Man, I really wanted to like Wolflame. I really did. But I guess some stuff are unachievable.
The game starts strong, VERY STRONG if I may say. Destroying enemy troops, combining the special pickups into weapons of mass destruction... the game just feels so fun. But the more you progress into the game, the more you can see its flaws.
I do not want to waste my or your time explaining the obvious good points of the game as it is not wildly different compared to your usual shmup game, so I'll just skip to the critiques and their explanations.
- Setting the pause keybind to Enter/Return completely breaks this function, as the game registers the button two times and will immediately resume the game. So don't be me and don't do that.
- As many others have mentioned, some of the enemies fire a singular, very fast bullet type that is very hard to dodge if you are in a pinch or if you are not already moving around when they fire it. And as the game gets a habit of spamming these enemies during later levels, a lot of your deaths will mostly come from them. Some might say the ship is too slow for this bullet type, but I'd like to argue that the rest of the game has not been built around it instead, as when you are not encountering the aforementioned bullet type the game plays very well and very fair. However the moment you see the enemies that shoot it, you'll be more likely to scroll to and stay on a safe side of the screen rather than risk getting shot.
- Usefulness of the life system is debatable. Every enemy projectile is a one hit kill and there are no shields either. However, upon taking a hit, you will not be able to continue on the spot and will instead be forced to continue from a past checkpoint. Not unusual for a shmup game, but there are two big issues with this system:
1. You will lose every special weapon you have and unless the game throws one at you, you will be utterly outgunned.
2. You are able to reclaim your lost weapons after killing some enemies, but if you die again before getting them, they are gone for good and you will be forced to use the weak default shot.
These issues can effectively leave you in a very vulnerable state. You cannot properly attack to save your life and can die again in one hit anyway.
- Boss fights are very lackluster. Sometimes the bosses don't actually look threatening design-wise (some of them look like normal enemies that can appear in middle of a level), and sometimes the battles are really not that exciting. It doesn't help that the game does not spice things up properly using sights and sound. You do hear a low volume alert sound, but cannot expect anything like flashing WARNING logos, high energy boss music or similar. Bosses are by far the easiest and the most boring part of the game.
- The bomb is ineffective in protecting you from some enemy attacks. For example, there's a carrier missile in the final level that releases homing swarm missiles after getting destroyed. If the carrier missile is close to you and you use a bomb, you will still die. I assume this is because the swarm missiles have a very brief invincibility period so their appearance animation can be finished.
So overall, I personally do not recommend playing this game. It's not Satazius levels of being disappointing, but does leave you in a conflicted state as you really want to like the game, but various design choices of the game makes you unable to.
