Don't dodge the wave. Lock all of it, and erase it at once.
An anime-styled pseudo-3D on-rails shooter of fast-tempo aerial combat, seen from behind your craft. Any target that crosses your crosshair is auto-locked, and then homing fire pours into every locked enemy at once, so you stop dodging and start sweeping your sights across a wave to erase all of it in a single burst. OVERDRIVE power-bursts, wave-based assaults, Story and Endless modes, Steam leaderboards. A 600-yen doujin work by Japan's oyasumi Workshop, self-described as a much faster After Burner II. It already plays in English, yet the wider West has barely found it.
Published 2026-06-25
01First, the one feeling
- A wave of enemies floods toward you, and your instinct in any shooter is to thread between them, but here you do the opposite: you drag your crosshair across the whole wave and the fire-control system snaps a lock onto every target it touches.
- Then you let go, and homing attacks pour out of you into all of them at once, the screen blooming with simultaneous hits, so the reward is not a single clean shot but an entire wave erased in one breath of offense.
- OVERDRIVE breaks open and the tempo spikes, the next wave is already on you before the last one finishes dying, and the loop of sweep-lock-erase tightens until you forget to stop, reaching to top the leaderboard one more time.
02Who this is for (and who it is not)
For you
- You love fast, offensive rail shooters in the After Burner line, where the thrill is speed and pouring fire into the targets ahead rather than careful dodging
- You want a lock-and-erase loop where sweeping your crosshair across a wave auto-locks every target, then homing fire wipes the whole wave in one burst, with an OVERDRIVE mode, Story and Endless modes, and Steam leaderboards to chase
- You want a Japanese solo/small-indie doujin gem the wider West has barely noticed, Overwhelmingly Positive at 98 percent, a 600-yen anime rail shooter with full Japanese voice
Not for you
- You want a slow, careful shooter built around weaving through bullets and keeping your distance, not one built to reward locking and erasing a whole wave at speed
- You expect a big-studio, big-budget production rather than a one-person, 600-yen doujin rail shooter; note too that it has mild anime fanservice (swimsuit-style outfits, with an option to switch to less revealing designs), though that is not its focus
03The roots of this taste
98% positiveonly 2504 reviews — yet almost no one has found it
Mirage Feathers Buried gem
An anime-styled pseudo-3D on-rails shooter of fast-tempo aerial combat, played from behind your craft. Its core is an advanced fire-control system: any target that crosses your crosshair is auto-locked, and then homing attacks pour into every locked enemy at once, so the loop is not about dodging but about sweeping your sights across a wave and erasing all of it in a single offensive burst. Variable weapon loadouts, an OVERDRIVE power-burst mode, wave-based enemy assaults, a Story Mode and an Endless Mode, adjustable difficulty, Steam leaderboards, achievements, and trading cards. The developer self-describes it as a very faster version of After Burner II, and players cite After Burner and Sky Target. Made by the Japanese solo/small indie self-publisher oyasumi Workshop (oyasumi seisakusho), released in 2024 for 600 yen, with full Japanese voice and story; the original language is Japanese, later localized into English, Chinese, Korean, and Spanish. Overwhelmingly Positive at 2,504 reviews and 98 percent. It already plays in English (485 of those reviews are English, about 19 percent of the total), but the wider Western audience has barely found this 600-yen doujin rail shooter outside niche shmup circles.
Give it your first passAfter Burner II The origin
The origin of this taste: in 1987, Sega's AM2 division shipped After Burner II on the X Board arcade hardware, a pseudo-3D rail shooter seen from behind the cockpit in which you race through waves of enemy jets, lock missiles onto them, and unleash homing fire at high speed. It defined the fast, offensive, lock-and-erase rail-shooter feel built on speed and pouring fire into the targets ahead rather than careful dodging. This gem is a direct heir to that feel, with the developer self-describing it as a very faster version of After Burner II, and it sharpens the lock-on-everything-and-erase loop into its whole point. This rail lineage is distinct from the vertical-scrolling bullet-hell line, so it is its own branch of the shooter family.
Give it your first pass04Make this gem shine
If it speaks to you, check it on Steam and give it your first pass. Your push is what makes a buried gem shine.
You gave it your pass. The gem just caught the light.
05The bloodline of this taste
- After Burner II Root
- Mirage Feathers You are here
- Read-and-build games another taste