During Otakon back in 2023, I narrowly missed my opportunity to play an early build of Macross -Shooting Insight-. However, impressions were generally positive (if not a touch mixed) from those who did get a little hands-on time with the game. After a handful of delays, the shoot 'em up hit Japan on March 14, 2024 to a relatively mixed reception from shmup enthusiasts and Macross fans. That brings us to today, and the game's recent release in Europe and North America. Between Shooting Insight's status as the first English-language Macross game and its release coinciding with the franchise's international streaming roll out, this game oddly has a lot to live up to.

With all that in mind, it pains me to say that I'm not super warm on Macross -Shooting Insight-. Despite the shoot 'em up pedigree behind developer Kaminari Games (Raiden V Director's Cut, Caladrius Blaze), I found the gameplay to be occasionally unengaging at best and visually hard to parse at worst.

Shooting Insight's time-bending premise brings together a whole hangar of franchise favorite characters together for ten stages of perspective-shifting shoot 'em up action. The gameplay sees the player's pilot of choice—Zero's Shin Kudo, Plus's Isamu Dyson, 7's Gamlin Kizaki, Frontier's Alto Saotome, or Delta's Hayate Immelman—hop into the cockpit of their bespoke valkyrie and take on hordes of enemies from across Macross history. However, original series protagonists Hikaru Ichijo and Lynn Minmay have been removed from the game's international release due to licensing stipulations. Also, where's the love for Macross II? Ishtar rules!

The perspective of any given level might start off a side-scroller, then morph into a vertical-scroller before concluding in an isometric, Smash TV-esque arena or an admittedly clunky third-person screen. But regardless of the viewing angle, each valkyrie shares the same straight-forward control scheme—R1 for their bespoke type of shot, circle for dodge, R3 for a satisfying missile lock-on, and square for a screen-clearing Itano Circus. This screen-clear does have limited uses, but recharges slowly over time. As each stage progresses, the player can collect fold crystals to strengthen their shot and up their score multiplier by hitting enemies with a missile-lock. Near the end of most stages, one of Macross's many songstresses appear to serenade the player, providing them with a song-specific buff.

Shooting Insight's story mode provides players with plenty of options so they can tweak the difficulty to their liking, including a health regeneration slider. However, using those options will prevent players from uploading their scores and replays to the game's leaderboards. Aside from the story mode, the game includes a classic arcade mode, a boss rush, and an individual level run mode called “Area Survey.” On top of that, there's also the Ace Battle mode, which allows players to duke it out with an unlockable selection of the franchise's greatest rival pilots.

While playing through each stage, players will stumble upon collectables that fill out the gallery's Akashic Collection—a catalog of cute and memorable props from across the series. As a longtime fan, I found the collection's obscure shout-outs to characters like Macross 7's Flower Girl to be a pleasant surprise. The gallery also includes a view for the game's assortment of fully transformable valkyries, a replay viewer, and Macross Memories that can be earned from the Ace Battles. However, those memories are simply screenshots of key series moments.

The wealth of game modes and supplemental materials is admirable, but I don't believe that Shooting Insight's core gameplay loop is sticky enough to keep players coming back for additional runs. Admittedly, the loop had become so tedious after a while that I was kind of relieved when the credits rolled on my last story mode playthrough. But there are some great little moments between characters during the story's visual novel-style cutscenes. I had a big dumb smile on my face when Ozma hastily asks Alto to nab Basara's autograph because he's too embarrassed to do it himself.

I find that the game's largest pitfall lies in the readability of its gameplay. There are a handful of character barks that have been left unsubtitled, while the key in-game dialogue is presented in a rather small font on the bottom right of the screen. I might be able to play around this quirk in most other games, but the dialouge's size and placement actively stripped my attention away from the most important on-screen element of a shoot 'em up—the bullets flying at me.

The additional screen real estate taken up by the image and filter that accompanies one of the game's many songs only exacerbated the issue. There is a toggle for song-related screen elements, but it feels like it might be a quick fix for a core game concept that didn't exactly work out as intended. However, the biggest hit to Shooting Insight's moment-to-moment readability is the lack of a clear distinction between foreground and background elements. More than once, I'd roll out of the way of a blast intended to create some background pizzazz and end up being hit by a barrage of fire in the foreground.

Continuing on in the foreground, I'm not exactly thrilled with how a good number of the valkyries handle. That's totally fine, though, as it is a standard element in most shoot 'em ups—a selection of varied fighters is another way for players to change up the difficulty. I found Shin's VF-0 to handle all right enough as a standard fighter, while the spread shot inherent to Isamu's YF-19 and Hayate's VF-31J made their campaigns a more enjoyable tactile experience. As for Alto's VF-25 and Gamlin's VF-17S...they both feel a bit sluggish—especially with their slow moving shot types. Though I have to admit, I wonder how Hikaru's VF-1S handled in the game's Japanese release.

One of the three pillars that makes Macross, well...Macross, is the music that flows through every entry in the franchise. While Frontier and Delta's marquee songs generally match the tempo of Shooting Insight's action, the tunes selected to represent other series are a bit hit and miss in this respect. I'll give a pass to “Arkan” because Macross Zero doesn't feature much in the way of high-intensity tracks, but I believe that “Information High” would've been a more fitting selection for Macross Plus. “Wanna Be An Angel” is great, but it's a little too low energy to mesh with the gameplay. I feel similarly about the included Macross 7 tracks, as “Holy Lonely Light” has the perfect level of intensity for a shoot 'em up. Additionally, I'm not a fan of how the toggleable cutscenes often interrupt the game's overall rhythm in a rather clunky fashion.

Speaking of rhythm... During one of my playthroughs, I realized that Shooting Insight missed out on another fantastic opportunity made possible by the franchise's vast song catalog. While squaring off with the Windermerian flagship, I noticed that the vessel's cannons were firing in sync to the beat of “Ikenai Borderline”. This must've been the stars aligning, because I didn't encounter this phenomenon again. I'd imagine it would be a tall order to make this idea functional, but a Macross game built around a “shooting and dodging to the rhythm” concept would really stand out from the competition.

For all of my quibbles, Shooting Insight's English localization genuinely impresses. From the care given to incredibly specific references to the solidification of previously untranslated Macross terminology, the Gwyn Campbell-led team at Creative Sphere knocks it out of the park here. I could really feel the team's love for the series shining through, especially in the descriptions that accompany each of the Akashic Collection's items. On a similar note, I was thrilled to see the involvement of Sean McCann, who previously translated the Macross Frontier films. And speaking of familiar faces, it was rather nice to hear a majority of the franchise's voice cast return for this game. There are a few exceptions here and there, such as Haruhi herself, Aya Hirano taking over for Tomo Sakurai as Mylene.

After I fired the last shot, I started wondering about the audience this game is courting. I could see Japanese Macross fans being quite into this title, but not as much when it comes to an international audience who lack a general familiarity with the franchise. With the plot's specificity, it might only make sense to players who've seen Macross Delta and its films at the very least. Given Shooting Insight's status as the first English-language Macross game, I believe a title that focuses more on a gradual introduction to the franchise might've been the way to go—rather than throwing audiences into the deep end right away. I'm also not sure if this is a title that'll offer much to the ravenous cravings of shoot 'em up enthusiasts. It might be a fun “pop in for ten minutes”-kind of game, but I don't think Shooting Insight has the sauce to keep players coming back.