Sky Force Reloaded

 Expect to die a lot again!

This vertically scrolling (bullet hell in later levels) shooter tasks players with earning medals by doing various things during missions: rescuing everyone, not taking damage, killing a % of enemy etc. Earning enough medals unlocks harder modes of the same mission and unlocks later levels too which might require you to have earned x number of medals.

While it's addictive, the upgrades to your craft which become mandatory for some of those medals, quickly becomes a grind and an incentive to use the cash shop. Since I've played this on an ipad where pressing your finger moves your plane around, there is a nice feature included that helps with reaction time: lift your finger and everything goes into slow mo. Sure you can't move, but it gives you precious time to think of where the next opening would be.

In contrast to Rogue Legacy this game lets you keep all the currency you earned, and even better - often offers to double it on a failed run! This alone makes it a million times better than that Rogue Legacy garbage. Unfortunately the levels get repetitive here too so that decreases its longevity somewhat.