Thank you Degica for sending us this game to review!

While I have been long familiar with the shoot ‘em up genre as a long-time casual fan, I am far from an expert, and a lot of progress has happened in the time since R-Type, 1942, and Gradius. As these things turn out, the genre had a massive explosion in popularity in Japan, especially from the 90s through the 2000s, even to the present day. Several extremely popular series in the genre come from that time, including Touhou and Cave’s shooters.

Written by one man who goes by Yotsubane, Crimzon Clover was released for Windows in Japan all the way back in 2011. It quickly became a huge success, as just a couple of years later it hit arcades, and even got a worldwide release on Steam and GOG in 2014. No doubt looking to take advantage of the Switch’s explosive popularity (no pun ... okay it was), Degica brought this shoot ‘em up classic to Switch, with extra features. A year later, it comes full circle, being brought back to Windows PCs via Steam, where this updated EXplosion release has all of the bonus features the Switch release included.

For those not familiar, there are two primary types of shoot 'em ups: the horizontal and vertical styles. In both cases you pilot some ship or craft that shoots bullets out in front of you towards enemies on the screen. This is almost always a form of 2D; first-person games are a different genre. These games started way back before scrolling screens with games like Space Invaders, and moved up to scrolling screens with games like the previously mentioned classics like Gradius and 1942. There is even a sub-genre of shoot 'em up, sometimes called bullet h*ll (I prefer to affectionately call them 'bullet heck' games), where you avoid waves and waves of shots, instead of just well-timed ones. This game is of the vertical 'bullet heck' style, where your ship starts at the bottom of the screen, and flies up towards the enemies. Ironically, it's not well suited to the more common wide screens, which is why this game offers a vertical orientation mode, if you want to rotate your TV/monitor vertically. Everything in this game is displayed using highly-detailed pixel art that almost looks 3D rendered; I don't believe it is because even at the highest settings, there are still visible pixels.

While I am far from an expert in the genre, it’s funny how even with relatively little experience, you can still tell when a game is good. The first time I played this, I kept going until I had finished it (thank goodness for infinite continues!). It was quickly obvious that this was a blast to play and something special. Little did I know at the time that this game has long been on people’s best of the genre lists.

From the very beginning, no matter what mode you play, your bullets flash in bright colors, and your enemies are clearly visible, with also clear bullets. You know how to hit enemies, and you know how to avoid them. Everything is really fast-paced, with stuff moving around constantly. Explosions are loud and impactful, and sound great. Particularly powerful enemies shoot bullets in waves, where you often have a specific pre-planned spot you should try to be in so that you don't die when hit. While dying can often require only one hit (unless you happen to have a shield up - availability depends on game mode and how recently you died), your hitbox is vanishingly small - it's that little glowing dot in the center of your ship. Many modern shooters do this, so that you still have a chance with the screen just otherwise flooded with things trying to kill you.

There are three main modes, with sub-settings in each one. There is 'Novice', 'Arcade', and 'Arrange', with difficulty levels called 'Boost', 'Original', 'Unlimited', and 'Time Attack'. The only exception to this is 'Novice', which only has 'Boost' and 'Original'. 'Boost' mode changes based on your skill, while 'Original' is a standard difficulty. 'Unlimited' mode is basically expert; things get crazy here. 'Time Attack' is where you have a limited time to get as many points as possible. Use as many lives as you need!

Technically, the Steam/PC version plays great, though there are some interesting quirks with regards to the resolution options. Of course you can play in Windowed mode, Full-Screen, or Borderless Window. If you like to play the game using your entire display, I recommend Borderless, because it will scale the game regardless of rendering resolution (which you can also set) to use your entire display. You can also choose if you want sharpness or smooth edges, via nearest or bilinear filtering options. The rendering resolution options are 480p, 720p, or 900p options. Higher rendering resolutions offer noticeably more pixels worth of clarity, but since 900p is not a common screen resolution, some scaling may be involved. I didn't find it a major issue; if your screen resolution is high enough, it's not likely to be a problem. Worst case, 720p divides into most common monitor resolutions these days cleanly. There are also controller options where you can map actions to any button you like on your controller, and keyboard controls exist and can be tweaked as well. You can also adjust some game settings, as well as your sound levels. It also runs fine on Linux via Steam's Proton compatibility layer.

Crimzon Clover: World EXplosion is honestly a fantastic game for shoot 'em up fans, or anyone interested in the genre. I've really enjoyed my time with it, and it surprised me how few complaints I had, other than the genre typical short length - you're supposed to replay these games over and over for a higher score - which incidentally, has online leaderboards. Morally, you shoot bad guys out of the sky; nothing unusual since the beginning of video games. Degica has delivered on their promise on bringing the Switch upgrades to PC, and owners of the older Steam release, World Ignition, also get a 40% loyalty discount! It's wonderful that they are taking care of their existing fans like that. No matter which version (or platform) you play Crimzon Clover on, it's a blast - and highly recommended.