Nice, addictive game. I disagree with the previous poster about it being a slow game. The game starts out slow, but that's only so that you can get ready to fight a major boss at level 3. Some parts later in the game are also slowish, but they are designed to let you heal up after very nasty asteroid (or junkeroid) belts.

Each level consists of a 3 main parts: a relatively mild individual fighters part, then an enemy formation ala Space Invaders, and then an asteroid/junkeroid belt, and after that, occasionally, a boss fight. (Well, the first part is only relatively mild... at level 30+, the fighters can be really nasty if you don't kill them off fast enough.)

Anyway, the upgrade system has an interesting consequence that you can't just blindly collect powerups; you have to plan ahead in order to maximize the gems you get (unless you're playing in easy mode). So there is some form of general strategy needed.

My personal strategy is to immediately upgrade the 2nd front guns (you start out with the upgrade option there), and then the 1st front gun for the first gems you get, in order to get a wider coverage. After that, upgrade only both front weapons until max (don't spend the bonuses on anything else) to improve your chances of more gems. Once the front weapons are maxed out or almost maxed out, spend all further upgrades on ship upgrades. On the new ship, do the same: max out front weapons, upgrade ship. Every ship upgrade reduces your weapons level by 1, so if you spend your gems on non-essential side/back weapons too early, you will waste many of them during ship upgrades. Do the math: if you don't upgrade a weapon, the ship upgrade will still have it at base level, but if it has been upgraded, you need to spend another upgrade to get it back to the same level (once for each upgraded weapon!). The front weapons are important, because otherwise the new ship will have lousy front guns and you risk losing the ship. Anyway, repeat this until the 2nd best ship, which should be around lvl 6-10. At this point, the levels get tough enough to need side weapons: upgrade the second side weapon for each side first. Reason: they are homing, and add to your frontal firepower, which is still the most important thing. Once the 2nd side weapons are maxed, then upgrade the 1st side weapons. This sequence should have you breeze through to about lvl 12-15 or so, which is important, 'cos now you need to collect as many powerups as possible. Once both side weapons are maxed, either upgrade to the best ship, or max out the back weapons first. Usually, I don't upgrade to the best ship until around lvl 30, because the 2nd best ship's weapons have better area coverage and can deal better with the junkeroid storms. It is possible to win the game without using the best ship, but it gets hard at the end. Also, the lvl 38 boss is very nasty, and if you die, you don't want to end up with a mediocre ship. So upgrade to best ship around lvl 30, then max out all weapons and get the additional side shooters (let your upgrade option go past the ship upgrade without using it, twice). You will need all the frontal firepower you can get for the junkeroid belts in the last few levels. Using this strategy I've managed to win the game several times on normal difficulty.

Nice graphics, remembers me some old-skool games (like Piranha for DOS).

But the gameplay is boring. The action is very slow and repetitive. When I say the action is slow, I mean it is so slow that there is no action.

Not only the gameplay is slow, but also the menu (which takes too much time to come up, and you can't accelerate it), the scrolling text below the menu and the text displayed on "About" and "Order" menu entries (and, of course, you can't speed any of them up).

There is no options screen. You can't change game controls (I would like to use other keyboard keys, or use joystick, or use mouse).

The graphics might be good-looking, but not only of graphics a game is made. We need good gameplay, good UI, customizable controls...

Maybe I'm too used to those very good fast-action games, like Zanac and Tyrian

PowerManga is a bottom to top scrolling shooter, along the lines of R-Type. Its primary distinguishing characteristic is the power-up system. Instead of getting power-ups that offer specific abilities, there are generic power-ups that amount to "points" toward the various abilities you can amp, including upgrading your ship.

INSTALLATION:
This is one area where I am often frustrated by linux gaming. Fighting library compatability with commercial binaries, or source dependencies on a Free game can suck all the fun out of the process. I installed the PowerManga via synaptic/apt from the FreshRPM's repository on Fedora Core 3, and it was effortless. That isn't so much a reflection on PowerManga itself, and other install methods may be much more obnoxious, but my experience was good.

GRAPHICS:
For a GPL'ed game, the graphics are superb. Animations are smooth, and the game objects have a unique, well designed look (if a bit marshmallowy at times).

SOUND:
Again, very well done. The music is fun and bouncy. The sound effects add ambience and provide auditory feedback when the screen it so full of enemies and bullets that you can't see everything you might want to. The shooting noise gets old after a while, but that's part of the mystique of a shooter.

GAMEPLAY:
Gameplay is almost dominated by the power-up system. Advancing ships increases your survivability, but each time you switch ships you lose some of your power-ups. This leads to a balancing act in the early game as you choose between amping your firepower or your toughness. As you climb up the foodchain, your ship becomes an awesome thing to behold, filling the screen in all directions with death-dealing... err... marshmallows, I guess. Still, it's impressive looking.

Unfortunately this actually leads to more boring gameplay in the mid/end game. Eventually your ship fires in all directions and since half of your umpteenzillion bullets track, you don't need to aim much. In the late game you spend your time trying to dodge the stuff that falls to fast to shoot, getting hit anyway because you're so gigantic with all of your whirling defend-o-bots, and not caring because you're pretty indestructable.

But it is fun. PowerManga is also fairly replayable because there are several upgrade paths that make the early game very different. Easy and Medium and Hard modes (available from the command line) offer varying degrees of difficulty as your skill progresses.

NIGGLES:
PowerManga regularly mucks up the keyboard input on my system. I start moving in one direction and get stuck up against the wall. I have to pause, switch out of the game and back into it to regain control. Sometimes it gets stuck in this state for ten or fifteen minutes before releasing control again. This bug may be unique to FC3 (which is only a month old as of this writing) or just a weirdness of my system, but it is VERY annoying.

SUMMARY:
PowerManga may be the most impressive looking GPL'ed shooter available. Gameplay is both unique and interesting, if not exactly the way I'd have done things. It's a great way to waste ten minutes or three hours (watch out, time does disappear when playing).

Basically you can't control the lightning gun. I learned that it is activated when you have full set of five rotating buddies and then collect the token for sixth. Also, it appears to target the closest enemy _when fired_ and then just keeps hitting that one until it is destroyed.

It's a neat weapon and certainly a boon to keep you wanting to dodge smaller enemies just to preserve your rotating shield buddies.