The Sega Dreamcast, being open to independent homebrew developers, is certainly a treasure trove of newer releases. One such new release is Metal Canary by Nai Adventure. Fans of overhead scrolling shooters will want to check this one out, those that dislike bullet hell shooters will promptly check out. Judging by the fan response, this genre may be nearing saturation on the Sega Dreamcast.
Not Everyone’s Favorite Genre
I am a fan of scrolling shooters and at one time in my gaming life overhead style was my favorite. I have since fallen into the side scrolling format being more interesting though. I can still respect and understand why fans enjoy overhead scrolling shooters, but the bullet hell theme has pushed me out as a fan. I just don’t have the patience to deal with impossible to survive patterns against a boss that took me several minutes to reach, only to be dropped back at the beginning upon failure.
Metal Canary is not 100% bullet hell but, in the footage, available, when it hits, it is like when Wile E. Coyote hits a painted rock wall. This may be normal for the genre, I am not sure as I checked out rather quickly upon experiencing Mars Matrix by Capcom on the Sega Dreamcast.
Metal Canary does seem to ease into the bullet hell sections which is appreciated.
Judging by the comments on both Nai Adventure and TheSegaGuru's videos for Metal Canary, the target audience may be getting tired of scrolling shooters.
Still Early in Development
Metal Canary is obviously early in development. Enemies seem to be at different resolutions/levels of detail, and animation is very limited at the moment.
Proof of this is when the mech enemy appears. This sprite seems to have two frames of animation – a “ready” stance and what I think looks like would be part of a reloading animation. The way the animation plays appears to make the mech operator seem unable to control their machine and it is almost spasming/having a seizure.
A prime example of different resolution enemies occurs at 4 minutes and 24 seconds. Here you will see the mech (highly detailed) and then ground turrets (super low/blurry resolution) scroll onto the screen.
TheSegaGuru did not provide any links to the developer so, head over to Nai Adventure’s YouTube Channel and check out Metal Canary and their other works in progress.
If you want to grab the download link for Metal Canary, you will have to scroll down to the August 15th, 2024 video of Metal Canary.
Honestly, don’t bother as of this writing it is a text file stating the download link was removed while a new version is prepared. Hopefully the link is updated later with a new version of Metal Canary for fans to check out.
We will have to be patient on seeing a public release of the work in progress as no source is available at this time.