Touhou Spell Bubble

The Rhythm of the Imperishable Night

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I don’t know anything about Touhou. I mean, like, plotwise. I know they’re some pretty good bullet hell games, and that most people don’t care that they’re bullet hell games, and that Reimu is kind of a big deal, and that there is a… fandom. Anything beyond “magical demons create magical rhythm Puzzle Bobble” was completely lost on me, every single quip and comment flew over my head. But like, who cares? Magical girl rhythm Puzzle Bobble.

MAGICAL GIRL RHYTHM PUZZLE BOBBLE.

Can I just say how adorable these characters are, and how gorgeous the art in this game is? I mean, even the cover art is just… it’s so colorful. Just a complete and utter clusterfun of kawaii character design. And kawaii in the most wholesome way–I was playing against my wife, and she remarked, “These characters are so cute. Thank god they’re not flashing their boobies everywhere.” Thank god indeed.

I reflected for a second on the fact that I intend to buy Muse Dash, soon, and said nothing.

Spell Bubble is not an unqualified smash puzzle hit. There’s a certain tension between the puzzle and rhythm gameplay that isn’t fully resolved. Whenever you score a combo, you do a little tiny rhythm challenge, which is fun, but also gets in the way of you unleashing rapid-fire crushing combos. The scoring is just a little convoluted, giving you a pittance for anything other than completely filling your opponents screen. And personally, I find Puzzle Bobble to not be precisely the deepest puzzler around, though maybe I’m just a casual not-smart puzzle baby.

The production values are all-around top-notch for a puzzle game, though. The whole game from top to bottom is crystal clear and gorgeous, gorgeous. The story is a nice, involved piece of fluff by genre standards. There are lots of characters, and there are tons of unlockable special moves and songs. The songs are quite nice, as well. Despite my grumbling about how the game isn’t exactly how I want it, it’s super solid, and you can feel the thought that went into making this a new and exciting version of a franchise that, by my standards, was stale by the PS2 era. Touhou Spell Bubble feels very fresh.

I wish they’d given us more modes, though! Being a rhythm game with individual songs, this game just cries out for a single player score attack mode, where you try and pop as many bubbles on each song as you can. Or an option to toggle off the rhythm aspect, or change up the scoring. Something!

I know, I know. The reason why this game feels so polished, and really does succeed very well at what it sets out to do, is because the designers had a clear vision. They really did nail the game that they wanted to create. It’s cute, it’s fun, it’s colorful, it’s a real treat of a puzzle game. You’d have to be one hell of a puzzle curmudgeon not to have any fun with Touhou Spell Bubble.

Now that I’ve finished the normal course and started on lunatic, maybe I’ll do a Google search and learn a little bit more about these characters!

Oh…

Oh no.

Cotton Reboot! got chocolate in my peanut butter

Gradius x Deathsmiles?

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I suspect there are other shmups with the particular verve of Cotton Reboot!, but I haven’t played them. Cotton has always been a little zany, of course–in what other shmup do you play as a candy-hungry witch who enslaves fairies on her quest to snatch candy? That’s the sort of gag anime anti-hero that prevailed in the 90s, and I love that she made her way into a game with killer trees and spell-casting druids.

But what really stands out about Cotton’s latest (oldest) adventure is the marrying of oldschool horizontal fundamentals with a scoring system straight out of the flashiest bullet hell games.

Magic gems litter the screen as Cotton blasts enemies with spell after spell after spell, from fire dragons to avalanches to lobbed bombas. Spells can power up to level three, but it feels better to burn them immediately at level one, electrocuting a line of enemies and powering up Cotton’s fever meter, going into hypercharge mode and racking up a major multiplier.

I can’t even do justice to how scrappy and wild it is. Sometimes you just keep shooting and shooting a gem, trying to cycle it to a blue gem–I just need a blue gem, dammit!

That this scoring system exists in a game as oldschool as Cotton honestly feels strange. It’s almost like playing Gradius, when all of a sudden the Maoi heads start exploding into x9999 multipliers. Does that sound rad? Well, yeah. But it’s also an unholy marriage that shouldn’t exist. In a bullet hell game everything is dialed up to 11. Cotton Reboot! has a buttload of enemy beholders and… flying sharks? to kill, but the bullets are sparse. Tame. At times you feel like you’re playing a scoring system rather than a scrolling shooter, or like the developers smashed two Skittles together and called it a new flavor.

But is that really so terrible? Nah. Just super weird. Rocket Engine did a superb job honoring Cotton’s legacy, cranking out some beautiful sprites and an energetic arrange, not to mention a stupidly addictive and ultra-trashy Caravan mode.

So here’s to a year of Cotton. Happy 30th, ya old hag!

❤

That GARBAGE R-Type Final 2 Review

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Eurogamer’s review of R-Type Final 2 is full of words. Too many big words, really. Grandiose words that obscure a lot of what the reviewer is trying to say. But is it really such a terrible, meaningless review? Eh.

I don’t think it’s great. I don’t even think it’s good. But I do think that it gets the point across. Mostly.

First off, let me just say that I don’t have R-Type Final 2. This is not a review of R-Type Final 2. There are so many good shmups I could be playing! Right now I could download X-Multiply, or Lightening Force, or Crimzon Clover World Explosion. I have Battle Garegga and Rolling Gunner + Overpowered coming in the mail… someday. I’m not super interested in a game which seems, by fan accounts no less, to be a middling release in a genre full of absolutely incredible games.

I think what hurts is that R-Type Final 2 feels like a very “major” entry in a genre that gets no respect. And for it to come out, and get a sort of half-hearted review, just feels like punching down. Especially from Eurogamer, which has proven it can write a very comprehensive shmup review.

For this genre, a nuanced review is the exception, not the norm.

But does the review really contain “no content?” Is it really just a bunch of words that ultimately don’t mean anything? Or are shmup players just too close to the genre to see that this review is saying exactly what it needs to say to the audience it has?

Not to slag Eurogamer’s audience–I read Eurogamer. I actually think they’re probably one of the more savvy games outlets. But let’s talk about R-Type.

Did you play R-Type when it came out? I didn’t. R-Type came out a year before I was born. Did you play R-Type Final 1 when it was released? I did.

I remember holding it in the store. It was cased in one of those big plastic anti-theft boxes. My knowledge of shmups was minimal. I had played E.D.F. for SNES. Gradius III for GBA. And the mother of all mothers, Mars Matrix on Dreamcast. I loved Mars Matrix. I was absolutely terrible, but I played the console-exclusive score attack stages endlessly, grinding for cubes to spend in the shop.

I remember holding R-Type Final in its chunky plastic box. The week of release. Did I really want this game? I think what decided it was that R-Type Final was $40. A budget game. The last game in a dying series in a dying genre. Budget priced. Nobody cared about R-Type then.

Few people care about R-Type now. R-Type is a major game within the genre. But it’s no longer a major game within gaming. It’s a curiosity.

How many of Eurogamer’s readers have played any R-Type game? One percent? Five percent? How many of them had even heard of R-Type before stumbling on that review?

Shmup players know what R-Type Final is all about. To describe it is obvious. Eurogamer’s duty, as a review site, is to elevate their readership’s understanding of this game, this series. They do that. They bring their readers up to speed on what R-Type is, at its core.

“The Force you can detach at will, pinging it off enemy formations or right at the heart of a boss’s weak spot.”

That’s R-Type.

“In R-Type, you’re the hard-edged machine tunneling into the bio-flesh of the Bydo.”

That’s R-Type. A little bit of an obscure way to say “this series is known for it’s Gigeresque body horror,” but I’ll take it.

Here’s an awkward one:

“A solemn strangeness that undercuts the desperation of your plight battling against impossible odds in the hostile void.”

Woof. Dial that back. But what is it saying? The tone of R-Type Final 2 is at odds with being a shmup; the game aesthetics are at war with the genre. That’s R-Type Final in a nutshell.

I don’t like the purple prose. I don’t like how damned wordy everything is. I’m not being dense, I just think it’s awkward to read. But in a way, that wordiness tells you about R-Type Final 2. Imagine trying to describe Batsugun that way. You could, but you never would. Batsugun is a game where you shoot the shit out of shit and it blows the fuck up. Not some meditative, somber, funeral dirge of a game.

R-Type Final 2 invited the reviewer to talk about it this way. It is the sort of game that can be talked about as if it’s a grand, meaningful, flawed epic.

“For all its grace, R-Type Final was never the greatest of shooters, and for all its ambience… neither is this. It still feels special, though.”

Isn’t that what everyone else has been saying?

It’s not that good… but dammit, it’s R-Type!