Castle of Shikigami is a dark, supernatural shoot-'em-up classic. Choose one of six characters and utilize their unique abilities to defeat the demons infesting modern-day Tokyo in this vertically scrolling shooting game. Use each character's shot, special Shikigami attack and bomb to conquer each stage and it's boss to ultimately discover who or what is behind "The Castle of Shikigami Incident".
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There's a lot of to like about Castle of Shikigami. The character designs are cool and the (albeit minimal) storytelling is kinda interesting, and will be welcome to anyone who also likes the Touhou Project series' approach of weaving characterisation and dialogue into bullet hell gameplay. The chapter-based stages and tension mechanic that increases both your score and shot power when grazing enemies/bullets are engaging, and were possibly an inspiration for Touhou LoLK's similar design. But damn, as a whole package this game just does not hold up very well.
I'm not sure if it's even "jank" as such, unless you consider a lack of game balance to be a form of jank, but yeah, this game is so disastrously unbalanced that it makes Touhou DDC look like a perfectly-balanced shmup in comparison. Kuga is the only actually good character gameplay-wise, all of the others are varying degrees of terrible and I'm not sure if the last two stages are even doable on a single credit with some of them. Hitboxes are obnoxiously big and bullet visibility is poor at times. Enemy patterns swing between snoozeworthily easy or blatantly undodgeable, untelegraphed bullshit with little middle ground and even less consideration for any kind of difficulty curve (why is the 3-3 boss harder than the 4-3 and 5-3 boss?).
While the soundtrack is... decent, it does NOT feel like a shmup soundtrack, which is even more noticeable when there aren't even separate boss themes, the stage theme just continues to play during bosses which is a big bruh moment.
I acknowledge a lot of my issues with the game balance might just be skill issue, and I might want to try routing this game out, but I know for a fact that Castle of Shikigami is obtuse and lacking, and I'll safely assume that the sequels are significantly better.
I'm not sure if it's even "jank" as such, unless you consider a lack of game balance to be a form of jank, but yeah, this game is so disastrously unbalanced that it makes Touhou DDC look like a perfectly-balanced shmup in comparison. Kuga is the only actually good character gameplay-wise, all of the others are varying degrees of terrible and I'm not sure if the last two stages are even doable on a single credit with some of them. Hitboxes are obnoxiously big and bullet visibility is poor at times. Enemy patterns swing between snoozeworthily easy or blatantly undodgeable, untelegraphed bullshit with little middle ground and even less consideration for any kind of difficulty curve (why is the 3-3 boss harder than the 4-3 and 5-3 boss?).
While the soundtrack is... decent, it does NOT feel like a shmup soundtrack, which is even more noticeable when there aren't even separate boss themes, the stage theme just continues to play during bosses which is a big bruh moment.
I acknowledge a lot of my issues with the game balance might just be skill issue, and I might want to try routing this game out, but I know for a fact that Castle of Shikigami is obtuse and lacking, and I'll safely assume that the sequels are significantly better.
Sayo is my favorite anti-virus program.
First game of the year and it's game of a genre I'm not really familiar with, Shoot em ups!
Can't say if it's a good or bad shoot em up since I don't really play those, but I dig it. I love how cheap everything looks and the vibe it gives off.
Can't say if it's a good or bad shoot em up since I don't really play those, but I dig it. I love how cheap everything looks and the vibe it gives off.
Ugly as hell, but at least it was pretty fun. It feels quite cheap sometimes, and the "bombs" system in this one is not that interesting. Still, there's fun to be had with this one.
One of those games with really good ideas and vibes but is ultimately held back by its own ambition. Love the characters and weapon mechanics, but most of the enemy patterns become complete shit as soon as stage 2 - either annoying or just plain cheap. It's trying to be more chaotic than it can reasonably be within its janky art, with confusing hitboxes and general visibility issues. Overall a LOT of good and a LOT of bad - definitely will play the sequels.
Everything about this game is janky and I kind of love it for that? The score mechanics are really interesting, but it feels like the characters aren't built for the patterns the game throws at you. The difficulty in general feels kind of unbalanced. I want to come back to this and 1cc but currently it's just a bit too frustrating for me to bother.