CloudCutter is a 2021 Shoot 'Em Up action game and a Retraux-style Vertical Scrolling Shooter in the vein of classics like Raiden and Aero Fighters, but with photorealistic, lifelike graphics.
The eponymous CloudCutter is a state-of-the-art, highly advanced jet fighter made with the best technology the air force has to offer, and you are in the cockpit as you pilot the CloudCutter through various levels to take on enemy forces.
The CloudCutter can cut through clouds and enemies alike.
- Ace Pilot: Only the best pilot may be granted a seat in the CloudCutter's cockpit, but you're definitely up to the task.
- Alliterative Name: The CloudCutter.
- Assist Character: One of the power-ups comes as a pair of smaller jets flanking the CloudCutter's left and right and providing cover fire.
- Beam Spam:
- The CloudCutter's laser weapon fires a thick, powerful red energy beam that shreds the health of bosses and larger enemies with ease, easily cutting through a swathe of enemy forces within seconds.
- And for the enemy, the hovercraft boss comes with three thick laser turrets that's constantly firing at the CloudCutter until it's destroyed. Meanwhile the enemy's prototype stealth jet TG-660 has a rotating 6-way laser cannon.
- Battleship Raid: The aircraft carrier raid in the second level, which have the CloudCutter taking down the carrier's fleet, defenses, before concentrating on hitting it's center blow it apart.
- Big Dam Plot: The "Dam" stage, which have you taking down a fortified dam occupied by enemy forces and blowing it up. The resulting deluge wipes out the rest of the enemy base downriver.
- Blackout Basement: The third stage is a night raid on an enemy oil rig, where visibility is limited until you start shooting. Then enemy forces start firing back and you can target them. Be wary of searchlights that allow automatic turrets to blast the CloudCutter out of the sky!
- Cool Ship: Your titular jet fighter, an awesome ass-kicking prototype which you pilot to take on armies. And win.
- David Versus Goliath: The regular-sized CloudCutter jet takes on bosses that dwarves it and emerged victorious. From an entire aircraft carrier to submarines and the hovercraft naval fortress.
- Excuse Plot: You have a state-of-the-art awesome prototype plane capable of kicking an army's worth of ass, and there's a hostile army of freedom-hating terrorists / rebels / whatever waiting just outside to get their asses kicked. So get into the cockpit and start shooting stuff already!
- Fighter-Launching Sequence: As your CloudCutter guns down enemy forces on the same elevation as you, in the background numerous enemy fighters can be seen taking off to line up and attack. The aircraft carrier boss in fact starts with a cutscene of enemy jets on said fighter preparing to engage.
- Giant Mook: Destroyers, bomber jets, and floating naval platforms fulfills the larger-than-average recurring enemies that require plenty of hits before going down.
- Kill Sat: The Ion Strike designator, a rare power-up, allows the CloudCutter to summon a thick energy bolt fired via from an overhead satellite into enemies. Available only in certain areas, like the submarine boss, the Arctic station and when clearing the nuclear plant.
- Kill Streak: By destroying enough enemies within a limited timeframe, which piles the bonuses on your score. With the game announcing, "Killstreak Record!"
- Level in Boss Clothing: The Hovercraft Fortress, War Factory, TG-660 and Spider Tank stages consists entirely of your CloudCutter fighting the bosses each stage is named after.
- Macross Missile Massacre:
- Expect onscreen missile density to get really extreme in the late levels as your enemies unload all their anti-air batteries on your CloudCutter. Though you can also collect missile power-ups that fires four at a time at rapid pace.
- The TG-660 have eight missile batteries on it's wings, and it tends to fire all at once continuously.
- Sentry Gun: Enemy bases tends to have turrets, pillboxes and guard towers as defenses for targeting the CloudCutter.
- Spider Tank: The game's Final Boss is one of these, the size of a skyscraper. It's also armed with multiple turrets, missile launchers, a powerful laser cannon larger than your CloudCutter and cluster missiles.
- Stuff Blowing Up: The fate of every enemy base, fleet, outpost, and even cities once the CloudCutter is through with them at the end of each stage.
- Timed Mission: The nuclear outpost stage is filled with missiles, targeted at major cities, and you must pilot the CloudCutter to destroy all of them while fending off enemy attacks before launch.
- A Winner Is You: Should you beat the game (which contains 12 levels and takes at least an hour to complete, an unusually long time for an arcade-style shooter) and defeat the insanely tough Final Boss? You get a single screen that says "Thank you for playing!" plastered over... a still of the game's cover. Granted, it's a reference to how older shoot 'em up games of it's type usually ends on an abrupt note, but still.
