Mars Matrix

A screen drowned in a curtain of enemy fire, and somewhere among it you hunt for that one safe gap — Mars Matrix is bullet hell in its purest form, a game that tests your reflexes and your nerves down to the last pixel.

The title was created in collaboration between the studios Takumi and G.rev and earned its place among the prized shmups of the late Dreamcast era. As the arcades declined at the turn of the millennium and the Sega Saturn bowed out, this very console became an unexpected refuge for the genre of vertical and horizontal shooters — and Mars Matrix stands among its flagship representatives.

The game is built on intense dodging of dense projectile patterns, complemented by its own mechanics of absorbing and returning enemy fire. Scoring is a religion here: every run is a chase for perfection, for a higher number, and for mastering patterns that look impassable at first glance. It is a genre for the patient and for those who love memorization and honing their skills.

Together with titles like Under Defeat and Border Down, Mars Matrix forms a trio for which collectors still hunt down Dreamcast shmups to this day. These games were released in limited print runs and today rank among the pricey, sought-after pieces whose value on the collector's market climbs high.

For genre connoisseurs it is a treasure — proof that in its final years the Dreamcast hosted one of the best shmup collections of its generation, despite the fact that the console was already commercially on the wane.

Why play: A merciless bullet hell with its own fire-absorbing mechanics, one of the jewels of the Dreamcast shmup era for aficionados of the score chase.