Reviewed on: Nintendo Switch

There is something about Shoot’em Ups that evokes the spirit of 90s arcades. We think of that pixelated look, an army of clone enemy ships and a quite linear, even formulaic progression. Sine Mora, released in 2012 for last-generation consoles, came to reinvent the genre, adopting the same style of controls and difficulty and reworking its visuals and several of its most fundamental mechanics… The result was a standout game, which today receives a remaster, Sine Mora EX, for the current generation of consoles.

Fun: 8.5

Bullet Hell isn’t exactly an inviting genre… In fact, it is usually quite intimidating! Sine Mora EX drops the health bar in favor of time subtraction, and brings mechanics that reduce the focus on precise movement and increase strategic dynamism and aggressiveness.

On the Switch you can share the Joy-Con with a friend, bringing an auxiliary drone into the game. The controls work in an obtuse way (one button shoots, one button rotates clockwise and another counterclockwise), but this helps keep the levels from being too easy and adds a layer of chaos to the game, making the co-op experience quite fun!

In any case, the game lets everyone play it however they prefer: hardcore players can still treat Sine Mora EX as a traditional Bullet Hell, being methodical, precise and staying on the defensive… But casual players have, for the first time, an opening into the genre, with the freedom to risk taking a few hits to line up on a boss’s weak points and then recover the lost resources… (more on that below!)

Mechanics: 9.5

Sine Mora EX breaks the conventions of Shmups not just by being three-dimensional and beautiful, but also by including ideas that make the play experience flexible and accessible to a wider audience.

Your ship doesn’t have a health bar; instead each hit received cuts a few seconds from the time you can fly, while destroying enemy ships recharges some of this time.

It’s not only your survival you need to care about when avoiding enemy fire: taking damage not only subtracts flight time but also makes your ship drop some of the upgrades you have collected! The upgrades make your firepower vary on a scale of 1 to 10, and taking damage makes you lose up to 3 upgrades at once, forcing you to run across the map to recover them… Which can expose you to even more attacks.

You will find yourself constantly trying to balance the risks and benefits of each possible position. You can play aggressively, in an eternal cycle between losing upgrades and chasing after them, which is compensated by greater firepower (and greater time recharge from defeating more enemies), but you can also play defensively, prioritizing preserving your resources to maximize your chances of reaching the end of the level with enough time and upgrades!

Besides the basic shots, you can use a special attack that has limited use. There is also the ability from which Sine Mora EX takes its title: slowing down the passage of time, a Bullet Time. Activating this power consumes energy from a bar, and is your most precious resource for helping navigate the most intense firefights. Both powers can be recharged with items dropped by enemy ships, but they are still quite scarce and must be valued!

At the end of each level there is an epic boss encounter, which is the game’s greatest spectacle with true bullet hells and quite creative designs. The fights are divided into stages, according to the remaining health, each with a different attack pattern and weak points. The game uses and abuses its beauty and three-dimensional models to create engaging and dynamic scenes and transitions.

Amid so many particles, the game kindly indicates which are the boss’s weak points.

Audiovisual: 9

Being a technical and precise experience, Sine Mora EX runs at 60 frames per second without any hiccups, which by itself already makes the game a pleasure to watch.

The art direction is spot on, perfectly balancing simplicity and detail of the models so that the screen is neither bare nor too cluttered. The game works a lot with pastel tones, giving a pleasant historical-work mood.

As for the sound work, the soundtrack doesn’t stand out but helps reinforce the tension of a technical and precise challenge. The sound effects aren’t tiresome and also serve a second purpose, helping the player notice when their upgrades scatter or when an enemy drops a new item to be looted.

Final thoughts

For those who didn’t know the original game last generation, Sine Mora EX is an unmissable experience. The game marks the true rebirth of a genre that had its rise and fall in the 90s, establishing itself as an instant classic and a reference for future titles.