Lightning Fighter Review
PROS
- Seven challenging levels with unique enemies.
- New players can ease in with the 'bomb'-shield system.
- 'Smart' control switching.
CONS
- The relative swipe system can obscure your vision.
VERDICT
Lightning Fighter is a relatively standard arcade shoot'em-up, though several features help to ease new players in to the game.
- Full Review
- App Store Info
It's hard to fight for individual attention with so many exciting and action-packed shoot'em-ups to choose from on the App Store, but Lightning Fighter by Uwan Studio is definitely trying to make its voice heard. Releasing a shmup so close on the heels of a major release from a developer like CAVE makes this even riskier, but Lightning Fighter is certainly no slouch as far as shmups go.
The game features an interesting control system that switches between tilt and touch controls on-the-fly depending on whether you're touching the screen or not. Once you hold down your finger to swipe, the tilt controls are completely deactivated, allowing you to move your ship relative to your gestures. Two buttons provide access to a bomb and a 'super charge' mode for your main weapon. In a neat twist players can also use their 'bombs' as a safety net as they automatically explode instead of your ship if you collide against a bullet or another ship.
Each of the game's seven stages are beautifully rendered with high definition sprites and flashy special effects, but sometimes it's hard to appreciate the artwork as you're frantically dodging the extremely fast enemies and deadly accurate projectiles.
However, outside of the bomb-shield shield system and the occasional super-charged weapon burst the game remains a fairly standard in its gameplay. This may provide some challenge and a time-waster for genre fans, but unless you're keen for a new shmup it's an easy game to overlook.
Screenshots
$0.99
