Devil Daggers

One of the biggest and most baffling lies in modern gaming is this idea that minimalistic roguelike-inspired shooters with no sense of level design is somehow representative of old-school shooters, which is honestly just a lot of nonsense. I suspect that a few indie developers are invested in this lie since it lets them get away with not having to actually create levels or even design their game properly at all.

Devil Daggers is a first person bullet hell, it's also not an old-school shooter, the only similarity there is that the game has pixelated look and that you don't have to stop firing to reload since you have infinite ammo (and the similarities stop there, in older FPS you usually had ammo limits and weapon variety). You are on a small and flat platform, enemies spawn around you, you shoot them, they kill you in one hit and then you start again. The game is more similar to an arcade game, the only real objective is staying alive longer in order to get a higher score than other people.

The game stands out primarily because of it's great visuals and sound but I think these elements doesn't merge well with the gameplay, there is so much darkness that it's difficult to see enemies at a distance and there is not a lot of clarity in the sound either, so it's even harder to make smart decisions while you are constantly swarmed by enemies. And while it's not a bad game it's also not a particularly interesting idea, it feels more like a proof of concept (or a demo) than a fully fleshed game.

But it's an idea that appeals to some people and they seem to have a blast playing the same thing over and over again, so good for them. But just please stop pretending this is anything like Doom or Quake, those games had more interesting ideas and more complex gameplay.