The Psyvariar games are far from prominent in gaming’s mainstream. That’s rather a shame, because they excel where otherwise sublime bullet hell shmups can come up a little short.
Since the series arrived in Japan’s arcades in 2000, the Psyvariar releases have triumphed in offering an authentic, intense shooting game experience that serves a wide range of players, from profoundly skilled genre devotees to those with a considerably less fervent interest in the form. They really are shmups for everyone – and yet they are known by very few. The global release of Psyvariar 3 attempts to change all that.
The Psyvariar series has traditionally presented a skill ceiling that towers above its difficulty ceiling. The games from Japanese arcade outfit Success are bullet hell shmups, of course, so beating them in a single credit still takes some doing; yet they fall short of being as testing as the genre’s most demanding. With a little devotion, you’ll get a long way with some good old-fashioned shooting and dodging. Beating a Psyvariar game, however, is just the beginning of a player’s ascent to mastery. Play to push score, and you’ll find a game packed with nuance, strategic depth, a strikingly exciting risk-reward system, and tremendous capacity for wild skill and welcoming distinct playstyles. And as longstanding series fan, it is very much a delight to confirm Psyvariar 3 delivers capably on that front.
It’s been quite a wait for the game. The Original Psyvariar: Medium Unit launched some 26 years ago. It was quickly updated and refined, returning to arcades that same year as Psyvariar: Revision. Both those games came to Playstation 2 – including in the West – as the compilation Psyvariar: Complete Edition. Then, in 2018, Psyvariar Delta brought together Medium Unit and Revision with all manner of new features and reworkings for the PlayStation 4 and Switch, before undergoing yet another remix for the exA-Arcadia arcade platform, carrying the name Psyvariar Delta AC. Amidst all that, the utterly exceptional Psyvariar 2: The Will to Fabricate arrived on SEGA’s NAOMI arcade format in 2003, before taking flight to contemporary consoles – never seeing a single update, revision, or remastering since.
Which is all to say, while you might find a catalogue of Psyvariar games with a quick ferret through Google results, but it has been 23 years since the last truly new Psyvariar console or arcade release (sadly, the obscure 2016 mobile game Psyvariar Reassemble seemed to only be available for a few months, was far from perfect, and appeared to be bashed together from the older games).
For the modest group of Western players that adore the series, anticipation has been high – as has been caution. Success handed over development of Psyvariar 3 to the Brazilian indie developer Banana Bytes, keeping a close eye on development, with French outfit Red Art Games on board for production and support. Banana Bytses had already charmed shmup fans with their own creation, Sophstar; but could they really step up and extend the work of a highly esteemed Japanese arcade company? It is a great relief to discover that the answer is a confident ‘yes; they absolutely could’.
Psyvariar 3 is as distinct in its genre as the wider series, very much remains a shooter for all kinds of players, and its creation is clearly informed by a deep love and knowledge of the series. The Banana Bytes devs have undoubtedly put a huge number of hours into the previous games, and seemingly as authentic fans. As such, they have taken their stewardship of the Psyvariar series very seriously, and the result is riveting.
As with all the previous Psyvariar games, the fundamentals of Banana Bytes creation is obedient to the genre rule book. Its stages scroll vertically, as you pilot a diminutive starfighter through swarms of vibrant bullets, armed with a fairly wide main shot, limited number of bombs, and a focused laser-like attack known as the ‘Rolling Shot’.
All that convention, hoverer, largely serves as the foundation of a game that delights in inverting what you might expect from a shmup. Because Psyvariar 3 would prefer if you avoid shooting, charge its bullets, and pursue a state of internal invincibility. The game is built around the Buzz scoring system, which is the secret sauce in what could otherwise be a rather typical shooter. Shoot enemies, and your ‘Neutrino metre’ fills. Graze your ship dangerously close to bullets, and that gauge typically fills even faster. Top it out, and as well as leveling up your weapon, you get a flash of invincibility. It is worth noting here that Psyvariar 3’s wildly generous seven stock pilots each bring their own weapons, bomb systems, and approach to scoring; so while some might pull more Neutrino from shooting, others draw more from Buzzing bullets. There’s even a cameo from Cotton, the eponymous hero of Success’ most famed shmup series, who totally reinvents the scoring and bomb systems, while the pilot Soph carries over the manic teleporting and ghost ship functions from Soph Star.
On the whole though, the focus is on Buzzing and Neutroni harvesting. In time you’ll learn to hold off on the shooting, let the bullets flood the screen, and thread your needle of a craft through tiny gaps to Buzz hundreds of bullets, repeatedly and rapidly fill that Neutriono metre, essentially chaining together the flashes of invincibility that come when you level-up. Play properly, and you’ll soon hear a chorus of linked ‘level-up’ audio alerts, letting you know you can strategically charge through bullet patterns that would otherwise destroy you.
Maintaining invincibility, however, takes immense focus, strategy, and risk – with the rewards being towering scores, and some of the genre’s most exhilarating gameplay energy. The more daringly you play, the bigger the thrills.
And it is in that context that Banana Bytes immense knowledge and understanding of Psyvariar shines through. Blast away at all the enemies as soon as you see them, and you’ll likely only see the most mesmeric, dense bullet patterns during boss battles. Learn to game more deeply, and you’ll find yourself holding off on shooting and positioning yourself to maximise every scoring opportunity. Quickly it becomes apparent that every enemy and bullet pattern is presented as something of a puzzle of unearthing Buzzing opportunities and chains. The more time you give Psyvariar 3, the more there is to discover. Additionally, as you increase your ship level, you open up more demanding versions of each stage, presenting more bullets, more challenges, and more scoring opportunities. And unlike many other shmups that bring subtle puzzle energy – including the hallowed Ikaruga – Psyvariar 3 doesn’t force you to uncover a fairly predetermined path to victory. It wants you to discover your own way to play. That is immensely satisfying, and assures a game that is short on paper has the capacity to offer countless hours of progress and improvement.
Those bosses deserve a little more attention here too. As they unleash tight grinds of intersecting bullet lines that push Buzzing to new heights, they deliver some of the most visually mesmeric, nailbiting battles the genre has to offer.
The value in Psyvariar 3’s offering doesn’t stop at the main game mode; the overall package is as densely packed as the bullet patterns. For starters, all those seven pilots introduce entirely new ways to play and master the game. Then you get an arranged mode, which starts you out at full-power, removes the focus on leveling up and opening more advanced routes forward, and increases bullet speed. Arrange mode isn’t easier, certainly. Rather, it is more purebred, reimagining Psyvariar as a somewhat conventional genre offering. Then there are 49 bite-sized ‘Missions’ to play through, each with specific, focused objectives, and an excellent ‘Caravan’ mode, as made famous by Hudnson’s PC Engine shooters, which gives you a unique stage, two-minutes, and infinite lives to score as much as you can. You also get the procedurally generated Endless mode, and a practice setting to let you drill specific stage sections and bosses.
There also online and local leaderboards, and a fairly decent – if not exhaustive – spread of options. As with many Japanese shmup console releases, you can ‘tate’ the game, rotating the playfield 90-degrees so you can tackle the game with your monitor on its side to maximise use of screen estate. There are also all manner of ways to tinker with the likes of hitbox and bullet visibility, render resolution, control building, and more.
A very complete package then, in a genre so often dismissed as offering excessively simple, short-form experiences.
What really matters here is the core gameplay and experience, which is tremendously good, deeply nuanced, and welcoming to a wide range of players. As has always been the case with the Psyvariar games, the music feels deeply fused with the gameplay and setting, guiding the tone as much as it obeys it. The previous series entries saw the legendary arcade game composer Tetsuro Sato, better known as WASi303, handle the musical score and music of the audio design. WASi303 may not have been involved in Psyvariar 3, but it is a credit to the Banana Bytes team that their creation feels sonically authentic to what came before.
Visually, Psyvariar 3 is likely to be divisive. It is extremely authentic to the style and look that resulted from the early games running on the Taito GNET arcade board system – itself a cousin of the PlayStation motherboard. All polygonal forms and sharp slashes of vibrant colour, it was aesthetically divisive back then – although highly focused on bullet and ship clarity. Banana Bytes have extended that tradition, building a game that communicates its intense action perfectly, evokes a sense of GNET arcade gaming, and that very much won’t meet every player’s visual preferences. But in the world of shmups, seeing the bullets, UI, and enemies arguably transcends the importance of beauty, even if a little more of the latter might have brought broader appeal in the case of Psyvariar 3.
Overall, though, Psyvariar 3 brings revitalises an underrated, underexposed masterpiece of a series, presents some of the most rewarding, distinct gameplay the genre has to offer, and makes authentic shmup play meaningful to both the curiously-minded and deeply devoted players – all in a package bursting at the seams with additional content and value.
