Another day, another prestigious arcade shmup finds a happy new home for itself on the Switch. This may sound like we’ve skipped straight to the end of this review a few paragraphs early but as it’s been a full decade since DoDonPachi Resurrection’s English Xbox 360 release, more than that since it debuted in Japanese arcades, and several years since its Steam port, there’s no point keeping anyone in suspense: this hypnotic mixture of bullets, lasers, and shiny collectibles is without a doubt one of the best of its type.
It’s also one of the most flexible of its type too, with eight very different ways to play and seven of those featuring extensive training options, allowing anyone to practise all levels, bosses, and even mid-bosses under any conditions imaginable. The options available go so far that, as with Espgaluda II
Sadly this laboratory-like testing is often necessary as all of Resurrection’s play modes have an incredible depth to them that is completely hidden by unhelpful names like ‘1.51’, ‘Version L’, and ‘Arrange’, or described — in full — as ‘Play Black Label with aircraft from Ketsui’; that’s a sentence requiring a high level of familiarity with one specific Resurrection play type as well as knowledge of a shmup only available on the Switch in Japan as a port of an old mobile phone game.
This lack of information is not a new problem nor one unique to Resurrection, but it is frustrating to see what is an otherwise excellent title refuse
Resurrection is arguably one of the best of its genre even after all these years and a lot of competition (plenty of it coming from developer Cave themselves). It’s relentlessly challenging, breathlessly inventive and exhilarating to play; an essential purchase for confirmed shmup fans. But it’s also one that needs you to do a lot of homework to get anything meaningful out of it.