Embraces the trend to encourage dicing with danger in that the special smart sword weapon destroys all on screen adversaries with a slice of steel only if activated up close to an adversary. Otherwise it smashes away incoming projectiles back to where they came from - very useful considering Skonec's pechant for the bizarre bullet patterns. Also pays lip service to the hardcore shmup fan with in game route selection to allow you to choose: easier or trickier with bigger multiplier. And of course the option to ruin a perfectly good TV by standing it on end...