This game was given to me for review by the good folks at Square Enix.

Although I don’t often find myself a fan of stick shooters, I do make exceptions. In certain cases I find things to be too interesting to avoid, for instance: robots, laser beams, robots that bleed, robots that shoot laser beams, blood, you get the idea.

As I loaded DBC I didn’t expect a whole lot from it. It’s an xbox live title, and Square Enix generally doesn’t veer off the RPG path too often. I did however find this game pleasantly addicting. I didn’t understand why the robot burst into blood, and like most stick shooters I didn’t get why we were fighting evil cubes and laser-shooting robots. I only knew that the game was challenging, and I didn’t want to let it beat me.

DBC also has a level of depth that I didn’t expect. You have a few game modes to choose from and medals to unlock in all of those. As you finish levels you are awarded money to buy new robots, fighting styles, or worlds to fight in. I didn’t find the actual destroy all enemies to be challenging, and the first few defend your base weren’t too bad. I found the real challenge was getting over the gold, silver and copper thresholds. Calling DBC a skill-based game wouldn’t be giving it credit. It’s a god based game, you just might have to be the video game Jesus to get all their medals. Or in other words it’s fun, and way hard. Not so much in finishing the levels, but in obtaining the monstrous high scores. Giving you a reason to go back to each level and attack it, praying you can build a combo big enough to meet their vaulting expectations.
The soundtrack is comprised of some fun, bouncy, robot-like techno, and the different things given to you to survive are way cool. From giant lasers, to shields that absorb enemy beams to shoot them back. They employ a weapons upgrade system reminiscent of the Gradius serious to keep you alive as long as possible. Overall I wouldn’t hand DBC game of the year, but I wouldn’t call it bad. The only technical problem I really noticed, was the controller not wanting to stop flying around the menu if I pushed left or right more than four times. (This didn’t happen every time, just occasionally for no reason.)
I think it’s a decent entry into the Xbox Live Arcade market, and at least deserves a play-through.

Score:

• Graphics: 7.5
• Audio: 7
• Controls: 7
• Replay:7.5

• Overall: 7