DeVuego ES_COR

Kromaia is by no means a perfect game, but the action at its heart has an excellent flow.  The camera hates being near walls, I never found any practical use for the hookshot, one of the checkpoints is right under a swinging pendulum that will instantly knock off a shield if you don’t boost out of the way the second you respawn, and the penalty for grazing something (asteroid, enemy, random wall) is to get turned around in a random disorienting direction, but when everything is working, the combat runs hot.  A swarm of spinning stars hovers in the distance, waiting for an opening to charge while off to the side an enemy platform made of interconnected cubes you can shoot off one by one charges up a laser barrage and a pair of light-spear launchers are charging up to turn into a serious threat.  Using the concentrated laser power of the red ship takes out the central joint in the cube-platform, scattering its pieces in a single sustained shot, and then boost takes you out of the line of fire of the spears and charging stars.  Friendly fire is always on, so one of the stars explodes against a spear, and a few precise shots of the regular laser thins the rest of the star herd while the spear-shooters recharge.  By then your secondary charge laser is ready to shoot again to take them both down, but more enemies are flying in to replace the ones you’ve dispatched.  In the meantime there’s another gate fragment in the distance and an interesting structure off to the side that might house a much-needed shield.  It’s been under ten seconds since this encounter started, and the next ten don’t look to be any simpler.  Kromaia is a giant hyper-saturated burst of color, speed and heavy firepower, as stylish as it can be difficult, and it’s impossible not to forgive a few questionable design elements when the enemies are swarming and the action takes off.