Most notable is the inability to go prone. This may sound inconsequential in a cover-based shooter, but even while behind cover you can still be shot by enemies in front of you (ones that shouldn’t have an angle). It’s at its worst when they have the high ground as no matter what you do, you’re leaving some portion of your body exposed. There’s also no way to move in cover while aiming — you can obviously strafe at any other point so I don’t understand the logic of prohibiting it.

You navigate the board with the left analog stick and move/rotate gems in the direction of the corresponding face button. For example, if you want to move a gem one space left you’d press the “X” button. To move it down you’d hit “A” and so on. If you find yourself stuck you can press the right bumper to reveal a hint.

Like all twin-stick shooters, you’ll move with the left analog stick and aim/fire with the right. The face buttons are not used, but the triggers deploy your auxiliary weapons (such as a harpoon or a nuke) and the shoulder buttons bring up your map. Despite these simple mechanics, the fact that your ship ebbs and flows in viscous fluids rather than calm space leads to some frustrating moments.

It’s tough to find much fault in the game’s beautiful hand-drawn artwork, which has a distinctly anime flavour to it. Each of the eight locations is different as you battle everywhere from sparse deserts and lush jungles to high rises. Even amid chaos, enemy fire is generally easy to spot (avoiding it is another matter entirely) and I never encountered dips in the frame rate. The massive bosses are well designed and while there aren’t a ton of enemy types, what’s present looks good.