A Deep Dive Review : Psyvariar 3 – A Long Lost IP Returns

I did buy a PS2 at launch—mainly for Metal Gear Solid 2—but I barely used it. Eventually, I sold it when I moved. A few years later, though, my girlfriend surprised me with a PS2 for my birthday, bundled with two games: Burnout 2 and Silpheed.

The Push-Entertainment Era…

At that time, I was still heavily invested in Amiga development, but not long after, we scaled things down. The demoscene and classic Amiga game projects took less of our time, and my girlfriend and I finally got to spend some quality time together again—something we had honestly been missing for two or three years. We ended up pouring all our free time into Burnout 2.

When she was at work, I started diving into shoot ’em ups on the PS2… and I got hooked—completely hooked—on Silpheed. After that, I just couldn’t get enough of the genre. Thankfully for my relationship, Burnout 3: Takedown came out, so we had something to enjoy together. Meanwhile, on the side, my PS2 shoot ’em up collection started growing out of control.

Games like XII Stag, REZ, Mobile Light Force, R-Type Final, Gradius III, IV, and V, and Raiden III joined the shelf. Heck, even Castle of Shikigami 2 magically showed up in my mailbox. My collection was getting completely out of hand.

Eventually, my girlfriend made a comment:
“Is your PS2 collection going to take up as much space as your Amiga collection? We don’t have room for this—please stop.”

Alright… fair point. I agreed to stop—although I did make one last purchase. Just a small batch… maybe around 10 games 😅. One of them was Burnout Revenge, and the rest? Yep—more shoot ’em ups.

That brings me closer to the topic of this review. Two of those games were Psyvariar titles—Psyvariar and Psyvariar 2. And, well… also Giga Wing Generations (I think?), Trizeal, DoDonPachi, and a few others.

I did stop after that… for a while. Until I discovered Shadow of the Colossus, God of War, and Prince of Persia. At that point, things spiralled again, and I eventually ended up with over 400 games across various genres. Then came the PS3—and, of course, another round of collecting madness starting in 2007.

Anyway… let’s actually talk about Psyvariar 3 😄.
Sorry for the long detour into my PS2 era!

That said, if you’re a collector and have a love for shoot ’em ups, I strongly recommend reserving a copy as soon as possible. This feels like one of those releases that could easily disappear into obscurity, much like many other physical games in the genre—especially now, in an era dominated by digital downloads.

Shoot ’em ups today tend to lose my interest fairly quickly. I remember when Ikaruga was re-released about eight years ago—I just couldn’t get into it the same way anymore. I think it has a lot to do with modern game design, where everything feels a bit overwhelming, almost like the game is doing everything it can to frustrate you while you’re trying to dodge bullets. At least, that’s how it feels to me.

Because of that, I’ve found myself going back to the classics—clean, straightforward 2D shooters like Raiden and Raiden II. Maybe I’m just getting too old for today’s bullet hell games.

Psyvariar 3, however, surprised me right from the start. The default setting in this rail shooter–inspired game (think Ikaruga) uses a very bright background. At first, I thought this would completely ruin the experience for me—it felt overly distracting and made it difficult to clearly see enemies and incoming bullets, especially while playing as the Cotton character (more on that later).

I nearly gave up early on and even considered contacting Red Art Games about it to suggest some adjustments before release. Luckily, I decided to check the settings first, where I found a brightness slider for the background. That turned out to be a game-changer for me—I lowered it quite a bit, which made everything much clearer and far more enjoyable. The screenshots above show the default setting; how I continued playing is shown in the next section.

To me, bullet hell shooters—and shooters in general—should offer near-perfect clarity. Not necessarily a completely plain or empty background, but a design that doesn’t interfere with the core gameplay. That said, to be fair to Psyvariar 3 and its approach as a 3D rail shooter with a retro-inspired 2D style, I won’t criticise it too harshly since the option to adjust the brightness is there.

There is one small downside, though. By toning down the background so much, the effort put into its design doesn’t get as much attention as it probably deserves. With full respect to the artists behind it—even with the brightness reduced—I still found myself enjoying the scenery.

So, is Psyvariar 3 an easy game? Not at all. It follows in the footsteps of its predecessors and others in the genre—it’s all about timing and focus. I’ll dive more into that, along with its unique mechanics, in the next section.

Oh, and there’s another thing: the listed release date is actually wrong. The real release date for the game is May 21, 2026—which, as of writing this… is today.

First of all, the game supports a 120Hz mode, which feels incredibly smooth. That said, I still kind of feel like 60Hz suits this type of game better—it just feels more “right” to me. Honestly, I’d love to play this on my CRT TV… if it actually worked (it still doesn’t, by the way). Speaking of CRTs, one issue with some setups is that they run at 100Hz, which can introduce a bit of visual noise. I do wonder if that would affect this game as well—but I’ll definitely test it once I get the TV fixed.

The game also features the usual results screen after each run, but what stands out is the credit system. You earn extra credits to help you progress, encouraging you to keep playing and eventually beat the game. These credits don’t apply during your current run—they’re permanently added and available for future attempts. This feature alone really hooked me. It pushed me to replay the game multiple times with different characters—who are all quite distinct, by the way, in terms of weapons, playstyles, movement, and even their… “ugliness.”

Thanks to this system, I eventually managed to beat the game on the easiest difficulty using a single credit. Maybe that’s not overly impressive to hardcore players, but for me, it felt amazing—I finished the final boss on my very last life, sweating like crazy.

The game also includes a fair number of bosses. Not all of them are particularly memorable, but their bullet patterns are learnable, which makes a big difference over time. I’ll go into that in more detail later.

There are also several extra modes included. There’s an easy “arrange mode,” where you start fully upgraded and can pretty much blast your way through the game—personally, I found these a bit too easy, so i never bother with playing such modes, and I imagine many shoot ’em up fans might feel the same. There’s also Caravan and Mission modes, which I’ve only tried briefly so far. These focus more on specific challenges within set conditions or time limits (more on that later). On top of that, you’ve got Endless and Practice modes as well.

There is also a story/intro sequence included, as you would expect. However, I don’t usually pay much attention to storytelling in this genre, so I can’t say much about it. From what I briefly saw, it looked decent enough—but I skipped it fairly quickly, as I prefer to jump straight into the gameplay.

All of the characters in the game (seven, I think?) play very differently, which is great. It might take some time to find the one that really fits your style, but that’s part of the fun. Interestingly, my favorite ended up being a character I never expected—Kate.

I’ll admit, I wasn’t completely sold on every design choice at first, but once you actually spend time with each character, most of them are genuinely fun to play. Ironically, the one I thought would be my clear favourite—Cotton—didn’t quite click with me gameplay-wise the way I expected.

Dodging bullets is, of course, a core part of these types of games. Some titles introduce mechanics like colour-based systems to mix things up—Ikaruga being a well-known example. Psyvariar 3, on the other hand, focuses on its signature “buzzing” (or grazing) mechanic, where you deliberately get as close as possible to enemy bullets in order to level up, build shields, and boost your score. When everything clicks, combos start stacking, and once you get the hang of it, it can make you feel almost unstoppable.

And honestly, I like that. For players like me—maybe a bit on the older side—it’s not always about finding one “perfect” shooter, but rather enjoying how different games in the genre complement each other. If you have the time and money to explore a variety of shooters, I’d absolutely recommend it. Many of them can feel somewhat similar, but Psyvariar 3 manages to stand out thanks to its mechanics.

I’m also very curious to see what the developer does next—hopefully something like a proper Cotton follow-up.

That said, I do feel the overall game design is slightly uneven. The default graphical settings didn’t work for me at all—I had to tone them down significantly to properly enjoy the gameplay. As a result, I didn’t quite get to appreciate the visuals the way the artists likely intended. What I did see leaned a bit toward generic ship designs. While the power-ups, shooting mechanics, and movement feel good—sometimes very good—the presentation as a whole feels a bit underdeveloped in comparison.

It’s a bit of a shame, because when you create strong visuals or character designs, you want them to shine. Here, the overall look can become a bit too distracting and chaotic, which ends up clashing with the gameplay instead of enhancing it.

The soundtrack is similar—it has some great moments, but it’s inconsistent. At times it really stands out, while at others it fades into the background. It’s clear there’s talent behind it, but it doesn’t always come together as strongly as it could.

As a final footnote, the game support multiple video modes including TATE mode and both Horizontal and Vertical scaling and it looks great! ( Wall mounted TV’s with turntable rulez )

Psyvariar 3 isn’t a top-tier shooter, but it’s a solid and enjoyable entry with unique mechanics that make it worth playing—especially for fans of the genre.