Game recommended by Cold_Comfort on my Recommend me something pls list (1/39)

This one is not a surprise by any means - being quite a big fan of shmups and sitting in various communities of this genre, i've heard about this title a lot of times, being proclaimed as one of those "hidden dlsite gems" (if you don't know, dlsite is a japanese website where devs sell doujin games and porn), alongside stuff like Cambria Sword, ring^-27, Stellavanity (known also for various dramas i won't get into in this review, sorry) and Ikusaaaaaaan! (the number of "a"s is important, don't forget about that). Admittevely, the first look may be disappointing, because sprites look like you put RPG Maker characters into a shmup and the enemies are all various planes, drones, helicopters, etc. with some weird sizes comparing to main character.

But you kinda forget that once you play it (or at least look into the patterns instead of enemies). The game feels like Progear and Ketsui had a baby (a threesome with RPG Maker????), throwing at you loads of enemies shooting at you with either aimed shots or various interesting patterns. The scoring is basically using shot for getting items and lock-on for cashing with some proximity bonus (Ketsui), but also bullet cancelling (Progear). It has three characters to choose from - slow guy, fast guy and a girl (I played as a fast guy, but maybe you'll like one of the other two more) The pacing is also really good, there are almost no wait zones outside of just before the boss or killing the midboss. Boss fights aren't bad either, with fair, but not "free" patterns. Even has some stuff for more experienced players like harder difficulties if you thought Hard isn't easy enough (To be honest i cleared it with 3 lives in stock so maybe that suggests something) or second loop with TLB if you score enough (I didn't so maybe i'm still a scrub).

tl;dr It's just really fun to dodge through this and get a lot of points. Also, if Hard is too hard (hehe) for you, Normal is way easier and more approachable difficulty.

PS. Yeah, the music doesn't really fit much (even if I like boss theme a little), but what party is going on Stage 4 based on this theme?

Also yeah, I know, 9 months since i started that recommeding list and I started playing games from it just now. I hope I'll get through all the other ones faster (and of course, each one with the review).

Reviewed on Aug 20, 2022


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