One of the best shmups that's been released in a while.
There are two modes of tackling the game. There is both New Order Mode and Arcade Mode. There really is no story, just two female helicopter pilots are apparently off to war and blowing people up. Arcade Mode is more closed in with less space to move around as in the arcade original. New Order Mode is played in wide screen mode with more room to maneuver around but also more enemies and bullets to dodge. Both modes can be played in co-op with a buddy locally(even though it's labeled as only 1 player on the case for some reason).
At first glance, this looks like a standard shmup and for the most part it is but the control scheme is fairly different and kinda hard to explain well. What is different here than in many games in the genre is that I found myself shooting at an angle for the most part because the chopper can move and shoot in different directions at the same time. This works in different ways, depending on the control option chosen. With normal, the guns will point in the direction the chopper moves in, reverse will be the opposite. Now once the x button is held the guns will lock in the position so for example I may keep shooting at a left diagonal angle while moving around the screen.
If neither of those options are comfortable, there is also the twin stick mode. Then it just controls like any twin stick shooter. I really liked the reverse control scheme the best. There is also a sub weapon which gives some extra firepower. It can be changed with pick-ups and the two options are the vulcan machine gun or rocket grenade. The vulcan machine gun works the same as the main guns and recharges quickly. The rocket grenade is stronger and has a bigger blast radius but takes a lot longer to recharge. When in a pinch, there is also the bomb. Bombs blow up and kill everything on the screen and makes the player invincible. The game starts out with three but you can get six.
The game may seem pretty hard at first unless you're really good at shmups but as more time is put into tackling Arcade or New Order mode, more and more credits are unlocked. After enough time played, infinite credits will be available. Even with lots of credits though, one boss might give a little trouble as it has some screen covering attacks and bosses do restore health when a continue is used. Once I beat the boss once and learned how to deal with it though, it was easy for the extra playthroughs.
The main game is pretty short as most shmups but has some replay value with different difficulty options. I had to play through it 12 times for the platinum as difficulty trophies don't stack and I didn't get sick of it over the two months or so that I played it. I think I would have if I rushed through it. It still would've been nice if the game had more than 5 stages though. There are also the Extra modes for both Arcade and New Order but they don't add a lot as they are the same stages again, only slightly modified.
Under Defeat HD is a great game for fans of shmups as it is very well made. For those that want to get into the genre, UDHD could be a pretty good starting point. Infinite lives aren't available from the beginning sbut I think it's safe to say that most could beat the game. The game could just be left on for hours to unlock credits if one really wants to but I think it be more fun to practice. I haven't played the Dreamcast version so I can't compare versions but can atleast say the twinstick controls have to be new since the Dreamcast controller only has one stick. The dlc choppers(which are on the disc) as mentioned earlier are quite powerful as I found out and even made my hard playthrough pretty easy. I think I only used one credit on that one.