Senko no Ronde DUO: Dis-United Order

B.O.S.S. mode was the feature which made WarTech stand out from even Virtual On, as once per round the player could morph their Rounder into a screen-filling missile frigate or battle mech, paying homage to the back catalogue of daunting shmup bosses. The purpose of this was either to give the losing player one last shot at clinching an epic victory, or alternatively, to allow the dominating player to drown their opponent in a sea of finely woven B.O.S.S. fire.

While that may sound a little OTT, competitively the game should be seen as no different from an accessible yet mechanically hardcore fighter. That said, if talking about dash cancelling and invincibility frames gets your hadouken senses tingling, then DUO's brand new Assist mechanic should twinge a "marvellous" nerve in your muscle memory.

After selecting a Rounder each player must now choose an Assist type. If this sounds like Marvel vs. Capcom to you, then you're on the right track, as each Assist offers one of four attacks and one of three buffs. The selected Assist can then be triggered once per round with both the attack and buff being executed simultaneously; as an example, one Assist will call in a squadron of bullet-spewing drones with a temporary buff to your defence.

So, DUO feels like a mechanically tight fighter, but one where the most rewarding combos revolve around discerning your opponent's movement and bullet patterns, and countering with dashes and projectile volleys that are both unpredictable and hard to evade. It has so much depth you could publish a phone-book-sized strategy guide detailing each character's most effective tactics. But at the same time, DUO isn't a game that demands you analyse frame data, because the frantic pacing of this refreshing hybrid can still be appreciated even in friendly competition with friends.

DUO's bizarre new Commander mode may prove an interesting - if brief - distraction. As far as I've been able to fathom, this mode has you assigning orders to an AI-controlled Rounder by moving both sticks in different directions, and if you help the AI to do damage, then a rectangular face at the bottom of the screen improves in its disposition. This gets old quickly.

Aside from Commander mode there's the usual fighter-themed selection of Arcade, Versus, Score Attack and Training modes. G.Rev has also furnished DUO with an expanded Story mode, but with everything in Japanese, including all the menus, I've no idea whether I'm listening to thought-provoking space opera or, probably more likely, sentimental shojo tripe.

Compared to WarTech's unique brand of epileptic disco, DUO feels like a noticeable step up graphically with less jagged edges and a subtly smoother veneer (the only slowdown I experienced was a few blips while taking on the new Mother Brain inspired end-boss). This, thankfully, also applies to the improved online functionality, which feels noticeably more stable. But unless you have some import-savvy friends, you'll be limited to ranked and player matches against Japanese gamers, which judging from my growing losing streak is likely to begin with a long period of ritualistic suicide.

Senko no Ronde DUO is a loving amalgamation of two hardcore genres which, much like Virtual On before it, transcends its premise by offering a genuinely different competitive framework. As a sequel to a game that has all the makings of a cult classic, DUO adds enough new tech and extra content to be considered a worthy follow-up.