Rival Megagun

Genre: Shmup

Players: 1-2 Competitive (Local / Online)

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Review:

Rival Megagun is a Shmup released in 2018 on PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch. And this game attempts to do something I’m not sure I’ve ever seen in a Shmup – it focuses on multiplayer competitive play. While multiplayer co-op has been around in the genre for nearly as long as the genre has been around, multiplayer seems a bit trickier. How do you make that work in a way that gives both players an interesting experience?

In Rival Megagun, how this works is a multi-stage process. It starts with split-screen gameplay where each player is more or less playing a traditional vertical-scrolling Shmup. As they take out enemies, they fill up an energy meter, and as they increase their chain, they send increasingly more enemies to fight their opponent. They can use their energy meter to send additional attacks directly to their opponent, or they can save up until the meter is full to transform into a boss enemy and cross over to the top of the other player’s screen to hit them with a variety of screen-filling attacks.

There’s a lot of creativity here, finding interesting ways to not only translate typical Shmup gameplay into something more directly competitive than fighting for the highest score, but also giving players the opportunity to take the role of a “final boss” for their opponent. And the variety of characters to choose from gives players plenty of different options that change up each element of a player’s arsenal.

On the other hand, even this cleverness doesn’t change that most of how you combat your enemy is still indirect, making it hard to gauge how you’re doing compared to your opponent other than comparing energy bars. Also, it definitely seems like some elements are out of your control here – you can’t control when enemies spawn on your side, making it difficult to ensure you can keep a combo going. Also, since I’m detailing complaints, I have to mention that as I write this review, the online lobbies are deserted, so you’ll either have to fight computer-controlled opponents, or bring your own friends to play against.

At the very least, the presentation here is solid, making good use of 2D pixel art visuals with anime-style character designs that give the game tons of personality, backed by a synthesized soundtrack with some great retro vibes.

In the end, I think Rival Megagun brings a fascinating idea to the Shmup genre and works to execute it with some really clever mechanics to translate the genre’s gameplay to a competitive multiplayer experience. I just can’t help but feel like it needed a bit more work to truly deliver on its concept. As-is, it’s still an enjoyable game, but one that doesn’t quite reach the heights it’s aiming for.

tl;dr – Rival Megagun is a multiplayer-focused Shmup that has players going head-to-head competitively. This game reworks genre conventions in some clever ways to make this concept work, but this competition still feels a little too indirect. This is still a unique and enjoyable take on the genre, but it needed a bit more work to truly make it something special.

Grade: B-

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