When comparing Eschatos vs Beat Hazard, the Slant community recommends Beat Hazard for most people. In the question“What are the best Shoot 'Em Up games on Steam?” Beat Hazard is ranked 4th while Eschatos is ranked 12th. The most important reason people chose Beat Hazard is:
There are multiple difficulty modes in the game allowing for anyone's preferred skill level of gameplay as well as Insane, and suicidal if you really want to fail or experience a challenge
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Easily accessible
Eschatos used to be an Import-friendly Japanese only title for the Xbox 360, but now it is fully localized and easily accessible by anyone on Steam. Runs well on lower end machines as well.
Pro Beginner Friendly
The learning curve starting from the easiest difficulty levels is very easy to follow. The bullet density starts off light and cranks up when you're ready to challenge yourself with a higher level of difficulty. This helps you learn about your hitbox. Also, 1UPs are quite plentiful, letting you play longer on one credit.
Pro Amazing Soundtrack
Both the original and arranged soundtracks for this game are absolutely fantastic and always a joy to listen to. This is very appreciated in a genre where you practice stages many times in order to improve your score.
Pro 2 Different Modes
Normal and Advanced modes play very differently. In Normal mode, your ship's power stays consistent through the whole game. Don't want to worry about powering up your ship? Normal mode is for you. Enjoy shifting between offense and defense depending on the situation? Advanced mode lets you do just that.
Pro Multiple difficulty modes
There are multiple difficulty modes in the game allowing for anyone's preferred skill level of gameplay as well as Insane, and suicidal if you really want to fail or experience a challenge
Pro Bragging rights through Steam achievements
Players can compete with one another through Steam achievements in the game. There are global leaderboards where one can compare their score against all other players making for a good method to judge how good one is as well as allows one to have some bragging rights.
Pro Music based gameplay
Use your own music to change gameplay and spawning enemies, which allows for endless replayability through the way it generates random content.
Pro Multiple ships/characters for replayability
Several characters and their ships are available to choose from in order to change up the gameplay.
Pro Easily change strobe effects
There is a setting in the game that allows users to change the strobe effects in the game, which may help those that do not enjoy the effects or find them medically dangerous.
Cons
Con Features unlocked slowly
Many different options are locked behind a cumulative score. If you're just starting out, things can take a long time to unlock. This includes stage select.
Con Scoring is unforgiving
Scoring is very simple to understand. By destroying enemy waves completely, you build up a multiplier. However, if you lose a life or let an enemy pass, your multiplier will drop by one. If a few ships make it through in a short time span, your multiplier can completely disappear which can be quite unforgiving for a single mistake.
Con Normal mode is very simplistic
For fans of more complicated systems, normal mode might be too simplistic. Your power doesn't change through the game, so you go through everything with a straight shot, a wide shot, and a temporary shield as well as bombs that drop from enemies. That's it - just 4 mechanics.
Con Default settings are very flashy
The default strobe settings may not suitable for people with a sensitivity for strobe effects. Though this can be changed in the setting to lower how much strobing is going on in the game.