Angel at Dusk review

A STG pared down to its skin and bones.

By nature, danmaku (or bullet hell shoot ‘em ups) are brazenly unforgiving. Routinely, they require pixel perfect precision, as you maneuver a ship through storms of hundreds of projectiles. Undoubtedly, doujin circle Akiragoya’s (Maidens of a Hollow Dream, Steel Vampire) latest effort is one of those magnificently masochistic titles. This is a game whose lowest difficulty setting is labeled “very hard” and routinely fills its vertically scrolling playfield with a maelstrom of enemy firepower.

But here’s the thing: Angel at Dusk offers the single best tutorial I’ve even seen in a shooter. The interactive lessons kick off with the fundamentals, teaching you rudiments like moving your ship around the screen and how your weapons are more powerful when you’re adjacent to foes. What’s especially pleasing is that Angel dishes out praise generously, making you feel like a STG savant for performing basic tasks.

You’re a Natural at This!

But the game offers more than just idle flattery. Make it through Angel’s teachings and you’ll learn valuable techniques like offset positioning to avoid linear projectile patterns and moving slowly to elude targeted firing. Even if you’re an expert, it’s hard to not leave the tutorial with some new insight. Akiragoya goads you into meditating over STG design. As such, it’s difficult to not appreciate the developer’s devotion to the genre.

Once you take to Angel’s skies, the lessons and loyalty converge, helping you make it through at least three of Arcade mode’s five stage expeditions. Across the voyage, you’ll have access to three different abilities. Your main shot sprays out from the two wings of your dragonfly-shaped ship. By charging your heavy weapon, you have access to a projectile-repelling capacity. But instead of automatically canceling enemy bullets, Angel’s heavy feel like ki-blast from a shōnen anime. Sure, you might be able to negate the discharges from mid-tier adversaries. But when you’re confronting one of the bigger bosses, you’ll only push some projectiles out of the way.

Like any respectable STG, your heavy weapon is formidable but relying on it can be hazardous. At the beginning of a run, you might use it frequently to clear the screen of enemy flak. But as you advance through Angel’s stages, your primary weapon becomes increasingly indispensable for wearing down the health bar of bosses. Restraint is one of the game’s principal lessons. And while that doesn’t sound enjoyable, learning when to use the right weapon is rewarding (as Radiant Silvergun fans will preach). Of course, you’ll also find a more conventional risk-reward system, where you’ll earn more experience and regain health by shooting adjacent adversaries. And yes, the inclusion of experience means that Angel uses a leveling system instead of power-ups. Perseverance adds to your offensive output, but it also increases the side of your ship.

Weapon Accumulator

Arcade mode represents Akiragoya offering standardized experience- with scores uploaded to local and online leaderboards. More interesting is the title’s Original Mode, where players collect different weapons, upgrade attributes, and have access to a third V.o.M ability, which ranges from a devastating bomb to the ability to regain health. Original Mode has two components: a fixed Story mode as well as a Chronicle Mode, where your path through the game forks after each stage. Pleasingly, there are some interesting boss battles here (including one where you’re in the middle of a rotating opponent) that aren’t found anywhere else.

More importantly, there’s longevity, with each stage rewarding players with multiple weapons that have seven different statistical characteristics. Sure, in execution, weapons fall into a handful of types, but Angel lets you sell any unneeded armaments to help pay for six multi-tiered ship improvements. Of course, the game’s stingy economy means that you’ll tackle dozens of stages before assistance is perceptible, so get ready for a grind.

Conclusion

But that’s not the only minor misstep Angel commits. Beyond the sharp difficulty spike for the fifth stage, the game asks whether you want to play in full-screen mode every time you boot it up, requiring a tap of the screen on Steam Decks. But other than this negligible quirk, the game performs flawlessly on Steam Deck. There’s some small text that pushes an obstruse plot along, that references everything from intellect to birth control. But Angel at Dusk’s blood red on tan palette ensures it’s always readable. And while the game’s visual style might be contentious, the nightmarish fusion of pulpy viscera, carcasses, and spiky insect parts is undeniably distinct.

Yes, Angel at Dusk’s bullet hell concludes with a stage that will test the patience of STG experts. But the path up to that point is thoroughly gratifying, thanks to an extensive tutorial and supplementary modes that will have you grinding for weapons. Given the game’s heavy weaponry that has you rebuffing enemy bullets and an experience system that eludes traditional power-ups, Angel at Dusk is a delightfully distinctive experience that will please genre enthusiasts.

Angel at Dusk was played on PC with review code provided by the publisher.