I'm almost certain that Herrkotowski did, but has anyone else picked up this amazing PSN shooter?  I downloaded it tonight, and managed to fight my way up to the fifth stage before giving up the ghost.  Man, is this shmup a rockin' intense good time.

The graphics are jaw-droppingly gorgeous in its high-def 60fps suit, bringing to mind shades of the sleek presentation of Gradius V.  The core weapons are great, as are the positive/negative power-up variants. (The Instant Death "power-up" can go fudge itself, though.)  The game is incredibly challenging; it's not exactly bullet-hell, but it does compensate by throwing waves and waves of enemies and obstacles at you in excess -- almost to the point of being indulgent.  With plenty to shoot at, the game's a literal blast of the highest order.  The chain system accompanies the shoot-everything mentality perfectly, and should give high-scoring gamers a reason to keep coming back.  Myself, I'm looking forward to taking on the "find all the keys" side quest.

The levels are beefy in length, with some pretty awesome boss battles.... though the game's balance seems a little off.  The third and fourth stages managed to be easier affairs than the hellish second stage, but perhaps that was intentional.  After all, they do offer a Trophy achievement for specifically completing stage 2 with an "S" rank - an insanely lofty goal, it would seem.   

Oh, and the music demands mentioning, because it is ridiculously slick.  Lots of catchy, mood-hitting techno trance - I especially dig stage 1's and stage 3's BGM, as well as the theme when going into Berserker mode. 

And who doesn't love that arcade old-school cheesy announcer?  ^_^

Yes, I did and I absolutely love the entire package! The stages, as mentioned, are gorgeous and the music is quite delicious. I also love how the announcer doesn't hesitate to make fun of you if you start getting hit a lot. I'll mention more later, since I have to get to work now.

Yeah, Stage 2 is insane. If you didn't take damage from hitting ceiling/wall, it would be a lot easier, but than again, it would be a lot less fun if that was the case! I've managed to A rank Stage 2...so close! I really need to start playing this again. It is a ton of fun.

Thanks for vid links, first time seeing it in action, and it does look a lot better than I previously thought this would..  (thought it was more like a doujin release)

Doesn't stray too much from the classic Darius formula, but still looks like solid side-scrolling Arcade fun.

A sequel was announced for Söldner-X a few months back -- now we've got some tasty new screenshots.  Can't wait, hope Rafael Dyll returns for compositional duties!

Seriously! It's like a sidescrolling CAVE shmup (ala Deathsmiles), although it is probably less hectic. Looks SO much better than the original!

Play-Asia is offering the soundtrack for ridiculously dirt cheap; I picked it up because of that (plus the title sounded cool).

LINK: http://www.play-asia.com/paOS-13-71-8l- … 43-n9.html

EDIT: Looks like they ended the deal on it already...

The sequel looks pretty cool indeed! I'm still debating if I should play the first game though, so I'd probably wait until I'd complete that one before going for the second. Still, it's great news that it will become a series, especially for...

A wish come true; http://vgmdb.net/album/17031

Dyll is indeed coming back, and the 28-track album scheduled for Q1 2010 looks very promising.