Blaze of Storm

Genre: Shmup

Players: 1

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Review:

Blaze of Storm is a Shmup released in 2026 on PC and Nintendo Switch with a “cyberspace” theme, with frequent miniboss and boss battles, and numerous secondary weapons you can acquire.

I’ve gotta’ admit, it was difficult to write this article’s opening paragraph, because there’s not much that makes this game truly distinct within its genre. You can power-up your ship three times, along with five secondary weapons that act in different ways. Take a hit and you power-down a level and lose your secondary weapon. Take three hits and you lose a life.

For the most part, this works quite well, and is a solid entry in the genre. There are some issues I have with it though. Overall the game is a tad on the easy side, as you’re fairly overpowered. However, the action is so zoomed-in if often feels like there’s not much room to maneuver. What’s more, there can be a lot going on at any given time, making it hard to track what’s happening visually.

Also, it’s really frustrating when the game keeps throwing one secondary weapon power-up after another at you when you don’t want to lose your current secondary, but is far stingier about the health and power upgrades you are more likely to want. And I also have to note the lack of multiplayer here.

The one place where I think Blaze of Storm stands out is its presentation, with solid 2D pixel art visuals with some nice anime-style character portraits, all backed by decent synth tunes that all add up to a wonderful retro-style presentation.

Overall, I don’t think Blaze of Storm is likely to become anyone’s favorite Shmup, but it is a pretty good one, with an appealing retro-style presentation and some decent weapon variety. It may have some issues as well, but overall this is a solid Shmup.

tl;dr – Blaze of Storm is a Shmup with a “cyberspace” theme and multiple secondary weapons to acquire. This game doesn’t do anything truly revolutionary within the genre, and has a few issues, but on the other hand the presentation here is great and the core gameplay is solid. On balance, this is a good Shmup, even if it’s not a truly spectacular one.

Grade: B-

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