Flying Red Barrel, Diary of a Little Aviator

Pretty sure I brought this game up forever ago, and I know that 99.9% of MFGG has an outrageous hate for these shooters, but I have to say that Flying Red Barrel is a fantastic GAME on all fronts.

The story focuses around the endeavors of a rookie pilot, callsign Red Barrel, as she carries out her first 4 missions as a member of this flight guild(designed to keep the sky safe). Over the course of her missions, she slowly begins to question the ethics and purposes of the guild, so she decides to perform her own investigations. Many things the players do in the game have direct effects on what happens later, such as whether or not the player shoots the seagullsin stage 1, whether or not certian characters are shot down before they finish talking, etc.

The game is rendered in very bright and cartoony 2D graphics and(shocking for a japanese indie game) actually has consistent and good character art. The story dialog is presented on the sides of the screen during play, minimizing any interruptions or hiccups in the game itself.

The scoring system is where the game really shines, because it makes Flying Red Barrel amazingly accessible to all. The player has a set amount of missiles at his/her disposal(their explosions destroy enemy fire), and the score multiplier increases with each successful hit with one. as the multiplier increases, the amount of coins dropped by enemies increases as well. The player collects coins to replenish missiles, so higher multipliers mean more missiles at your disposal.


Honestly guys, this is a very good game, and it's only about $10.

Some video footage


Buy it from Direct2Drive or GamersGate here

This post has been edited by Turndawg107 on Oct 18 2009, 03:40 PM

Wow, a SHMUP post by Turndawg, that's refreshing.

But yeah, It seems that most of the gaming industry has forgotten about SHMUPS, and for a very good reason: They are outdated.

Outdated for a very good reason, and that is because now that companies have all the processing power to make all the bullets they want, they lost all the creative elements that made them FUN. instead they just go by the "more is merrier" approach and you get **** like Mushihimesama and touhou and all that other junk clogging up shooters. The genre is nosediving and not even the devs care.

This is why Ikaruga is so highly praised, because it is one of the only "bullet hell" shooters to have been creative. I'm going to say that this title is also part of those creative games, as it is both challenging yet extremely accessible to anyone, just like shooters once were.

This post has been edited by Turndawg107 on Oct 18 2009, 10:13 AM

But jesus man, all you post is about SHMUPS.

There are better games out there! SHMUPS are dead!

But no I'm not paying $10(around £7) for a fangame

Dude, I haven't made a single shooter post for weeks, calm down.

I'm not making a topic about some bull**** niche crap "shmup," I'm making a topic about a genuinely FUN game. Who gives a damn about what genre it is? Would you rather I posted "generic Cave Story thread #345135141234?"

This post has been edited by Turndawg107 on Oct 18 2009, 10:24 AM

That's because you barely post at all.

it's a fangame?

It looks similar to 1943, which is not bad, but we've seen this before. Nothing special.

Bloody looks like one

It baffles me how the mods have ignored Gamesmonkey for the past several weeks.

I think I got banned because I was posting negatively without reasons for disliking it, which I am actually giving reasons now. But yeah, I will change when the new forums start up.

looks like a fun game to me

This post has been edited by Elyk on Oct 18 2009, 10:59 AM

Don't get me wrong, Turndawg, I love me some Ikaruga and the 19XX series(the only decent games on Capcom Classics Collection:Remixed other than the G&G franchise) but I just don't see any good SHMUPS anymore.

That looked pretty interesting.

Really, I'm a SHMUP fan, so it instantly gets points for that.

One possible flaw I see though is, if you are able to get a whole ton of coins, you can shoot infinite torpedoes, which can get you a whole ton more coins. So, you can essentially rush through whole areas firing mostly just torpedoes (like this guy did...).
Then again, without that, it's essentially 1945 with slower bullets.

one time he posted about muramasa

and there was a flight sim topic
that's like, half points

anyways this looks interesting

I find it funny that you're trying to argue with me when I'm AGREEING with you.

The whole reason why I haven't bothered posting shooter topics is exactly because of what I've seen developers doing with the genre(avoiding creativity/innovation/fun for the sake of pleasing a narrowing fanbase) and my absolute distaste for it. Pretty much any topic I make about a shooter from now on will happen to be one I believe is outside of the stale norm that they're in now.

This is very true, but at the same time many enemies are rather difficult to easily hit with missiles, and by the same token, if one doesn't space them well enough he/she will easily find himself/herself out of missiles to collect coins with. This guy is very good, and he's definitely played the game a lot.