'Shockingly In Depth' is what I can say when it comes to this game.
I was expecting a simple Galaga style shoot-em-up with some big gals getting fat and nothing more. This game absolutely blew my expectations out of the water and should be considered the Gold Standard when it comes to NSFW Games.
-Pixel Art is hard to do well, this game does so at every point. I can appreciate the in game 'Cakeiary' for providing some nice flavor text for everything as well as serving as the main 'completionist' point for seeing all the nice spriteart for all of the bosses being uniquely defeated. The same can be said for all the characters having unique animations for their various sizes.
-The Multiple characters have one to two unique mechanics each that make their playstyle vastly different from one another. Whether that's different hitbox sizes/shapes, shot types, passive differences like GP Cost, or changing aspects of how the game itself plays. Its hard to not enjoy all of these characters relatively equally.
-There are multiple bosses, all with unique gimmicks. I like how basically every character can handle a boss slightly differently, rarely being as simple as just shooting and avoiding projectiles. Some seem tailor made for boss encounters (Pump Punk can absolutely dog walk Slightly Strawberry with her reflective parry), but are a genuinely difficult match up for others (Corpulent Coconuts' outer shell forces a long cooldown on Pumps' main attack as it ricochets all the way back).
-I wasn't expected MULTIPLE songs. All of which absolute bangers in their own right.
-It's nice to see several gameplay modes, I can't speak to all of the options (I simply haven't played them yet) But they offer a nice change of pace when compared to just going through Arcade Mode. Achievements work in every game mode as well, so certain feisty ones (Slow And Steady, Better Out than In, Picking Favorites, Lung Strength, etc) Can still be completed on modes like Simple Taste, Cheese, or Mixed Palette.
-There's some extremely solid voice acting at play, I wasn't expecting MULTIPLE actresses, all of which doing an amazing job with their characters. The same can be said for the carried sound work with the ominous sounding gurgles, creaks, and gas.
-In my opinion, this is the ideal way to implement achievements. Testing your knowledge of a given character and rewarding you for going out of your way. And ENTIRELY OPTIONAL with the key system if its giving you too much trouble and just want the content. The cheevo is still unlockable too if you want to come back to it after using a key.
-The game has a nice Risk & Reward style with your Damage being tied to your hitbox and movement speed. Culminating to a Burst (Screen nuke and floating sheilds) or Floating away (background helper that fires shots) There's a surprising amount of nuance to how you can approach things. You can very quickly snowball yourself if you're able to save your gas, as overfilling your meter gives you extra points, and automatically parries for you for free, meaning you can spend even more time watching them stuff their face. You could alternatively focus on pure survival and stay somewhat slim to avoid the bullets easily at the cost of the soft timer pulling the enemies up close after a certain point.
-There's an extreme amount of customization at your fingertips. Something that was 100% unnecessary, but absolutely appreciated. From toggles for the voice lines (if you for some reason DON'T want that), choices between belches, farts, both, or none—with the same for stomach—sounds, to hard gameplay cheats that disable achievements like Invincibility, infinite lives, starting stages, and even boss difficulty. Personally, I feel that the latter half (avaliable in the Cheats Menu) Should be locked until after the player goes through a few runs just so they can experience the 'intended' experience first.
-I can see some not meshing with the one-and-done style of Arcade SHMUPs. Playing the same stages over and over again. But personally, that sort of mastery is exactly what i'm looking for! Slowly but surely besting the bosses and learning bullet patters for the sake of some lovely spritework every run or so
-Finally, I have to mention the in-game art gallery chronicling a metric TON of fan-art for the characters, It makes me wish I knew about this when it was in development so I could get something in there too. it's a nice extra reward for those aforementioned achievements. There's simply SO MUCH extra artwork to look at!
-The only direct negative I have is that clarity is a bit of an issue at least to me. The bullets and pickups are fine, the ones to avoid are clearly marked, flashing and can be parried away, its the Cakes specifically looking a tad too samey thanks to how they use the same base. I think some of the more specialized cakes have a different silhouette, it would help a bit more for parsing at a glance.
For example:
-Coconut could be all fuzzy on top to represent coconut shavings.
-Ice cream cakes could be a bit lopsided with little icicles.
-Sponge Cake could be more heart shaped with divots in the silhouette.
And so on.
I genuinely would help differentiate the cakes as they're flying around without needing to look for specific color combinations when the heat is on and you have to prioritize important targets. Ultimate, It isn't the end of the world, there are only eight special cakes so its not hard to just remember the color combo and act accordingly, but considering how rough and tumble it can get later in the levels, It could be something to consider, maybe an option to toggle on and off more 'defined' designs like how Silly Sally has her older sprites as a skin.
But other than that....I just wish there was more! More characters, additional skins (Although that's covered by the Custom Skins you can just MAKE yourself), more bosses, some more feisty Achievements (I'm sure there would be a '1CC' achievement in the eventual campaign), More...anything really! This isn't a knock on a perceived 'lack of variety' I just want more of this game (at a reasonable pace of course, game development is hard as hell)!
-Overall, this is a game that I genuinely didn't expect to be as good as it is, it's leaps and bounds over some of the more SFW games that I've played and paid WAY more for.
Genuinely if you're looking for a solid SHMUP Experience (and want to see a buncha Fat gals belching/farting in space while eating cake), you should play this game. It's absolutely worth at minimum a fiver for all the content and art it offers (so that's what I paid). I'm certainly going to keep tabs on the Dev(s) to see if (hopefully when) the dedicated campaign mode comes out. I'm sure it's a lot of work, even moreso for a smaller dev team (Six full campagins minimum, most likely some Touhou-esque cutscene's, written dialogue, more sprites and maybe extra voicework), So i don't expect anything to happen for a long time, but if (again, hopefully 'when') it releases I'm sure it'll be just as if not more quality than what we have here. And for what it stands, the game itself is in a solid state as just an Arcade SHMUP.