TouHou Makuka Sai ~ Fantastic Danmaku Festival Part II
It’s billed as a homage to Touhou 7, but this game stands out for more than its ability to simply recreate a classic, delivering an excellent STG that stands on its own.
Its mechanics are founded on a slightly modified version of Touhou 7’s border system, in which periods of immunity granted through pickups and bullet grazing can have their duration extended by continuing to graze bullets or grabbing pickups. This mechanic is also how the game distributes extra bomb and life pieces, with longer borders providing increased rewards.
– Real player with 35.8 hrs in game
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–-{ Graphics }—
☑ Beautiful
☐ Good
☐ Bad
- The graphics on this game are not AAA title level, and really it shouldn’t be expected. However, what really made this game standout is that … it’s absolutely beautiful. The stage backgrounds, the character sprites, the enemy sprites, animated spell card sprites and even the Danmaku and patterns itself are some of the prettiest I’ve seen among Touhou fan games, and actually, I’d even go as far as saying it beats even ZUN’s own mainline games in this aspect. I don’t know how the team managed to churn out such an aesthetically pleasing danmaku game, but they sure as hell did it. I’d also like to specially mention some of the things I thought were extremely outstanding in terms of graphics: Stage 4 in general, Alice’s patterns in general and Yuyuko’s patterns in general (also, her dancing spins while she throws out danmaku were nothing short of awesome!)
– Real player with 22.2 hrs in game
東方幕華祭 TouHou Makuka Sai ~ Fantastic Danmaku Festival
As a Touhou game, the quality here is high. It has what you would expect from a Touhou game and a little more; beyond the standard 6 stages and Extra stage, there are also Spell Card Challenges with many new difficult spell cards for each of the bosses in the game. The character options provide a second way to adjust difficulty, which I find helpful: Patchouli can be very easy bordering on overpowered (but is also slightly complicated to control), Sanae is fairly easy, and Marisa and Reimu are the most balanced. Whether intentional or not, I think it can help breaking into the higher difficulties as you can start out playing as Patchouli, then Sanae, etc.
– Real player with 62.8 hrs in game
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Now, don’t let the hours played confuse you.
I’ve been playing this game before it ever released on steam, but with that in mind let me start explaining how good this game is.
Touhou Fantastic Danmaku Festival, is a fangame remake of Touhou 6: Embodiement of Scarlet Devil, with a few changes here and there made by the chinese developer StarX
Unlike Touhou 6, there’s some differance, some of which I won’t spoil.
There are four characters to play as, the four being Reimu, Marisa, Sanae, and Patchouli.
– Real player with 10.4 hrs in game
LUFTRAUSERS
This is the archetypal Vlambeer release: the core gameplay is solid, it has a ton of personality, it’s ball-bustingly difficult, and the wild, ‘more is more’ philosophy winds up pushing the thing into the ‘frustrating’ end of the spectrum as one tries to truly sink one’s teeth into it.
Here it’s less that there is a fundamental ‘problem’ with the game and more that the balance feels ever-so-slightly conflicted. In a game that requires you to get a high combo multiplier (it goes up to 20x, and you’re expected to keep it there) the enemies feel a bit too spongey, especially since you can’t really strafe for long before you come to a dead stop or crash into the sea. This is especially true of the battleships, which take an insane ammount of damage before they finally die, can lead you pretty effectively (especially when you’re close) and will kill you first via contact damage if you try to dive-bomb them.
– Real player with 50.7 hrs in game
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This game has been a minor thorn in my side for a long time - it is a game that I have been, for a long time, absurdly close to clearing all achievements at, but had never bothered to finish clearing. As I quest through my backlog, I now understand why I never quite finished this.
Luftrausers is an arcade game. The core of the game is shooting down enemy pilots in your ship that fires forward. You have much more freedom of movement than in most shmups like this, and while you are not shooting you regenerate health. There is water that damages you if you go in it, and clouds that damage you if you go up too high. You take damage if you collide with bullets and other ships (usually). You have a multiplier that is equal to the number of enemies you have just recently killed (up to 20). You generally only live for a very short period of time, and that makes this a really decent timewaster sort of game.
– Real player with 23.4 hrs in game
//N.P.P.D. RUSH//- The milk of Ultraviolet
You know what makes NPPD Rush great? It doesn’t explain anything. What many will identify as negative aspects of the game, some will find to be perfect for the vibe the developers intended.
The game is confusing. The gameplay and core mechanics are not described, or taught to you through ‘learning levels’ like so many other titles. The teletype text and short ‘scenes’ don’t give the player much more than nebulous hints, but encourage an imaginative player to read a great deal of the story between the lines. The crazy colour scheme, soundtrack and HUD make the game difficult to follow, and it will take you a number of playthroughs to figure out even the core mechanics.
– Real player with 7.8 hrs in game
Indie game, N.P.P.D RUSH - The milk of Ultraviolet, tries it’s best to bring retro arcade style goodness to the Steam storefront with it’s top down shooter gameplay and maze like level exploration, but unfortunately it falls short in a number of areas. Even with the low cost of entry and the fact that it is currently on sale for 20% off as a new release, N.P.P.D does little to innovate in a genre that has been inspired by a plethora of other indie games as of late. The look and feel are straight out of the mid-to-late 80’s, but the gameplay unfortunately doesn’t live up to the expectations or the intuitive mechanics we’ve come to enjoy from other modern classics such as Retro City Rampage or Hotline Miami. If you’re feeling nostalgic then you’d be better off saving your money for one of those two titles rather than picking up N.P.P.D RUSH in it’s current form. The gameplay sounds interesting on paper, but is only interesting for brief periods of time and coffee break style playthrus. In fact it’s very hard to categorize or compare the gameplay when it feels like a combination of less complete versions of more popular games and arcade gameplay styles.
– Real player with 3.5 hrs in game
AK-xolotl: Wars
What happens when you combine a hungry axolotl with an AK? You get a ‘lotl of killing!
AK-xolotl: Wars is a 4 player top-down arcade battle arena shooter set in the AK-xolotl universe. You’re an axolotl with an AK (duh!) that goes on a rampage, shooting down their next meal! Play with your friends and hunt down your meal together!
Team up with up to 3 friends and work together in order to dominate the leaderboards!
Face off against increasingly chaotic waves of walking preys, with the aid of powerful weaponry and abilities. Team up with your friends, hunt your meal and feed the baby axolotls who look insanely bad-ass with a gun.
Want to impress the community? The more enemies you demolish, the higher your score! Keep it going and you’ll be splashing onto the leaderboards in no time.
Fun fact: Did you know Axolotls can regenerate their limbs?
Some of AK-xolotl’s features are:
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Tons of different weapons w/ stat Roles and rare variants
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Multiple power-ups to beef up your Axolotl
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Over 20 types of enemies, Axolotl’s meal will be buffet style!
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3 maps with multiple variations
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Cute unlockable skins
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Fully supported online leaderboards
Beat Da Beat
The plot, man. The plot on this game is the best i’ve seen on any other game.
Nah, jk. This game is…strange. At least, that was my frist though of this game. Different doesnt means bad, tho.
Only con i’ve seen is that you cant see the ending (Because of a bug or something; not solveable for what i’ve seen).
After completing the badass difficulty i can assure you that this game isnt hard at all. I mean, I can beat da beat, but I cant beat Jigoku Kisetsukan in normal diff.
Music is quite enjoyable and stuff. It’s short in my personal opinion, but it has a lot of replayability.
– Real player with 29.1 hrs in game
This game is FANTASTIC !
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Top tier pixel art and great design
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A catchy soundtrack that is 100% in sync with the action
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Easy to play, but still challenging
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A dozen of ships to try, upgrades and a nice replay value
The game is short (4 actual levels and 4 bosses) but remains pretty addictive. And for that price, the experience is definitely worth the shot. If you don’t feel something for this game at the third track, go ahead and ask a refund.
So… that’s when you wonder if I checked the wrong box by giving a negative review.
– Real player with 10.4 hrs in game
Just Random Squares
Just Random Squares is a bullet hell with randomized ships/loadouts and an incremental upgrade system. If you have any interest in bullet hells, especially ones with a tech theme, try this out! 7/10
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xC8W7LVR1XI
– Real player with 0.2 hrs in game
Manaya
great time waster with fun gameplay, lots of upgrades at a great price.
– Real player with 49.1 hrs in game
It’s not long, it’s not particularly challenging, but it’s reminiscent of those quick little flash games. I love going in for little runs here and there if I’m just not sure what to do with my time. It’s rougelike enough that I have to think about my upgrades and sometimes build around something I don’t really like having. I think this developer really understood what they we’re trying to do and I’m glad they didn’t try to make the game more complicated than it is, because it plays well being so simple.
– Real player with 17.3 hrs in game
Outstation
Outstation is a shoot em up that takes place during a new frontier of space exploration. Nebula mining operations have spread far across the galaxy with a rising need for protection from marauders looking to steal the resources harvested.
As a mercenary in the out, you can choose from a selection of contracts which present different game modes. If you complete your contract, you get paid.
The contract stipulates you are responsible for your own ship and the well-being of the station you are employed to protect. Upgrade and personalize your ship, fortify the station, and destroy the increasing waves of marauders!
Features
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Free-roam shoot ‘em up
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Choose between multiple games modes (contracts)
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Fight off masses of enemeis
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Large-ship boss battles
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Customize your ship to be ready for any contract - every upgrade alters your ship’s abilities!
STORY
A new form of fuel has been discovered within the clouds of various nebulas and utilized for space travel bringing a rush for dominance over the budding industry. Throughout the galaxy, a number of mining operations have sprung up to harvest and refine this new fuel.
This rush to harvest fuel has made the concept of security nearly non-existent leading to massive collaborations of corsairs that patrol the galaxy looking for potential mines to raid and ships to hijack. Once a scout has found a vulnerable target, the group will warp waves of ships to its location to overwhelm and plunder.
Seeing an opportunity to satisfy the desire for money and combat, mercenaries began to offer protection services to mining operations. These mercenary contracts operate on a pay per-kill basis; depositing payment into the mercenary’s account instantly upon destroying a combative ship and often provide a contract completion bonus.
Solos
A fun puzzle game. The music is really nice. I think that letting people create their own levels through the workshop could be a fantastic idea to deal with the puzzle games limited replayability, even though the speedrun mode is already a great addition to deal with it.
– Real player with 3.4 hrs in game
The best way I could describe this game in a short sentence would be “Create your own Bullet hell”.
Graphically the game is simple, but also stylised, as if a child is drawing this happening on their notebook which helped the game stay visually interesting
The gameplay for Solos is like a twin stick shooter, but your objective is much the same as the classic game of ‘Breakout’, clear the blocks, only catch is, you can use as many balls as you’d like. This design choice allows you to make the game harder and more chaotic, or you can take it a bit easier and slower by not firing as many balls. The game supports a lot of fun levels with multiple different types of materials that alter how the balls behave and make it easier or harder for you, an example of this would be the sticky surface which will catch the ball that lands on it.
– Real player with 1.0 hrs in game