Some of the simplest, yet fun games ever made have been shmups. They’re easy to understand and start playing, fun to get deep into, and challenging to master in a variety of ways. Dogfight: A Sausage Bomber Story, for multiple platforms, is a fun and goofy shmup that blends together the chaotic action of the genre with the silliness of cartoon sausage. While there is a very light story to go along with the colorful visuals, the focus of this experience is jumping into a fighter plane alone or with some friends and taking down legions of enemies with your sausage-based weapons. Short, simple, and straight to the point.

There’s a total of nine stages in Dogfight, all of which you can replay over and over again. You’re given a grade out of five stars when you complete a stage, based on how well you do in it. This means taking down every enemy, collecting every power-up and medal, and avoiding all damage. This is tougher than it sounds, especially when you’re facing groups of baddies and enemy fire all over the screen in your fighter jet. You will definitely find yourself replaying stages again and again in order to get those extra stars at the end, because of the need for completion or out of sheer pride.

Dogfight can get pretty tough in later stages, mostly because of how many projectiles you’ll try to dodge and the surprises the game throws at you. Some enemies will appear in groups, while others are large and will attempt to take up the majority of the screen. Your plane is able to take some damage, but will eventually get shot down if you aren’t careful. There’s also a chance to repair your plane before it hits the ground, which can save a life and allow you to continue fighting. It’s a neat second chance ability that can save you in some scenarios but is useless if you ram into an enemy or object. At higher difficulties, this might be a more regular occurrence because of stronger enemies that will appear even early on.

Luckily, you also have a ton of power-ups and weapons at your disposal. However, you’ll need to complete stages and earn stars to unlock them. This includes variations in your standard shot, your secondary bombs, and different versions of both. It can get annoying when you’re finishing stages and not earning enough stars to unlock new weapons, and if you’re getting shot down a lot you’ll lose the extra boosts you gather within a stage. Stronger weapons are a necessity for the later portions of Dogfight when the bosses get larger and stronger, so replaying stages to get better rankings is key to opening up new weapons. Are there enough variations on your weapons? Yes, but if you can’t use them for the majority of the game then it hardly matters.

What about cooperative play? Unfortunately, the game is only made with local co-op, no online matchmaking whatsoever. But getting someone into the action is easy with drop-in/drop-out multiplayer, where you can just plug in another controller and hit a button to join. It would’ve been great to have online multiplayer to really take advantage of this, especially when nobody is around locally to play. Having an extra teammate or two definitely makes the game a lot easier, allowing you to tackle higher difficulties with more finesse. Everyone gets their own load-outs to choose from before entering a stage, which can be key to tackling tougher bosses. Teamwork can make quick work of most bosses throughout the whole game.

If you want a quick action game to get in and out of when you have some time to spare, then Dogfight can be a good time. Whether you keep coming back for more will vary greatly for everyone, but what’s here is good. It’s only a shame that different aspects weren’t taken further to really make the game stand out. It’s not the best kind of dinner you can have, but it’s still pretty good.

Are you a fan of shmups or action games? Are you going to check out Dogfight on any platform? Post a comment down below and let us know what you think!