The Psyvariar series may not rank as an absolute fan favorite within the shmup genre, but for the ‘bullet graze’ niche within, it is leading the way and inspiring other developers and franchises for sure. If you roam around Reddit threads focusing on shmups, the Psyvariar series is often considered one of the best all-rounders and an ideal gateway into the grazing subgenre. So, with quite a bit of anticipation, the third instalment came out back in May.
The game has been out for the good end of half a year and, seeing the legacy and potential of this latest instalment, we went in for a retrospective review.
Living on the edge
So, what exactly is bullet grazing? In most shmups, bullets are something you desperately try to avoid. Grazing turns that logic on its head by rewarding you for getting dangerously close to them without actually getting hit. Psyvariar calls this Buzzing, and rather than being just another way to inflate your score, it sits at the very heart of how the game is played. Buzzing bullets feeds your Neutrino gauge and helps you level up, with each level-up briefly shielding your ship from damage. This creates an interesting risk-and-reward loop where you actively seek out enemy fire, trigger your shield and use those precious moments of invulnerability to dive even deeper into dense bullet patterns, potentially chaining one shield into the next.
Then there is Psyvariar’s signature Roll mechanic. Rolling your ship improves its ability to Buzz incoming fire, making it an integral part of positioning yourself within bullet patterns rather than simply dodging around them. Psyvariar 3 combines this with its Neutrino system, where Buzzing and shooting can provide shields, speed boosts and enhanced weapons. The result is a shmup that asks you to suppress some very basic survival instincts. The safest place on screen isn’t necessarily away from the bullets. Once you understand its systems, getting uncomfortably close to as many of them as possible is exactly where you want to be.
Stick to the concept
Once you’re invested in the game and really sink your nails into it, it becomes clear how the game is setting you up with paths to ‘Buzz’ or ‘graze’, to the point where the ideal grazing path becomes so obvious that things get predictable pretty fast. This in itself is not a problem, as the goal of the game is to utilize these patterns as much as you can and train yourself to get better at it.
Granted, that doesn’t make the game easy. It is difficult in its own special way. The risk-and-reward balance is the core attraction of the game and risk really does mean risk. The game constantly switches between grazing sections and proper ‘bullet hell’ storms. In that sense, it knows when to shake things up. What it is trying to teach the player is to endure and survive those instances, then turn back to happily grazing onwards afterwards.
At first, it feels like a balancing issue where the bullet-grazing sections can feel obligatory and somewhat dull, while a bullet hell section can come in and take away one or multiple lives, with death sometimes feeling inescapable. Only hours in did I find out that the big trick is to employ the Roll mechanic, allowing you to use those bullet hell sections to effectively build up your Neutrino count and chain a shield to survive and score.
The big problem here is that the game is hardly playable in its later stages without developing the necessary Roll skills, leaving not much in the middle. Whereas Toaplan and Cave games happily let you play as you like and reward you with points for taking additional risks, Psyvariar 3 increasingly rewards you with survival for executing its harder-to-master mechanics.
The modern shmup look
So far, in my review, Psyvariar 3 is steering towards being a ‘bullet graze enthusiasts only’ affair and, in that respect, its looks aren’t doing much to broaden its appeal either. It looks so generic.
Once I got more comfortable with the way the game plays and had enough room left in my mental stack to take in the stages, I found them quite disappointing. It is somewhat of an empty void. The mental image the game leaves me with is that of a glorified high-resolution pseudo-3D version Galaga. It basically is you, some enemy ships and what feels like a pre-rendered background that doesn’t interact with what’s happening up front at all. It feels completely disjointed.
Visually, Psyvariar 3 falls into the same category as the new Sonic Wings game and the much older Strikers games: 3D models used on a 2D plane, low-poly models and fairly low-detail backgrounds. Psyvariar 3 adds a rather bland colour palette to the mix as well.
Modes galore
The absolute strong suit of Psyvariar 3 is the overload of game modes. Besides the regular seven-stage Arcade Mode, there is an Arrange Mode that starts you out fully powered and drops the regular levelling system, putting more emphasis on straight-up shooting and dodging. Mission Mode chops the action up into 49 short challenges with specific objectives, while Caravan gives you just two minutes to squeeze out the highest score possible. Endless goes in yet another direction, giving you a single life to survive a procedurally generated stage for as long as possible. And, thankfully for a game built around mastering its unusual mechanics, there is a proper Practice Mode as well.
What makes this selection work is that these aren’t just minor variations on Arcade Mode. They encourage different ways of playing and, combined with the seven pilots and their individual shot types, Buzz mechanics, bombs and scoring systems, there is a surprising amount to dig into. Psyvariar 3 may not have the biggest campaign around, but it certainly knows how to get mileage out of it.
Fun Factor
If we set the lacklustre presentation and the difficulty spikes aside, the big question is: will you get some mileage out of what Psyvariar 3 has to offer? If you’re a graze aficionado, the game is almost unavoidable, if only for its legacy. Still, even graze-heads will probably be left with a bitter taste from some of the balancing issues.
For anyone else, Arcade Mode feels like the least likely mode to get much fun out of, while the additional modes seem to be geared more towards regular shmup enthusiasts. Still, that feels like working around the core content that’s on offer.
Besides, why bother as a regular shmup fan with a hard-to-get-into, highly specific subgenre when there are tons of shooters on Switch that are more accessible, more immediately fun and available at better prices? For roughly the same price, you could pick up several games from Hamster’s Arcade Archives, for instance.
Psyvariar 3 knows exactly what kind of shmup it wants to be. Its Buzz and Roll mechanics offer plenty of depth, backed by an impressive selection of modes that give you different ways to master them. The problem is that the game eventually expects you to master those mechanics rather than merely rewarding you for doing so. With little middle ground, uneven difficulty spikes and a bland presentation, Psyvariar 3 remains very much an enthusiasts' affair. Graze-heads will find plenty to master here and should add an extra point, while regular shmup fans may be better served elsewhere. Especially as there is so much more accessible shmups out there.
