitor your experience gauge, and show the amount of time left with your invincibility chain, and become even more helpful as your experience with the game grows and you focus on harder achievements within the game. The game also supports button reassignments to your gamepad or keyboard of choice.

Getting into the game can be a bit strange compared to most other shooting games. Your main goal is to move closely towards bullets to accumulate buzz (which is similar to grazing in Raiden Fighters/Touhou), which raises your experience gauge. If you accumulate enough experience, your ship will level up and you will be temporarily be invincible for the next 1.2 seconds. At certain level intervals, your ship will change form and you’ll be able to gain an additional bomb. These bombs can be used either to give your temporary invincibility (short) or to destroy all enemies and bullets on screen (long). Your main goal with these mechanics is to determine which stages will give you a lot of level ups, which enemies should be kept alive, and which enemies should be destroyed.

The overall experience, especially with Psyvariar Revision and Delta is pretty challenging, especially if you are looking to clear the 4th challenge stage (X-D) on 1 credit, since you only have 3 lives/no extends. There is a definite learning curve to understanding how to manage your invisible time chain and understanding what aspects of your route can be consistent while still providing enough level ups to reach your goal. To help with this, the game provides a button that automatically rolls your ship, and allows you to more easily gain additional buzz from nearby bullets and reduces the hitbox of your ship. The bullet patterns are dense, but allow for a lot of experimentation to help the player gain additional buzz,. This aspect along with the extremely smooth ship movement and game mechanic feedback was one of the main reasons I continued to play the game for the X-D clear.

My only minor complaints are no support for 4:3/16:10 monitors, no replay saving, an overall leaderboard for all platforms (leaderboards are segregated by PC/PS4/Switch), and occasional micro stutters when playing in windowed mode. Other than that, this is probably the best City Connection port out there, one of the best shooting game ports on Steam, and it worth purchasing even at the base $30 MSRP. If you enjoy shooting games with grazing mechanics, or a bullet hell with a slightly unorthodox gameplay system, you will find that Psyvariar Delta provides the player with an extremely rewarding and deep experience.

Very immersive; would do again 10/10.

The paywalls don't motivate me to buy season packs. If there were was at least one free board that let you complete all the goals+ get high score, I'd be jelly.