Indie developer Akiragoya doesn’t just want you to get better in their latest game, Angel at Dusk. They want to improve your odds across the genre. Although one look at the new Switch port of their highly grotesque work, you’d be forgiven for thinking the opposite was true.
Set deep in the future where pleasure, sin, crime and more have been eradicated by scientific progress, Angel at Dusk is an aggressive bullet hell arcade shooter built around a meticulously repulsive futuristic body horror theme. The levels are fashioned from tangled masses of pustular body parts, held together by ribbons of shimmering sinew – an aesthetic that carries over to the monstrous enemy craft. Most moments across the game’s various modes, meanwhile, are filled with dense, intense curtains of bullets, while elaborate, intersecting mechanical systems focus on high-stakes gameplay. Hyper casual or comfortable, Angel at Dusk is not.
And yet, with their latest creation – first released on PC earlier this year – Akiragoya may have delivered one of the most compelling examples of true arcade-aggressive bullet hell yet realized, all without ostracizing loyal players who are already literate in the language. nonsense. Ultimately, Angel at Dusk is an incredibly intelligent game, in its design, writing, wit, and understanding of what traditional shooters are. He knows enough shmup design rules to know exactly which ones to break – without ever breaking the formula of authenticity.
Over time, a number of developers have made friendly attempts to crack down on arcade shooters for the masses – but in the cases of works like Cuphead and swanswhile they bring many merits, they arguably deviate so much from the arcade tradition that they suggest very different experiences indeed. Angel at Dusk, meanwhile, offers a fully authentic arcade shooter that shines in complex gameplay and interlocking scoring systems, deeply rewarding intense action, and overwhelming swarms of ornate rules, with a soundtrack that’s not afraid to shake your very core with musical forms. like free jazz. All this is authentic, and yet its doors are wide open to a large number of players.
This is evident in the gloriously detailed – and completely optional – starter tutorials, which take you from the very basics of moving across the 2D plane to high-level techniques such as ‘knitting a figure eight’; bullet navigation method that can take you through all types of bosses across the genre.
So how did Akiragoya achieve all this? It’s time to go back to that old point about knowing which rules to break. Angel at Dusk doesn’t try to boldly reinvent the genre or add elaborate new systems. Instead, two subtle tweaks to convention have been made that make a profound difference without undue distraction. You can engage enemies without taking damage and you can earn a constant extra life.
Expressed so directly, these two changes do not seem too significant. But they seamlessly complement the game’s core risk-reward system. Shoot enemies up close and green heart-shaped objects rain down, evenly filling the HP bar. Refill that HP bar and you’ll get an extra life; something possible several times per phase in most cases. As such, in order to survive the complete release of the game, you’ll want to place yourself squarely among those hideous enemies. As such, it’s extremely beneficial that collisions don’t damage your ship. But in charging at opponents, you’ll still be putting yourself right among those infernal patterns at the moment when they’re at their thickest.
All of this means you have to shoot at close range to earn lives to survive, which in itself puts you in the most dangerous places in the game. And so newcomers to the genre and veterans alike are encouraged to play deeply aggressively and experience the joy of exchanging risk for reward.
Arcade and Story modes have a conventional form, offering five linear vertical stages, each with a boss. Arcade insists on choosing a ship with a set weapon loadout, while Story allows you to mix your own mixes of broadfire, lasers, press-and-release bullet barrages, and so on. Then there’s Chronicle mode, which lets you move through a branching path structure, unlocking new levels and boss variants, as well as new weapon options. Open a stage in Chronicle mode and you can return to it at any time afterwards, without having to play previous levels, making it perfect for shorter sessions. Be warned though, Chronicles do get very difficult indeed.
On the other hand, in arcade mode, the default ‘very hard’ difficulty setting can be overridden the first time with one credit (1CC’ed) quite easily if you’ve spent years in the genre, while beginners will most likely overcome it with little investment of time. But just as you feel smugly triumphant over Angel in Twilight, he playfully refers to that ‘very difficult’ setting as his own ‘very easy way’; but rest assured that the next setup will present plenty of challenges for shmup fans.
Interestingly, Angel at Dusk might be better described as a ‘system glitch’ rather than a ‘point-scoring hack’, because while there are tricky ways to achieve good results – namely, still Raiden Fighters Jet-informed medal chaining – mostly it’s about playing well enough to wipe out as many enemies as possible. In order to do this, you need to explore all the game systems you can cut through and familiarize yourself with one central scoring mechanism.
In addition to the melee focus, there’s EXP gathering that allows you to level up your craft in flight, reducing the size of the hitbox and adding an increasingly powerful barrage missile during the period when you’re charging your secondary weapon. There’s also a fairly intricate system of upgrading and customizing weapon loadouts in Chronicle and Story modes, while some ships sport bombs that can be earned with those green power-ups.
There’s a lot to learn, but Angel at Dusk does a great job of explaining and communicating its inner workings. Which brings us back to that ambitious tutorial, which shows a deep knowledge of the entire genre, as well as a playful willingness to lovingly poke fun at some of the form’s more absurd conventions, all while eagerly encouraging the player. The textbooks are marked by some minor errors in translation, but in this wonderfully strange game, those errors add to the unearthly poetic flair that gives the textbook its voice. Indeed, ‘tutorial’ may not be an understatement, as Angel at Dusk’s gameplay guide is also mostly an essay on jokey design; a riveting discussion of why the genre is so wonderful and how the arms race between players and developers has spawned one of the most rewarding forms of gaming it’s ever offered.
Body horror – grotesque throughout and even disturbingly sexualized at times – might be too much for some. But this is a game that plays, looks and sounds outstanding. Overall, it’s also a great performer, although in docked mode we noticed occasional stuttering at moments between stages.
Ultimately, Angel at Dusk has a wealth to offer players of all skill levels, and it excels at something where many otherwise excellent duds fail. It’s empowering, even if you’ve never touched a 2D shooter in your life.
Conclusion
Angel at Dusk is beautiful, strange, and built on a foundation of deep understanding of the genre, and an intelligence and self-awareness that elevates its potential to delight. Not everyone will buy into its theme, but it presents a deeply authentic hardcore bullet hell experience, sparkling wit, and a package of game systems that are a joy to explore. And the fact that it welcomes a wide range of players into an authentic joke? It’s one of the most compelling genre contributions of the year.
