Supremely weird game. I don't know if I'd call it "good," but it isn't exactly bad either. It's that Love-de-Lic phenotype mixed with some GHM sensibilites. Surprisingly great soundtrack (though not a surprise coming from Masafumi Takada)!

Combat system is semi turn based but also not really. Leveling up stats requires grinding for that specific stat (ie. getting hit by a physical attack to level physical defense), which takes about as long as you would expect (very). Using skills depletes an SP bar that is only occasionally refilled after defeating enemies. This makes them impractical for most situations you'd want to use them in.

There are a number of outfits the protagonist can wear, each with specific skillsets and statistical advantages. This is a fun idea, but stupefyingly there is only one location in the entire game where you can change between them, meaning you can't actually strategize around having access to more than one at a time. As you can imagine this also makes grinding even worse.

You can cook different foods for use as HP recovery items, but most of them don't restore a lot, and you'll eventually end up just relying on the out of place generic video game potions anyways. Some better dishes can be made at cooking level 55 (fifty five), which requires grinding (with the chef outfit only, of course) for who knows how long. At the end of my playthrough I had this stat leveled to 27. Most other skills have similarly high barriers, why? Well, at least they aren't terribly useful in the first place.

On another topic, the story is beyond explanation partially because there isn't really much of an explanation given. Rather it seems like the product of the devs fucking around and making something they like, which I heavily respect. At one point you travel to Akihabara and some of the televisions there seem to be showing ads for Killer7. In the depths of a(n implied) US Military base you can find images of the GHM devs and some cats (presumably theirs). Playing reminded me of playing games as a young kid because there's so little information about the game both in it and online that it feels like anything can happen.

For as frankly low quality as it feels, there's as much of an unshakeable feeling that it was a human project. That doesn't necessarily redeem it's faults but tinges my experience of it with a strange joy.

Idk man just listen to this

The first ESPGaluda is great for beginners to the genre, with the kakusei mechanic introduced and integrated as both a means to adjust to the shmup modus operandi and as a simple yet effective scoring system. All things considered it’s not a particularly difficult game to learn or finish.

ESPGaluda II on the other hand raises the difficulty to a point where it seems like a 1cc or at least a level of knowledge and comfort with the mechanics of its forebear is required to do well. (Makes it a bit more confounding that this game has seen numerous rereleases without the other one?) Or at least that was my first impression upon opening the game and proceeding to get thrashed by everything thrown my way. With patterns much denser and faster, I’d say that the game is objectively “harder” at a baseline level. However, like most danmaku their bark is worse than their bite, and practice definitely does help. I think it’s still fair to say it’s a hard game – it took me a solid 2-3 months of on-and-off practice to eke out that 1cc.

Entering the flow state while playing this game feels really nice, with the patterns shifting in speed and color as they fly by or crumble into gold and the ethereal techno pounding in your ears – basically what I’m trying to say is that CAVE games are my version of baby sensory videos. While playing I was reminded of what Sakurai has said about risk and reward in games, and I think these games have a really good feeling of push and pull – enough resources for playing it safe, but also just enough resources to keep you trying to see how much more you can cash in for score (and those sweet, sweet cancels).

The kakusei mechanic too has developed an additional layer of challenge. In addition to regular kakusei there is now kakusei zetsushikai mode, which drains gold and gems when active, often makes patterns more difficult, causes enemies to create homing suicide bullets, all for the reward of quintupling the maximum multiplier on cancels. When used right it can exponentially increase score, but it is also very easy to use wrong. While for myself (and others I’m sure) it usually only acts as a “make the game harder for no reason” button, I appreciate the additional level of challenge it can provide. Again with the risk and reward, I found myself trying to incorporate it more and more into my runs just on the basis that “maybe I can pull it off in this part,” which speaks to the excellency of its design in terms of replay value.

While kakusei gems have always been somewhat scarce, with the denser patterns I felt it really wanting here… until I discovered a hidden mechanic in how kakusei over mode works. When staying in kakusei mode with zero gems, bullets continually speed up. After staying in this mode for a few seconds, it increases the number of gems dropped by enemies. This can be maxed out right at the start of the game with practically no score detriment and makes the rest of it noticeably more forgiving on timing cancels. I was completely unaware of this mechanic and don’t get why it’s something so hidden when you probably want it active for the most part (one could argue that the faster red bullet speed is too detrimental, but for survival purposes seeing the bullets turn red in any case is grounds for a miss/bomb). This was in the first game as well and I had no idea!

I feel the one other misstep in design here is with the very last pattern in the game. The final pattern of ESPGaluda feels like a fair challenge: you’ve had the whole game to learn how to dodge, and now the training wheels are taken off – by force. The last hurdle of ESPGaluda II feels more like it was tacked on to run you a life or two. Having an absurd final pattern that you have to conserve resources for is routine for CAVE games, but the TLB bomb shield here feels unnecessary.

All in all, not a huge deal. Still a very fun game! I’m curious about what the console port(s) bring to the table so I think I’ll pick those up some time.