Last year, we were treated to a pair of excellent shooters by Japanese indie developer Masayuki Ito. Titled .Decluster [$2.99] and .Decluster Zero [$4.99], these shoot-em-ups combined a unique visual style with tense bullet-hell action. The scoring mechanisms largely surrounded the ability to cancel enemy bullets. The more bullets you canceled, the more points you would earn. This encouraged you to use risky strategies, making for some seriously thrilling close calls. The stage designs and enemy placements in the games were top-notch, too. The .Decluster games were sold as paid games with no IAPs, and that's probably one of the biggest points where Ito's latest shooter, Bullet Hell Monday [Free], diverges from his previous titles.
Yes, Bullet Hell Monday is a free-to-play game. It features IAPs and incentivized ads. This would be a scarier prospect if iOS didn't already have a few examples of shoot-em-ups doing free-to-play in a relatively friendly way. Even in recent months, we've seen Sky Force Reloaded [Free] and Phoenix 2 [Free] offering plenty of fun in player-friendly free-to-play models. I think it's safe to say that we can add another game to that list, because Bullet Hell Monday hits just about every high note the .Decluster games did, and does so with an extremely friendly monetization system. Let's talk about that monetization system first, since it's probably of greatest interest to many readers. Bullet Hell Monday, in its fully free form, gives you access to al...