天下制覇

A rare double whammy post.

A year after the initial demo, CC’s full version is out. I’m not sure what these graphical deficiencies were that supposedly delayed it, but it still looks as beautiful explodey as ever. There’s really nothing new here on the arcade SHMUP formula. You’ve got your regular shot, a homing laser, and overdrive/bombing. Perhaps it needs a hack/full save to just give you the cash to unlock stuff since it makes you pay for everything, even continues, while not really having the depth to encourage replays for score whoring like, say, Mars Matrix did. All the explosions, stars flying at you, and bullets that get canceled when you kill the shooting enemy can make things a little too overwhelming at times too. Sometimes less is more. Or at least make the good items and your own laser spew a little less eyecatching than the bad bullets.

If you’re tired of all the bullet hells and long for a return to the olden days of arcade explosions everywhere, then definitely give this one a try. You can pick the three stage demo up here to try it out.

On the other hand, we have Suwako’s interestingly titled game, another one of those isometric SHMUPs like Royal Edoma Engine or… Zaxxon. Unlike the other two, they actually did a little more with the engine and used the 3D for… well… anything, making some pretty neat looking bullet effects with the bosses. It’s clear that their creativity ran dry in places since most stages are exceedingly repetitive with only about four enemies using the same four bullet patterns combined in different ways over and over again, and bosses will go from neat waves or upward attacks to just spewing out bullets at random, but there are still plenty of interesting things to see. Like the other isometrics, hitboxes can take some… a lot… of getting used to since it’s a little tough to tell if you’re just below a bullet and it’ll pass harmlessly behind you, or if you’re about to be hit, especially when there are bullets in the air simultaneously flying harmlessly over your head. It’s not terrible though.

Certainly nowhere as graphically interesting as a lot of the other stuff from this Comiket, but at least it’s a decent twist on the isometric formula. It’s not that bad of a way to waste an hour or two, just maybe set it on a difficulty level lower than whatever you usually play at because you will get hit and have no reason why more than once. It has a very brief free trial here as well.