Crimzon Clover: World Ignition Review | Hardcore Gamer

Shoot’em ups are a super niche market. They’re the kind of games that require practice, patience and precision to master, and tend to favor only the most score-chasing minded players on the planet. Typically speaking, there’s also little to no story in them, the graphics are traditionally 2D and they’re overwhelmingly difficult by design. Oh, and usually they need to be imported, and thus are not only in a foreign language, but come stamped with a hefty sticker price to boot. If one can’t tell, sometimes the barrier to entry for these arcade shooters is simply too steep for the average person to overcome, hence resulting in decades of the genre remaining coveted by only the most hardcore a gamer. Over the last several years, though, we’ve seen STGs (just another term for the genre, similar to the oft mainsteam term ‘shmup’) pull back from traditional retail releases in favor of more grassroots efforts funded independently and released digitally on a studio’s own terms.