A stylish shoot ’em up for purists.

Vaira is a indie developed vertical shoot ’em up, that takes its gameplay influences from some of the classics of the genre.

Presented in beautiful neon on black, with great graphical effects, Varia is quite a sight. Much lke the Gradius series from which it takes some ideas, it is also difficult. All three difficulty levels are challenging, and while that could be seen as a criticism, it’s pretty much par for the course for a shoot ’em up. There are four levels, each with Boss fights, and it’s an achievement to see them all.

Sound is fairly standard, but polished and effective. The graphics are nice and clear, so you even while attractive, you can concentrate on weaving through clouds of enemy projectiles and ships.

The power up system in interesting, allowing you to gain drones that then absorb the weaponry ability of whatever enemy fire they come under. When you die, you can pick them up again, if you can reach them floating among all the chaos! It’s important though, as success will partly rely on you having sufficient firepower to fill the screen with almost as many bullets as all your enemies throw at you.

It’s a hardcore experience, unfortunately – there are no saves, so reaching level three once means you still have to play through the first two next game. However, for the competitive, there are online scoreboards you can try to beat.

Varia is an attractive shoot ’em up that any fan of the genre will enjoy, but its lack of saves and continues makes it a bit inaccessible for the more casual player.