This was fun to play, held my attention, and gave me increasingly difficult challenges. After completing all of the levels, I went back to pro clear them and still found myself enjoying it, even in spite of the countless failures :P

Finally got that last level cleared after about 200-something attempts.

The only reason this gets a 9 rather than a 10 is the difficulty I had with some of the one-way walls. Some of them seemed to pull the ball through when in reality (according to the trace line, at least) the ball went through a different wall. It made some of the levels rather irritating, but still not impossible.

All in all, a great game. Loved it and would definitely recommend it to anyone looking for a challenge.

I just want to say that this is one of the more intense shooters I've played on Newgrounds, but it has some flaws that could stand to be worked out.

[1] For starters, a lot of the levels from about 25 on are nothing more than dodging hundreds of attacks as fast as possible while maintaining some damage output. I find it very difficult to see that as fun, especially since it takes nearly all one's concentration just to manage that when you're boxed in by dozens of shots and there are dozens more on their way. This is more of a game of moving than it is of shooting.

[2] The Mothercube boss could stand a bit of reworking. The first phase has several points at which a person can sit and shoot mindlessly. This is a stark contrast to the phase where it's spinning around you rapidly and firing off extremely damaging attacks (which are virtually impossible to dodge, as the human eye simply can't keep up). The boss goes from stupid easy to just plain stupid. Again, not very fun.

-There is a simple solution to the above two problems. If incoming ballistic attacks could be either destroyed by your weaponry or you could purchase a shield, permanent or temporary, these things would no longer be an issue-

[3] The right combination of weapons almost guarantees you invulnerability in most swarm-type levels, and these can be purchased very early. The homing missiles, the laser homing missiles, and the spiral weapon together can create a deadzone around your ship. The closer they get to you, the lower their life expectancy.

[4] The inability to retrieve the crystal currency at range is disappointing. I can't tell you how many times I've been forced to watch hundreds of points of weapon-buying goodness disappear (which shouldn't happen to begin with) because I was stuck on the other side of a wall of enemies or enemy fire (again, we revisit the "no way to counter incoming enemy shots" issue). It would be much nicer if -

A) Crystals didn't disappear
B) Players received at least SOME credit for any crystals that they simply couldn't reach before they disappeared
C) Crystals could be retrieved at range
D) Currency was automatically awarded for enemies killed, thus eliminating the need for all these crystals (currency awarded for each ship killed could be slightly reduced to compensate for the loss of the crystal mechanic)

I only managed to get up to about level 40 before I had gotten absolutely sick of the above issues, but from what I understand, it only gets worse. People seem to be hitting a roadblock with levels 57 and 58.

Finally, the "swap weapons" functions are terrible. The mouse wheel would have been fine if it didn't scroll the entire page. The Q and E keys are even worse, as you have to forfeit some amount of mobility to swap weaponry. Normally, a fraction of a second wouldn't be such a big deal, but scroll back up and read #1, you'll see why it is.

This could be fantastic if it was a solid shooter rather than a frenetic dodging game. The wide variety of weapons and enemies is certainly a good selling point, but with almost no story and the above issues, I can't give this as good a rating as I'd like. The potential is there, and I'd like to see it become better, but for now, it's only a 6.

The plain graphics on their own and the music on its own are kind of bland, but together they really give this game an oddly relaxing appeal.

I wasn't a fan of the controls, but that's minor.

Not bad. Could be better.