The thing about satire and spoofs is that everything relies on the delivery. Weave all of those easy jokes into a competent narrative, and you'll get something like "Airplane!" or "Top Secret!", both of which are regarded as classics to this day. Throw every joke and reference you can at a wall to see what sticks results in something like "Epic Movie" or "Meet the Spartans." In that regard, Shooting Stars seems like a mix of both philosophies as far as the premise goes, but there's a solid game behind it.

You play the role of Tscherno, an erstwhile hipster that seems to be the only person who can stop an impending alien invasion. To pull off their invasion, the aliens have cleverly taken over the bodies of many famous pop culture celebrities in hopes of meeting the least amount of resistance on their way to world domination. Armed with nothing but your hoverboard and a cat that somehow shoots lasers, you ride off to stop the invasion all by yourself.

The premise seems pretty smart, but the execution feels rather lazy. While making up parody names like Kanye East and PewDerPie isn't exactly brilliant, it does show more effort than was invested in what the faux celebrities say. Either they spout off a tired joke or they simply don't understand how to parody a character, like the T5000 claiming that he's "t-awesome." Another sign of lazy humor comes from the smattering of references and memes thrown around rather nonsensically. Die in a stage, and you'll see things like the Boromir meme or the Obama or Big Lebowski ones to inform you that you're doing OK or doing poorly. Give the game a bit of time, and you'll feel like this was a spiritual successor to Meme Run, which is not necessarily a compliment.

The gameplay emulates that of the arcade classic Galaga but with more freedom in your movement. For the most part, you get stuck in a room with the ability to move all over the place as waves of enemies come in to take you out. They don't swarm after you so much as they go in formation and move in set patterns until they're taken out. Not long after that, you meet up with the celebrity boss who finally starts using some "bullet hell" tactics on you, though only a few manage to fill the screen. You'll do this through six stages, but you only have one life. Luckily, you have hearts to represent how many hits you can take, and you can refill them by picking up hearts or body armor so you can absorb a hit before your hearts are damaged. Once you lose all hearts, you're forced to start over from the very beginning.

There are two kinds of power-ups you'll encounter to make things easier. The first are foods that simply boost your laser's capabilities. You gain abilities that let you pierce through enemies, widen your shot, or automatically shoot homing missiles. You can also stack the abilities to make your normal shots rather devastating. The other kind of power-up is your special weapon, all of which are pretty random since they don't fit any memes. You'll find a Game Boy that shoots lasers from the side of the screen, a Facebook like button that drops bombs, and a disco ball that shoots lasers while playing a poor substitute for Darude's Sandstorm. Unlike other games, the special weapons don't cancel out enemy fire, so you can't use them as a safety net against bosses in case there are a slew of bullets coming at you.

Six stages don't sound like much, and it really isn't when you start playing. Don't be surprised if you make it to the final stage in less than 30 minutes. What helps with the game's longevity is the random nature of everything thrown at you. Everything from the regular cannon fodder foes to the celebrity bosses to the power-ups are randomly set per run, so unless you're going for the Daily Run mode, which gives everyone a chance to run through the same set to crack the leaderboards, expect things to be different all the time.

The gameplay is fine but nothing more. Regular enemies are very easy to deal with, and the only times you're hit are when you get careless and don't watch where you're going. The bosses are more of a pain, especially if you run into the Rihanna clone who has bouncing bullets and randomized rockets that come from the sides. The other bosses are manageable, but their long life bars can make them a bit of a slog if you don't have good special weapons. All in all, it nails the mechanics of a good shooter but is nothing special at the end of the day.

Much like the game's hero, the title's presentation sticks to the hipster theme by embracing all things retro. The faux 8/16-bit pixel look is in, and it looks fine until you see the cut scenes for the bosses. You're looking at a zoomed-in model of the original with sprites so blocky and otherwise disorganized that you'll be hard-pressed to make out who it's supposed to be parodying until you see the name. Since the background barely changes (except for color), the character designs of the normal enemies are what keep things visually engaging. In the sound department, the chiptune soundtrack is absolutely great, and even with the looping nature and a tune change in the title screen and during boss encounters, it is perfectly matched for a shooting game. The sound effects are also fine, except for the fact that the volume seems to be turned up higher than the music. Additionally, the constant firing of shots is pitched high enough that it quickly starts to grate on your nerves.

If you can ignore the nonsensical story and execution, Shooting Stars is a decent arcade shooter. It isn't necessarily bullet hell, but it remains challenging, and the randomized power-ups and bosses make up for an otherwise repetitive level of difficulty. Despite the game's short length, the various combinations give it some legs since no two playthroughs are thoroughly the same unless you're gunning for the daily challenge. For arcade shooting fans who want something traditional but ultimately casual and don't mind an off-the-wall paint job, Shooting Stars is worth checking out as long as you don't expect too much.

Score: 6.0/10