Otomedius Excellent

This game was actually really fun and plays a lot like Gradius which by itself was one of the better side scrolling flying shooting games.
The graphics are very vibrant and colorful, sometimes making it a challenge to distinguish background and foreground, but overall appealing to look at.
This game is actually pretty difficult, I think mostly because of the excessive color whereas in Touhou, that was not an issue. Since I have only 1 controller for XBox, I couldn't do the 2-player mode. I suppose instead of comparing this game to Gradius, maybe comparing it to Lifeforce for NES is a better comparison due to the 2-player simultaneous gameplay.

This game is a silly spinoff and knows it. Not to be taken so seriously. Great fun.

Gradius spin-off which doesn't do the series justice.
Weapon/upgrade system is all there but is used in bland & confusing backgrounds where it's often hard to see enemies and targets.
Girl's voices get annoying very soon too.

I hoped for this to be a patch on Parodius but it falls short by a million miles.

a must have for any Otomedius series fan.

It is a very good and funny shooting game as always.