Karous
In this unique vertically-scrolling shooter you take the role of a mysterious girl named Karous, who commands a tiny fighter ship and attempts to destroy an evil armada bent on world domination. The game plays as your average vertical-scrolling shooter, in which you must clear several stages by destroying all incoming enemies and surviving their onslaught. A unique addition to Karous, is that you don't collect weapons by power-ups, but instead upgrade each of your basic weapons (gun, sword and shield) depending on their use thanks to a basic experience module, with increased power and features at later levels (multiple shots, bullet reflection, etc.) The game uses cel-shaded polygonal graphics with a distinct black and white look.
SCREENSHOTS
PHYSICAL
HISTORY
Karous (カラス, karasu, "crows") is a vertical-scrolling shooter video game developed by MileStone Inc. for the Sega NAOMI platform and released in Japanese arcades on November 15, 2006. The game was later ported to the Sega Dreamcast, becoming the system's last officially licensed title when it was released in Japan on March 8, 2007.
Gameplay
The weapon system is based on Radio Allergy, but it uses a unique D.F.S. bomb system.
Bombs can be used when SP gauge is full. When a bomb is activated, a barrier surrounds the player, which can damage enemies within the barrier. For the duration of bomb activation, the player is invulnerable. Enemies destroyed by the barrier provide more experience points to the player.
The player's shot, sword, shield can be upgraded by using experience items dropped from enemies, with a maximum of 100 levels. Weapon levels also act as score multipliers.
Characters
Karous (カラス) – Player's ship pilot
Shigi (シギ) – Navigator
Akahara (アカハラ(赤原))
Hakugan (ハクガン(剥眼))
Release
On April 8, 2008, a Nintendo Wii version of the game was released in Japan, titled MileStone Shooting Collection: Karous Wii. The collection includes both Radirgy and Chaos Field as extras. This collection was released in the United States in February 2009 by UFO Interactive Games under the name Ultimate Shooting Collection.
Ports of the game to PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, and Nintendo Switch were released on November 27, 2025, exclusively in Japan. This version was later released worldwide for Microsoft Windows on Steam on January 22, 2026.
Reception
Famitsu gave the Dreamcast version a review of 6, 6, 6, 7, while Edge gave it 6 out of 10. The game marks the last official third-party release for the Dreamcast platform.
1CC RUNS
One-credit clears we point to as the benchmark for this game.
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GAMEPLAY VIDEO
SCORES
RELEASES 6 systems
PHYSICAL RELEASES 1 box
