MACROSS -Shooting Insight-

Growing up, I was never into anime beyond what 4Kids provided in the late ’90s and early 2000s. Granted, they did give us Pokémon and Yu-Gi-Oh!, among others, but that also meant I had never heard of Macross or even Robotech, which adapted Super Dimension Fortress Macross in the early to mid-’80s. While several Macross games were released in Japan, the U.S. received a few games under the Robotech name but never one under the Macross banner—at least as far as I can find. That changes now as we take a look at MACROSS-Shooting Insight. (I checked online how the name is stylized, and while the title screen and PS4 home screen say MACROSS, everything I’ve seen for the anime says Macross, so I’ll use each depending on the context.)

When you first start the game, you’ll see several options, but only Story mode is unlocked. Story mode lets you choose from several pilots and their Valkyries, playing through ten stages of blasting down every enemy ship that comes your way. Each Valkyrie has its own strengths, weaknesses, and primary weapon, which not only impact gameplay but also alter the story and stage progression. I tried each Valkyrie to see which worked best for me, and they all seemed to follow different stage orders, with slight changes to the story beats. That’s fine, though depending on the pilot you choose, some later stages and bosses may be easier than earlier ones. While the story differs slightly between pilots, all the cutscenes are presented with static images and Japanese voice acting with English subtitles. That wouldn’t be a big issue except that during stages, your allies communicate with you via subtitles at the bottom of the screen. From what I can tell, you can’t change the voice acting language, and the small subtitles are difficult to read when you’re under heavy fire. Hopefully, they aren’t saying anything too important, or you’ll likely miss it.

Each area consists of a couple of auto-scrolling segments before facing the area’s boss. One thing you’ll notice right away is that the game doesn’t seem to know what kind of shooter it wants to be—so it basically said, “Yes.” Over the ten stages, you’ll encounter vertical segments, horizontal segments, free-roaming twin-stick shooting segments, and even a couple of behind-the-ship segments similar to After Burner. I didn’t mind this variety for the most part, except for the behind-the-ship sections, which make it difficult to judge where to aim and fire at enemies. The vertical and horizontal sections are essentially the same, just with different orientations, while the twin-stick areas are either brief or serve as boss fights. Each Valkyrie has a primary weapon that can be upgraded throughout the campaign, missiles that lock onto enemies using the right control stick (though you can’t fire your primary weapon while doing this), and a Support Strike gauge that unleashes a screen-filling missile barrage. The gauge replenishes very slowly over time and essentially functions as this game’s equivalent of a Smart Bomb in other shooters.

As a shoot-’em-up, MACROSS-Shooting Insight maintains the genre’s traditionally high difficulty ceiling. At first glance, it looks like a bullet-hell game, though thankfully not as intense as something like Touhou. Throughout the game, you can collect items to increase your fire rate and damage or slightly hinder enemy forces. Before starting a run in Story or Arcade mode, you can adjust the difficulty level and enable health auto-regeneration. If you’re skilled at shoot-’em-ups, you probably won’t have too much trouble with the default settings (normal difficulty, no health regeneration). While I have some experience with the genre, I ended up lowering the difficulty a bit, and even then, it remained challenging. With health auto-regeneration enabled, your health gradually refills when you’re not taking damage.

Even with these options, this game will still kick your butt—and it’s not always the player’s fault. The graphics are visually appealing, with bright, colorful areas and detailed backgrounds, but this leads to two issues. First, regardless of the stage setting, there are no actual obstacles to avoid outside of enemy ships, which might be fine since you’ll be too busy dodging enemy fire to notice. The bigger problem is that while some backgrounds are bright, so are enemy projectiles. More than once, I ran into enemy fire simply because it blended in with my own shots and the background. You can barrel roll left and right (or up and down in horizontal sections), but I often dodged straight into enemy fire. The power-ups I mentioned earlier? When you pick one up, the screen flashes, and a large animation appears in the middle of the screen showing what you obtained. Unfortunately, it’s just as bright as the enemy projectiles, making it distracting and sometimes leading me to fly right into danger.

Once you clear Story mode—which shouldn’t take too long depending on your skill level and chosen options—you’ll unlock additional game modes. Arcade mode offers a more arcade-like experience but doesn’t feel significantly different from Story mode. Ace Battle pits you against other pilots in one-on-one combat, though with no difficulty settings. Fair warning: unless you’re an expert at these types of games, you will get wrecked, as these fights are brutally difficult and expect you to be highly skilled. Boss Rush lets you battle each boss sequentially, while Area Survey allows you to replay any stage. You can find collectibles throughout the stages, making Area Survey useful for completionists. Initially, I was curious why these modes were locked behind Story mode, but after experiencing them—especially Ace Battle—I completely understand.

Even with its punishing difficulty, MACROSS-Shooting Insight feels a bit average. While the visuals are nice, the stages are fairly standard scrolling sections with repetitive enemy types and bullet patterns. No stage introduces anything unique beyond aesthetic differences. The various pilots and Valkyries offer different experiences, and some players may find one pilot significantly easier than another. It’s still an enjoyable game, and I’ll definitely return to it—I’d like to complete Story mode on the default settings someday (I finished it on Easy with slow health regeneration, and I have no shame in that). However, when it comes to top-tier shooters, MACROSS-Shooting Insight doesn’t quite make the top of the list.