eXceed 3rd – Jade Penetrate Black Package 1005

Hardcore Manga style bullet hell!

eXceed 3rd – Jade Penetrate Black Package is a vertical scrolling shoot 'em up (shmup). It's a 'bullet hell' shmup - the subgenre that fills the screen with bullets, so players have to quickly weave around them while shooting enemies themselves.

Like the other games in the series, eXceed 3rd – Jade Penetrate Black Package has a convoluted story that's pretty unnecessary. Every level is preceded by a dialogue section between the main characters, but you can turn this off if you prefer to stick to shooting alone. Where eXceed 2nd – Vampire REX used Ikaruga's polarity gameplay, this game removes that, instead adding drone powerups which offer an excellent directed weapon fire when you activate 'slow mode'. This obviously makes your character less agile, but I preferred this gameplay to that of eXceed 2nd.

In eXceed 3rd – Jade Penetrate Black Package, you control not a spaceship, but a character, Rayne Lindwurm who's fighting her way through a tournament to become one of the seven Cardinal Lords who rule her world (!). This is a Manga style game, and the graphics are bright, clear and cartoony. Despite the chaos and color onscreen, you won't lose track of what's going on.

eXceed 3rd – Jade Penetrate Black Package is a tough game, even on the easiest setting. You get three continues, but you can easily use them all too soon. There are six levels, each with a boss battle, and thay are more than enough to make for a challenging game.

eXceed 3rd – Jade Penetrate Black Package is a tough shooter, but its slow down mechanic makes threading your way through the curtains of bullets much easier, and almost puzzle-like.