Thank You Pisces Studios for providing us with a review code!

Here’s a shoot ‘em up where the main goal isn’t to avoid bullets. Dyflexion by Pisces Studios does something different compared to its brethren. Typically, you’ll want to avoid every bullet on the screen. In Dyflexion, you actually want to reflect most bullets back at the enemy.

If you ever played the classic Ikaruga, it’s almost the inverse of that. Instead of using your reflector shield to absorb enemy projectiles, you’ll be using it to send them right back! Because of this, the safest place to be is in the middle of the screen as enemies and projectiles can spawn from all sides. Due to this, your ship is rather big and covers a rather large surface area in regards to shoot ‘em ups. At least in Dyflexion, it serves a purpose as your ship should be bigger than average to have the most surface area to deflect stuff without it becoming a detriment. There’s also a separate shield meter that acts similarly to armor pickups in classic first-person shooters. It’ll deplete before your ship hull health does.

You are encouraged to reflect projectiles as not only can you shoot in one direction, but you are also rewarded a percentage of your bomb meter for every shot deflected. The bomb is the same area-of-effect panic button to get you out of hairy situations like any shoot ‘em up. Reflecting is important because certain enemies can only be defeated by using their own shots against them. Outside of reflecting shots, you can shoot normally with three different types of weapons. The basic one is unlimited and has four different levels based on 25% intervals. The other two are limited; one is a homing shot, and one is a large shot with a small AoE.

Between shooting and reflecting, your attention is constantly divided between multiple actions. Sometimes, the best course of action is to dodge the bullets and wait for your shield to recharge. Keeping on top of your actions is very entertaining. In levels, there are moments of downtime so that your brain can take a quick refresher. Whether you use a keyboard or a controller, Dyflexion controls just fine.

What separates Dyflexion from other games is that the scoring system is also used as a form of currency. You can use the score from each level to buy or even sell your resources. If you want to gain extra lives or power, you’ll have to sacrifice your score. If you want to top the leaderboards, you may just have to give away your resources and make the next levels just a bit more dangerous. With multiple difficulty levels, Dyflexion manages to capture and appeal to both a more casual base and score-chasing purists.

While the graphics are rather simple polygons with basic shading here and there, I will have to criticize it as at times, the background can blend into the foreground, making some projectiles and enemies hard to notice at a mere glance. Music and sound effects are also pretty standard—nothing to note specifically in either a highly positive or negative aspect.

There isn’t much to talk about morally. As it is pretty light on the story, the most notable aspect is the violence. It is spaceship violence with explosions for every ship destroyed. Another aspect that can be potentially missed is the statement of “hellish creatures” in the intro before the game starts. It’s meant to be taken literally as the final boss is some sort of demonic-looking alien that shoots purple exploding balls and beams at you.

Dyflexion puts a classic spin on an ancient genre. Gamers longing for a simpler score-centric time or people who want to pick up something quick and not invest so much time into it will find their place at home with this enjoyable shoot ‘em up. It’s cheap enough as is, but I’ve seen it go down as low as 75% of its original price.