Arcade shooters have evolved over the years from having the player ship be capable, to strong, to ridiculously overwhelmingly powerful. It feels good to throw masses of bullets across the screen and, seeing as the player is supposed to be taking down hundreds of enemies singlehandedly and there’s no real limit on the number of sprites any more, they might as well be armed for bear from the start. Grand Cross: Renovation takes that idea and runs with it, starting off fully powered with a gun that can carve through anything the game has to offer.
The safe weapon is a spread shot that’s already fairly strong, filling the screen with bullets that clear away the smaller enemies instantly. The big gun, though, is the Sun Blade, which is a focused beam that makes quick work of even the toughest bosses while also clearing away any firepower it touches. The problem is that its usage is paid for in health, and while health regenerates quickly it’s worryingly easy to get down to a few percentage points and still not let up on the beam. The upside is that less health equals more points, so the player is always encouraged to ride the ragged edge of risk, keeping the score bonus high while hoping a stray bullet doesn’t sneak through the screen-shaking chaos. It helps quite a bit that the Sun Blade can be angled, with the shoulder bumpers rotating it in a full 360-degree sweep when necessary, plus it comes with a pair of firing modes activated by holding two buttons at once. One mode sends the beam shooting out rapidly in random directions, covering the screen in quick bursts of zappy death, while the other fires a wider version of the Sun Blade that depletes both enemy and player health even more quickly than before.
There’s also a story in Grand Cross: Renovation, something about a war on the other side of the universe where a child of darkness wields the power of light to… something. It’s in there somewhere if you look for it, with text popping up during the transitions and before boss fights, but I’ll admit to only having a rough idea of what’s supposed to be happening here. It’s hard to pay attention when fighting overwhelming force with overwhelming force, very little defense and almost pure offense as constant explosions rock the screen while the backgrounds get ever trippier, so maybe the story makes sense. Even if it’s all gibberish, though, the shooting is a huge amount of fun with semi-hidden technical bonuses for those who want to maximize the score. Grand Cross: Renovation is power and aggression focused in a constant balance of risk/reward, and a hugely entertaining shooter from start to finish.
