A Classy SHMUP Where Defence Is The Best Offense
I’m a big fan of how the Xbox Store image for Schildmaid MX bears almost no relation to the game. I get to play a heavy-metal valkyrie on the back of a dragon, right? Nope. Surely I fight hydras and griffins? No sir, you do not. Even the ‘shield maiden’ that Schildmaid MX translates into is a red-herring.
Instead of feeling aggrieved, we’re fine with this touch of chicanery. That’s because the game underneath all this false advertising is really rather brilliant. It’s amazing what you can get away with when you make a kickass game.
The Shield Is Mightier Than The Sword
Schildmaid MX is built on a glorious idea, hinted at in the title. Your spaceship, whichever you choose, has a powerful prototype shield. It may seem counter-intuitive, but deliberately stray into the path of a projectile and you will see what it can do. Suddenly, your shield glows and (almost) all of the projectiles coming after you glow too. You’re now in shield mode, and collecting all of these bullets will power your spaceship up. The bullet-hell becomes bullet-heaven, as you gobble up threats like Pac-Man.
This simple upturning of the basics of a SHMUP is inspired. Feeling overwhelmed by the blizzard of stuff coming your way? Activate your shield and suddenly the blizzard is a windfall, getting you out of the tight spot and injecting you in the heart with dopamine. It’s only the beginning, too, as the increased power makes your ship near unstoppable.
You might be stroking the ol’ beard, wondering how this makes Schildmaid MX a challenge. Shoot ’em ups thrive on their various hard modes, score-chases and bullet-hell moments. If a barrage of bullets can be neutered just by wandering into it, where does the fun come from?
There are a few answers. While the shield soaks up most bullets, it’s not all. Lasers, the ships themselves and missiles (both homing and not) are not compatible with this prototype shield. Even worse, they tend to one-hit kill, so avoiding them is paramount. You have a nifty barrel-roll that temporarily makes you immune, and some of the EX abilities (more on them later) can destroy missiles. But most of the time you are just dodging.
Schildmaid MX is brilliant at setting these various hazards apart. Bullets that supplement your shield brightly bloom, and look like positives rather than negatives. Everything bad for your ship pulses red and can be easily picked out. Even better, they have clear audio cues and even flicker before being activated, giving you ample time to move out of their way. If you get hit in Schildmaid MX, it’s not because there was too much visual noise; it’s because you need to git gud.
Your shield only lasts so long, too. There’s a clear visual flickering here, and you sense the ship powering down through audio-visual cues. This is when you’re a glass-cannon, still mighty but liable to be plinked by a single bullet. The rhythm of Schildmaid MX is marvellous: you go from offense to defense in a second, and it adds some much-needed variety.
Shout Out To My EX
As if the shield-powering wasn’t enough to make you an unstoppable force, there’s the EX bar. This is far more conventional in SHMUP terms, but no less invigorating. By killing enemies, the EX bar fills up, and you can expend it for the ship’s signature ability. The S-19 Wivern fires a screen-wide energy beam that clears out ships and missiles. The B60-E Greif activates a beginner-friendly shield. The Chimera, unlocked in later modes, activates every ability at once in a glorious set of fireworks.
Schildmaid MX is masterful when it comes to the player’s ship, but slightly less so when it comes to the enemies’. In our view, there aren’t quite enough of them. As the levels progress, the same lasers, mechs, turrets and spaceships get rotated through, just in increasing numbers, and there’s a small kernel of tedium as you make the same runs over and over again. Schildmaid MX was absolutely right to prioritise the controls and powers – since you see them every time you play – but its budget couldn’t quite stretch to sprites and backdrops, of which there are only a few.
Move into later modes – and Schildmaid MX has bucketloads – and things do improve somewhat. Some secret bosses and enemies are reserved for the Chimera and Krieger modes (plus their ‘EX’ variants), which made us wonder whether it was wise to keep them hidden for so much of the game time. But even this increased roster becomes a little tiresome after the second or third hour.
Some Games Not Our Type, But This Is R-Type
We’re being a little nitpicky only because we enjoyed Schildmaid MX so much, and had a desire to experience so many of its extra modes and systems. It comes fully featured with global leaderboards (we’re not getting close to the Top 10 right now, but we will. Oh we will), and the mentioned modes which encourage one-life endless runs, increased difficulties and secret paths. This might be one of Eastasiasoft’s more expensive games at £16.74, but it delivers on every single penny.
While Schildmaid MX has no valkyries, hydras or griffins, it gets a pass for being awesome. The shield-tech that underpins everything is sublime, and the more traditional SHMUP stuff is very good too. So good, in fact, that the lack of enemy variety doesn’t hurt as much as it really should.
Important Links
Schildmaid MX Turns Bullet Hell Into Bullet Heaven – https://www.thexboxhub.com/schildmaid-mx-turns-bullet-hell-into-bullet-heaven/
Buy from the Xbox Store – https://www.xbox.com/en-GB/games/store/schildmaid-mx/9NSCL6PZZ7N5/0010
