It’s rare to find a hidden gem like Restart Devil BladeThe vertically scrolling shooter looks and plays like a game that was only released in Japan for the Sega Saturn, the kind of game you read about on message boards in the mid-’90s and paid $200 to import without ever seeing a streamer play it.
There is a good reason Restart Devil Blade feels like a retro game from the 32-bit era of the PlayStation and Saturn. It’s an enhanced remake of the original Devil’s knife released in 1996, a small indie project built using 2D game-making software Dezaemon Plus. The creator behind it is an artist known as Shigatake (aka Takehiro Shiga), whose work you may recognize from Vanillaware games like Unicorn Overlord And Dragon Crown.
Restart Devil Blade doesn’t look like a Vanillaware game at all. It has a meticulously pixel-painted retro look. Shigatake boasts that he’s “pushing the boundaries of pixel art” with the recently released shmup, a claim that’s backed up by the game’s visuals. Screens are filled with ships to destroy, beautifully rendered backgrounds, and hellish swarms of bullets.
Despite the game’s complex visuals and frantic action, the concept behind it Restart Devil Blade is pretty simple. Just “dodge, shoot, and destroy without any extra baggage,” says the developer. And that’s true, you can play it that way. But the gimmick, such as it is, is about playing dangerously.
Restart Devil Blade has a scoring mechanic known as the Berserk System. Essentially, the closer you are to an enemy when you shoot them, the higher your scoring multiplier. The maximum multiplier is reserved for being within a few pixels of your target (and in some cases directly on top of them). Of course, the threat of eating a bullet from an enemy ship is a constant when fighting at close range, and quick reflexes and pattern recognition play a role not only in surviving, but also in maximizing your score.
There are a few other twists to the formula. Your ship has two firing modes: narrow and wide spread. The former option slows your movement somewhat. You can also deploy bombs to clear the screen and enable a boost to increase the number of points you score for blowing things up. But Restart Devil Blade is refreshingly uncomplicated and forgiving. There are no Gradius-style power-ups to keep track of. There is an easy mode option that is truly easy, allowing you to calmly blast your way through hundreds of enemy ships.
But for the more serious player, there’s a hardcore “Inferno” difficulty option that eliminates your ship’s shield and screen-clearing bombs. And in this mode, if you don’t actively use the Berserk score multiplier for too long, your ship will explode.
Image: Shigatake Games
Shigatake has worked on Restart Devil Blade for the better part of a decade. It shows. The game’s ship movements and enemy fire patterns are masterfully designed and constantly surprise throughout its five levels. Despite being a 2D game, Restart Devil Blade plays creatively with perspective, Shigatake pulling off some incredibly clever graphical tricks.
If you crave the sense of discovery that comes with playing Treasure games like Shining silver gun And Icaruga for the first time (and then gradually understanding the layered systems of those games), Restart Devil Blade a spin. For just $15.99 you get those import Sega Saturn shooter vibes without the high import price.
Restart Devil Blade is available for Windows PC via Steam. It also plays great on a Steam Deck.