Hello PlayStation.Blog readers! Firstly, if you aren’t familiar with Retro/Grade, check out our previous post for an explanation about how fighting battles backwards works. Go ahead, I’ll wait.

Now that you’re all caught up, we can get started. It’s been a long journey since our first post about Retro/Grade on the PS.Blog over three years ago. We’ve worked very hard creating the best game we possibly can since then — if you saw the three year old screenshots, you’ll notice that it’s barely recognizable as the polished product you see today. Besides all the visual polish we added — like jaw-dropping effects and full HD 1080p rendering at 60 frames-per-second with anti-aliasing — we’ve added a ton of content.

Although we have a campaign mode, challenge mode is really the star of Retro/Grade. It’s where the real meat of the game lies. In challenge mode, you are presented with a galaxy map, and you go through playing various challenges that are based on the campaign levels, but with various twists and rule changes. For example, in some of the challenges, the music is sped up, which naturally makes completing the level more difficult. We also have challenges that require you to reach certain score targets, have trickier patterns, and plenty more! There are 130 challenges spanning a map filled with secret paths, warps, and rewards.

What kind of rewards, you ask? All sorts! We have cheats that turn on fun gameplay features like big heads, disco lighting, a film noir look, and more. We also have 11 unlockable ships, some of which feature characters from other indie games like Meat Boy, Minecraft, Octodad, and Go Home Dinosaurs. We also reward you by unlocking tracks in the music player. While that may not sound too interesting (especially if you bought the soundtrack), our music player is set up like a DJ deck with two turntables, which means you can scratch and mix the unlocked sounds to your heart’s content!

If challenge mode doesn’t sound like it interests you, campaign mode will keep you coming back for more. You can compete on one of our many leaderboards for the different songs and modes — don’t worry, we have separate leaderboards for guitar and DualShock controllers, just in case you feel that one control scheme has an advantage.

Retro/Grade is available today for $9.99, or in a bundle with the soundtrack for $14.99. The soundtrack, which is in AAC format and is copyable to a USB memory stick, is also available separately for $7.99. We have a demo available, so if you’re not yet completely sold on this reverse-shooter, now is your chance to try it out! Thanks for reading, and I hope to see you on the leaderboards!