Macross – Shooting Insight review for PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch

Macross is one of those iconic anime series that I think a lot of people in the West have heard about, but have had little opportunity to see. Mostly because there’s been a lot of rights and distribution issues involving the various Macross properties for quite a while, something that’s only just now started to get cleared up a bit. There’s still some content that seems perpetually stuck in Japan, but recently Disney acquired the rights to stream a number of Macross series and films, which just hit their U.S. streaming platform Hulu in the past couple of months.

Likewise, Macross video games have been hindered in the same way. Technically there’s been a ton of Macross games released over the years, going all the way back to the early 80’s, but none have been officially released in the U.S. on home consoles until now, with this release of Macross – Shooting Insight on PS5, PS4, and Nintendo Switch.

Macross – Shooting Insight is a shoot ‘em up (or shmup if you prefer) that combines characters from different Macross series into one adventure, giving you the ability to choose from a handful of different pilots culled from shows like Macross Plus, Macross 7 and so on. Each pilot controls a Valkyrie, a hybrid between giant mecha and space jet, as you combat various threats across 10 different stages. Each Valkyrie has it’s own unique basic shot, like a spread shot, double shot, or single persistent laser, something that’ll feel familiar to any shmup fan out there.

However, Macross – Shooting Insight attempts to adopt a variety of shmup gameplay styles into one game, which I’m not sure works as well as something focused on one particular shoot ‘em up genre. In Shooting Insight most stages are divided up into sections that become vertical, horizontal, or adopt a top-down twin-stick shooting style, so you may start off in an area that looks and controls like a standard horizontal shooter (think Gradius) but then transition into a more open zone where your Valkyrie controls more like a twin-stick shooter.

There’s even a fourth mode that pops up in a few spots, where Shooting Insight becomes a 3D shooter with the camera view behind the Valkyrie. It’s the weakest mode for me, shooting feels clumsy, missile lock-ons aren’t fast enough to be effective, and it’s kind of difficult to tell if enemy shots are close to connecting with your fighter or not. Thankfully it’s only used a few times, which is certainly for the best.

Dividing the focus of Macross – Shooting Insight into these various styles does detract from the game a bit, it doesn’t have a strong identity and doesn’t excel at any one mode. It doesn’t help that the stages are awfully repetitive, often featuring the same handful of enemies and bland space background designs. It’s a shame because the game doesn’t feel bad to control, I enjoyed splitting my use of a Valkyrie’s normal shot with the missile lock-on, which serves as a way of boosting your score multiplier, but there’s just not enough here to keep you hooked beyond one or two playthroughs.

It’s also worth noting that Macross – Shooting Insight is pretty tough on its normal difficulty setting. You have one life, your health recharges a small amount at the end of a stage, and there’s a lot of enemy fire on the screen at once, but not necessarily in recognizable patterns like you’d see in a bullet-hell style shoot ‘em up. That said, I did appreciate a handful of options to help scale back the difficulty, including multiple base difficulty options, the ability to turn on recharging health, and the ability to increase both your HP bar and special attack meter if you want. It’s smart to include these options for the folks that aren’t looking for a punishing experience, and something I’d prefer to see available in most shoot ‘em ups nowadays.

Still, I think Macross – Shooting Insight is a tough one to recommend to most people. The Macross side of it isn’t exactly compelling, the story is an excuse to toss all these characters together into one scenario, and it’s not particularly compelling or interesting, quickly becoming something you’ll skip through as you near the end. Unfortunately, the core shoot ‘em up gameplay isn’t all that great either, it’s a serviceable entry in the genre that shows some promise, but the repetitive stage design and attempts to shoe horn in multiple flavors of shmup gameplay doesn’t do Macross – Shooting Insight any favors. If you’re just dying to get your hands on anything Macross related in the West, then you might gleam some satisfaction out of this one, but I can’t see this really appealing to anyone else.

Note: Red Art Games provided us with a Macross – Shooting Insight PS5 code for review purposes.