Milestone

MileStone
MileStone Inc. (株式会社マイルストーン; generally referred to as Milestone without capitalizing the "S") was a Japanese game developer and publisher chiefly consisting of former Compile employees. MileStone is most famous for the titles it developed in the shooting game genre, but it has also developed and published a number of games in several other genres.

MileStone ceased activity in November 2014 following several issues including the arrest of the company's president on March 5, 2013.

Some of the employees who worked on MileStone shooting games (along with the intellectual property rights for these games) moved to Klon, and then to RS34.

Characteristic features in MileStone shooting games

 * The player ship has multiple weapons or means to attack enemies (typically shot, sword, "bomb," and shield). Some enemies can only be destroyed by a certain type of attack.
 * All games allow for liberal use of "bombs" (more like forcefields that absorb bullets) with a meter that fills up with enemy destruction and other actions. In most of the games, bombing is encouraged and is vital for scoring.
 * Some games (Karous and Illvelo) have a leveling up system where the player ship's shot, sword, and shield each start off at level 0 at the beginning of each playthrough and gain experience points (thereby growing stronger) by attacking enemies. Routes for leveling up the shot, sword, and shield will span over multiple stages, thereby offering these games strategic depth and complexity.
 * Apart from Chaos Field (a boss-rush game), all games reward destroying all the enemies within a single formation, and it is often strategically beneficial to destroy enemies quickly. This gives the games a fast tempo, as the player ship rushes across the screen to swiftly destroy as many enemies as possible.