It’s that time of year again where the weirdest and greatest games of the year are released. We’re of course talking about the extremely popular summer Comiket fair. Comiket 90 took place from the 12th until the 14th, with the 13th and 14th reserved for doujin titles of all shapes and sizes.
Just like every year, the variety here is staggering. Some of the genres that were included here are puzzle games, RPGs, ARPGs, action games, shooters, VR, tabletop games, card games, all-ages and adult visual novels, as well as mini-games.
As per usual, the video opens up with various Touhou-based games, which still remain incredibly popular. After that, starting at around the 6:40 minute mark, authors of original games got their turn to show-off their creations. Finally, at around the 1:10:00 mark there is the Petit Summary where we only get a glimpse of upcoming games.
Once again thanks goes to EdelweissNal who year in and year out does these compilation videos.
Higurashi When They Cry and Umineko When They Cry are some of the most remarkable visual novels out there. Starting out as little more than doujin titles, they quickly grew in popularity and rightfully so. The last installment of these games was released way back in 2011 and a new installment in the series is long overdue.
According to the tweet from 07th Expansion, the company behind these games, they are happy to see fans cosplay at Comiket even when the weather is cold, and promise that the When They Cry series will continue in 2017 with an all new story:
Both of the original games were released chapter by chapter once every 6 months. The games share similar themes, but ultimately they have a totally different story. Higurashi Tells the tale of a group of friends and their slow decedent into madness as they effortlessly try to piece together what is happening in a small remote village. Umineko, on the other hand, opts for something completely different with its excellent murder mystery set in a mansion on an isolated island haunted by a witch. Both games are available officially in the west thanks to MangaGamer. Higurashi is offered in 4 chapters, each sold separately just like when the game was originally released in Japan. The first 4 chapters of Umineko (question arc) are available as part of a bundle and offer a meaty 40 hours of story.
If you are new to the franchise you can check out our reviews for both Higurashi and Umineko.
Just like every year we bring you the latest lineup of crazy doujin games fresh from Japan. Comiket 91 was held from 29th until the 31st of December. Strap yourself in for over an hour and a half of footage.
Some noteworthy games are Giraffe and Annika where you play as an adorable sorceress who battles enemies in a dance show down. Grab the demo from the developer’s official website. Never Over Again a creepy first person platformer where you have the power to remove your own wrists – it is as weird as it sounds. Made by Daisen, the same team behind the innovative Lethal Application, Tower Offense has you stacking girls in an attempt to take out giant robotic enemies. Shikabane Panidemic is a game where you must infect all the agents in a level by spreading a zombie pandemic and luring the potential victims. Finally, there is Sakuna, a beautiful actin side-scroller with a detailed farming system.
2D exploration shooter Kamio Recoil, from indie developer Hanaji Games, is now available on Steam! Previewed at Winter Comiket in 2014, the game has now been localised and published with the help of doujin circle Shindenken. Check out the game’s trailer below:
The human race is under attack from an army of yokai equipped with the latest technological weaponry, causing chaos across the globe! 5 girls with special powers have been assembled to go into subspace and fight the threat!
Features Include:
– Zero-Gravity Exploration and Shooting
– Weapon Recoil-Driven Movement – Propel yourself through zero-gravity with every shot!
– Five Unique Spirit Arms – Each with a primary and secondary fire.
– Classic Retro Inspired Challenge – Primary fire consumes HP. Labyrinthine stages. No revives.
– Maidens in Space! (And Other Places) – Six varied areas, each with multiple branching stages.
This looks like a fun little game! The use of the Spirit Arms to navigate the arenas is very interesting, and sounds really tricky combined with its HP usage. So if you like cute girls, shooting, space, or even shooting cute girls through space, go and check it out!
Moekuri is a new anime-style SRPG from Mokyusoft and Culture Select, and it’s available on Steam! Choose from 151 cute girls you can take into battle – all fully voiced and with unique art from comiket artists across Japan!
Moekuri lets you take a party of 6 Creatures into battle, so you can choose your team to best suit your playstyle! There are 25 story mode grid-based stages, as well as a free battle mode for honing your tactics, and an unlockable hard mode for those who crave a challenge.
The art across the game is adorable, which is to be expected with Koi of Is the Order a Rabbit? behind the illustrations for the main cast. The huge amount of characters with unique fighting styles and art is a wonderful feature, and provides lots of incentive for changing up teams and getting to grips with a number of different tactics!
Moekuri is available on Steam for only £8.99 here.
In Kamio Recoil there are five anime girls you have to help escape youkai invasion on the Moon. Get ready to propel yourself in zero gravity through increasingly difficult labyrinth style levels!
In a true doujin fashion Kamio Recoil doesn’t provide you with any backstory or a setup. The game just starts and you will be presented with a fairly basic menu screen, followed by a level select menu. But this isn’t to say that the game would be much more enjoyable with all the added frills. It is straight to the point, although I was a bit weary as to why the promotional artwork wasn’t also used in the game in order to flash out the characters and give them more personality.
Kamio Recoil consists of six unique areas with intersecting paths; you can choose which level you want to play next. There is a tiny little preview on the side that can help you gauge what the main theme of the level is. It reminds us of those old arcade games that make you choose and hope for the best rather than hold your hand and tell you everything will be alright.
The game’s core mechanic is gravity, that is, propelling yourself with your primary fire. We’ve seen similar doujin titles like this before (Lethal Application, Miricle Fly) but the goal in this one is just to get to the next stage. There is no time limit or additional lives, which was a bit surprising at first but at the same time we can guess that the developers chose to omit this, making for a much more relaxed experience.
Kamio Recoil is a type of game that doesn’t really explain the plot, characters or anything really. So most of the stuff you will find out soon enough by playing. If you want to get anywhere in Kamio Recoil, the most important thing to do is keep switching characters often. You will early on find a use for each girl that is part of the colorful cast of characters.
The red girl has a flame thrower, purple shoots out lasers, green has a powerful rocket launcher, brown is a machine gun girl and the pink one is a girly girl with no primary weapon. You might think that in a shooting game like this she might be the most useless character ever, but she and the machine gun girl are the best when trying to get somewhere fast and as a plus she does have a fairly powerful sniper as a secondary weapon which is useful when picking off enemies.
You have a number of shots for each girl’s primary and secondary attack. The primary attack also counts as each girl’s health. Enemies damage your primary firepower and when you run out of ammo your girl is dead. When you lose a character you can’t revive it until the next level, but you can replenish both shots with power-ups scattered throughout the levels.
After finishing a few levels and clearing the area there is a boss waiting to test your skills. These boss battles become increasingly difficult making it a rewarding experience. The difficulty isn’t too high but it is challenging enough to make you feel rewarded when you clear the area.
Areas in the game can be pretty varied and we especially loved the water stages which were one of the more trickier with a constantly shifting current propelling you in different directions. A number of times we were left with only one girl on her last legs scurrying to get to the level exit and failing miserably. Those were the most memorable moments and most funny too.
With satisfying score and cute graphics coupled with interesting gameplay, Kamio Recoil offers a lot of fun, while keeping the frustration associated with the genre at minimal. Definitely there is something here for everyone, but those really tough hard-core gamers would be inclined to look elsewhere for more challenging gameplay.
We described Rabi-Ribi as “Bullet Hell meets Metroidvania”, and that’s still probably the best way to put it. It’s got a lot of retro flair, but handles with the slickness you’d expect of a modern game. You play as Erina, a bunny who has been transformed into a bunny-girl. All she wants is to return home to being a bunny, but she’ll have to take care of business on Rabi-Ribi island first.
It might be a bullet hell cross action platformer, but that doesn’t mean it’s as rock solid as some of the competition out there. It’s actually pretty generous.
Each and every boss in the game is memorable and each encounter is a challenge. Losing never feels frustrating, since a save point is always just a few steps earlier.
It’s a fairly big game that should take around 15 hours to beat. That’s quite a bit of adventuring! Read our review of the PC version here, and take a look at our exercept from it below:
Amazing production values for a doujin title. Absolutely every aspect of the game is polished beyond belief. From the detailed sugar filled with cuteness pixel art graphics, with artworks that sometimes dips into fanservice, to beautifully animated stylish menus, to the massive soundtrack that has a catchy tune for every occasion, there is so much that Rabi-Ribi does right. Even the minute details make this game stand out, one example is the music which slows down when in you are underwater or slowed down.
Features
– Retro exploration platformer.
– 4+ difficulty settings for all types of players.
– 9+ main areas and 20+ sub-areas to explore.
– Over 60 items and upgrades.
– Over 20 fully illustrated characters with cutscene illustrations.
– 40+ boss battles, 1000+ attack patterns with Boss Rush Mode to fight some or all of them in a row.
– Post-game story and content with speedrun mode.
– Over 50+ pieces from an original soundtrack.
– English, German, French, Spanish, Chinese and Japanese language support.
– Bunnies!
Rabi-Ribi will be releasing Q3 2017 on PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita in Europe.
It’s that time of year again. Comiket 92 is upon us as are countless refreshing games. As always, aside from the numerous visual novels and shmups, expect innovative, stylish and even baffling games in the lineup.
Among the noteworthy games is Tower Offense which has you stacking characters in a side-scrolling shooter. Next there is Elmia which is a 2D platformer. However, the twist is that you can warp has you warping around through obstacles. Nussoft, the team that brought Neo Aquarium and Ace of Seafood, now brings us Crab Battle, where two giant enemy crabs duke it out under the sea. Another crazy title is Isu Simulator. Here you play as a chair with fairy wings and strapped on machine guns, and you have to fly around and take out foes in a vast desert.
As always, Comiket 92 will take place from the 11th until the 13th of August in the Tokyo International Exhibition Center.
Check out the video showcasing this lineup bellow thanks to EdelweissNal:
Tokyo will see its 93rd Comiket from the 29th to 31st December at the Tokyo Big Sight convention center. As always, we got a glimpse of the upcoming doujin titles in the latest video from EdelweissNal which shows off well over an hour of trailers.
The lineup of games was varied, featuring everything from creative puzzle games to traditional shmups, to bizarre but nevertheless captivating titles.
Among the more promising titles is Left Orders, a stunning atmospheric point and click which features combat mechanics.
For those looking for a bit more strategy in their games, there is Heroic syndrome which has you placing your troops around the map in a mix of tower defense and a fast-paced real-time strategy game.
Finally, Setsuna-Augmentum is a super-stylish blazing fast action game where the game periodically slows down in order to let you see the intense action, making the whole experience feel like an elegant dance.
Let us know which of the games you are most excited for in the comments below.
There’s a lot to buy at MCM, with some pretty varying prices! We set ourselves the challenge to buy a secret gift for one another, and at the great price of £5 (1 Bison Dollar). Like the bloodhound he is Peter checks out some of the more morally dubious items you can buy at cons — such as doujin hentai!
Almost any still image from this video is solid gold. Just look at how pleased Peter is with himself. The same might not said for Daniel, who was “receiving” the “gift”. Is Peter a solid bro, or is he on the highway to the danger zone? Let us know what you think about the darker side of cons!
Natalie spent hours blurring out Peter’s expedition for YouTube.
It’s that time of year again where the weirdest and greatest games of the year are released. We’re of course talking about the extremely popular summer Comiket fair. Comiket 90 took place from the 12th until the 14th, with the 13th and 14th reserved for doujin titles of all shapes and sizes.
Just like every year, the variety here is staggering. Some of the genres that were included here are puzzle games, RPGs, ARPGs, action games, shooters, VR, tabletop games, card games, all-ages and adult visual novels, as well as mini-games.
As per usual, the video opens up with various Touhou-based games, which still remain incredibly popular. After that, starting at around the 6:40 minute mark, authors of original games got their turn to show-off their creations. Finally, at around the 1:10:00 mark there is the Petit Summary where we only get a glimpse of upcoming games.
Once again thanks goes to EdelweissNal who year in and year out does these compilation videos.
Higurashi When They Cry and Umineko When They Cry are some of the most remarkable visual novels out there. Starting out as little more than doujin titles, they quickly grew in popularity and rightfully so. The last installment of these games was released way back in 2011 and a new installment in the series is long overdue.
According to the tweet from 07th Expansion, the company behind these games, they are happy to see fans cosplay at Comiket even when the weather is cold, and promise that the When They Cry series will continue in 2017 with an all new story:
Both of the original games were released chapter by chapter once every 6 months. The games share similar themes, but ultimately they have a totally different story. Higurashi Tells the tale of a group of friends and their slow decedent into madness as they effortlessly try to piece together what is happening in a small remote village. Umineko, on the other hand, opts for something completely different with its excellent murder mystery set in a mansion on an isolated island haunted by a witch. Both games are available officially in the west thanks to MangaGamer. Higurashi is offered in 4 chapters, each sold separately just like when the game was originally released in Japan. The first 4 chapters of Umineko (question arc) are available as part of a bundle and offer a meaty 40 hours of story.
If you are new to the franchise you can check out our reviews for both Higurashi and Umineko.
Just like every year we bring you the latest lineup of crazy doujin games fresh from Japan. Comiket 91 was held from 29th until the 31st of December. Strap yourself in for over an hour and a half of footage.
Some noteworthy games are Giraffe and Annika where you play as an adorable sorceress who battles enemies in a dance show down. Grab the demo from the developer’s official website. Never Over Again a creepy first person platformer where you have the power to remove your own wrists – it is as weird as it sounds. Made by Daisen, the same team behind the innovative Lethal Application, Tower Offense has you stacking girls in an attempt to take out giant robotic enemies. Shikabane Panidemic is a game where you must infect all the agents in a level by spreading a zombie pandemic and luring the potential victims. Finally, there is Sakuna, a beautiful actin side-scroller with a detailed farming system.
2D exploration shooter Kamio Recoil, from indie developer Hanaji Games, is now available on Steam! Previewed at Winter Comiket in 2014, the game has now been localised and published with the help of doujin circle Shindenken. Check out the game’s trailer below:
The human race is under attack from an army of yokai equipped with the latest technological weaponry, causing chaos across the globe! 5 girls with special powers have been assembled to go into subspace and fight the threat!
Features Include:
– Zero-Gravity Exploration and Shooting
– Weapon Recoil-Driven Movement – Propel yourself through zero-gravity with every shot!
– Five Unique Spirit Arms – Each with a primary and secondary fire.
– Classic Retro Inspired Challenge – Primary fire consumes HP. Labyrinthine stages. No revives.
– Maidens in Space! (And Other Places) – Six varied areas, each with multiple branching stages.
This looks like a fun little game! The use of the Spirit Arms to navigate the arenas is very interesting, and sounds really tricky combined with its HP usage. So if you like cute girls, shooting, space, or even shooting cute girls through space, go and check it out!
Moekuri is a new anime-style SRPG from Mokyusoft and Culture Select, and it’s available on Steam! Choose from 151 cute girls you can take into battle – all fully voiced and with unique art from comiket artists across Japan!
Moekuri lets you take a party of 6 Creatures into battle, so you can choose your team to best suit your playstyle! There are 25 story mode grid-based stages, as well as a free battle mode for honing your tactics, and an unlockable hard mode for those who crave a challenge.
The art across the game is adorable, which is to be expected with Koi of Is the Order a Rabbit? behind the illustrations for the main cast. The huge amount of characters with unique fighting styles and art is a wonderful feature, and provides lots of incentive for changing up teams and getting to grips with a number of different tactics!
Moekuri is available on Steam for only £8.99 here.
In Kamio Recoil there are five anime girls you have to help escape youkai invasion on the Moon. Get ready to propel yourself in zero gravity through increasingly difficult labyrinth style levels!
In a true doujin fashion Kamio Recoil doesn’t provide you with any backstory or a setup. The game just starts and you will be presented with a fairly basic menu screen, followed by a level select menu. But this isn’t to say that the game would be much more enjoyable with all the added frills. It is straight to the point, although I was a bit weary as to why the promotional artwork wasn’t also used in the game in order to flash out the characters and give them more personality.
Kamio Recoil consists of six unique areas with intersecting paths; you can choose which level you want to play next. There is a tiny little preview on the side that can help you gauge what the main theme of the level is. It reminds us of those old arcade games that make you choose and hope for the best rather than hold your hand and tell you everything will be alright.
The game’s core mechanic is gravity, that is, propelling yourself with your primary fire. We’ve seen similar doujin titles like this before (Lethal Application, Miricle Fly) but the goal in this one is just to get to the next stage. There is no time limit or additional lives, which was a bit surprising at first but at the same time we can guess that the developers chose to omit this, making for a much more relaxed experience.
Kamio Recoil is a type of game that doesn’t really explain the plot, characters or anything really. So most of the stuff you will find out soon enough by playing. If you want to get anywhere in Kamio Recoil, the most important thing to do is keep switching characters often. You will early on find a use for each girl that is part of the colorful cast of characters.
The red girl has a flame thrower, purple shoots out lasers, green has a powerful rocket launcher, brown is a machine gun girl and the pink one is a girly girl with no primary weapon. You might think that in a shooting game like this she might be the most useless character ever, but she and the machine gun girl are the best when trying to get somewhere fast and as a plus she does have a fairly powerful sniper as a secondary weapon which is useful when picking off enemies.
You have a number of shots for each girl’s primary and secondary attack. The primary attack also counts as each girl’s health. Enemies damage your primary firepower and when you run out of ammo your girl is dead. When you lose a character you can’t revive it until the next level, but you can replenish both shots with power-ups scattered throughout the levels.
After finishing a few levels and clearing the area there is a boss waiting to test your skills. These boss battles become increasingly difficult making it a rewarding experience. The difficulty isn’t too high but it is challenging enough to make you feel rewarded when you clear the area.
Areas in the game can be pretty varied and we especially loved the water stages which were one of the more trickier with a constantly shifting current propelling you in different directions. A number of times we were left with only one girl on her last legs scurrying to get to the level exit and failing miserably. Those were the most memorable moments and most funny too.
With satisfying score and cute graphics coupled with interesting gameplay, Kamio Recoil offers a lot of fun, while keeping the frustration associated with the genre at minimal. Definitely there is something here for everyone, but those really tough hard-core gamers would be inclined to look elsewhere for more challenging gameplay.
We described Rabi-Ribi as “Bullet Hell meets Metroidvania”, and that’s still probably the best way to put it. It’s got a lot of retro flair, but handles with the slickness you’d expect of a modern game. You play as Erina, a bunny who has been transformed into a bunny-girl. All she wants is to return home to being a bunny, but she’ll have to take care of business on Rabi-Ribi island first.
It might be a bullet hell cross action platformer, but that doesn’t mean it’s as rock solid as some of the competition out there. It’s actually pretty generous.
Each and every boss in the game is memorable and each encounter is a challenge. Losing never feels frustrating, since a save point is always just a few steps earlier.
It’s a fairly big game that should take around 15 hours to beat. That’s quite a bit of adventuring! Read our review of the PC version here, and take a look at our exercept from it below:
Amazing production values for a doujin title. Absolutely every aspect of the game is polished beyond belief. From the detailed sugar filled with cuteness pixel art graphics, with artworks that sometimes dips into fanservice, to beautifully animated stylish menus, to the massive soundtrack that has a catchy tune for every occasion, there is so much that Rabi-Ribi does right. Even the minute details make this game stand out, one example is the music which slows down when in you are underwater or slowed down.
Features
– Retro exploration platformer.
– 4+ difficulty settings for all types of players.
– 9+ main areas and 20+ sub-areas to explore.
– Over 60 items and upgrades.
– Over 20 fully illustrated characters with cutscene illustrations.
– 40+ boss battles, 1000+ attack patterns with Boss Rush Mode to fight some or all of them in a row.
– Post-game story and content with speedrun mode.
– Over 50+ pieces from an original soundtrack.
– English, German, French, Spanish, Chinese and Japanese language support.
– Bunnies!
Rabi-Ribi will be releasing Q3 2017 on PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita in Europe.
It’s that time of year again. Comiket 92 is upon us as are countless refreshing games. As always, aside from the numerous visual novels and shmups, expect innovative, stylish and even baffling games in the lineup.
Among the noteworthy games is Tower Offense which has you stacking characters in a side-scrolling shooter. Next there is Elmia which is a 2D platformer. However, the twist is that you can warp has you warping around through obstacles. Nussoft, the team that brought Neo Aquarium and Ace of Seafood, now brings us Crab Battle, where two giant enemy crabs duke it out under the sea. Another crazy title is Isu Simulator. Here you play as a chair with fairy wings and strapped on machine guns, and you have to fly around and take out foes in a vast desert.
As always, Comiket 92 will take place from the 11th until the 13th of August in the Tokyo International Exhibition Center.
Check out the video showcasing this lineup bellow thanks to EdelweissNal:
Tokyo will see its 93rd Comiket from the 29th to 31st December at the Tokyo Big Sight convention center. As always, we got a glimpse of the upcoming doujin titles in the latest video from EdelweissNal which shows off well over an hour of trailers.
The lineup of games was varied, featuring everything from creative puzzle games to traditional shmups, to bizarre but nevertheless captivating titles.
Among the more promising titles is Left Orders, a stunning atmospheric point and click which features combat mechanics.
For those looking for a bit more strategy in their games, there is Heroic syndrome which has you placing your troops around the map in a mix of tower defense and a fast-paced real-time strategy game.
Finally, Setsuna-Augmentum is a super-stylish blazing fast action game where the game periodically slows down in order to let you see the intense action, making the whole experience feel like an elegant dance.
Let us know which of the games you are most excited for in the comments below.
If you’ve been following Asian video game development for a while, doubtless you’ll be familiar with the concept of “doujin” games — these are essentially the Japanese equivalent of our indie sector.
Typically developed by very small teams with limited budgets, doujin games are sometimes based on established properties, and often provide creative takes on established formulae that perhaps don’t get the love and attention from mainstream development that they once did. If you want to play some games inspired by the classic arcade games of yore — among other things! — the doujin sector is the place you should be checking out.
So with that in mind, here’s ten top picks from that doujin sector that you can play right now on your Nintendo Switch.
One Way Heroics Plus
This game provides one of the most creative takes on the roguelike format that there has ever been. Instead of exploring endless dungeons, you’re exploring an overworld map in an attempt to take down the Demon Lord who has been terrorising the land. Only one problem: you’re being pursued by the Darkness, which is slowly but surely swallowing up the land piece by piece.
Mechanically speaking, this means that you constantly need to keep moving “forwards” to the right, and you only have limited time to do things such as interact with people in towns, explore dungeons and suchlike. You’ll need to pay particular attention to the encroaching darkness when performing time-consuming actions such as climbing mountains or traversing water, since it’s all too easy to get swallowed up while you’re not paying attention!
One Way Heroics Plus features a sprawling metagame in which you can upgrade your castle between runs, unlock a variety of new character classes and optionally pursue a “true” ending with some seriously esoteric requirements. Or you can simply enjoy the experience of trying to get as far as you can each time you play; it’s a delightfully flexible game that can be enjoyed in a variety of ways.
Interestingly, Spike Chunsoft licensed this game and remade it for PlayStation 4 and Vita a few years back as Mystery Chronicle: One Way Heroics. Although it was a fun reimagining of the game with a wickedly saucy sense of humour, apparently it didn’t do all that well, as this Switch version is a port of the original doujin title.
Hakoniwa (“box garden”) Explorer Plus is an isometric-perspective action RPG in which you’re free to approach the overall goal of defeating all the bosses as you see fit. If you just fancy exploring what the game describes as a “wiggly, weird dot-style world”, you can take your time doing that.
Did I mention all the game’s bosses are enormous pixel-art monster girls, many of whom can be found in a variety of somewhat suggestive poses when you stumble across them? No? Well, they are, and that’s a big part of the appeal of Hakoniwa Explorer Plus. That and the fact that your ever-present adventure advisor is a swimsuit-clad girl named, of course, Sukumizu.
This delightful doujin game takes great pains to point out that you should approach anyone you wish to speak to from the front. This is due to its revolutionary butt-touching mechanic, in which approaching anyone from the rear will not initiate a conversation, but will instead cause your character to touch their butt. Sadly, this normally does not lead to a desirable outcome for your character — particularly when Sukumizu is concerned — so you should always take care when approaching friendly characters if you would like them to remain friendly. Good advice for life, really.
Probably the most unpronounceable doujin game on this list, Croixleur Sigma is an arcade-style hack-and-slash game inspired by the Bloody Palace mode from the Devil May Cry series. Playing as one of four characters, you’ll fight your way through a string of arena-style stages in an attempt to reach the finish line as quickly as possible. Each of the main characters’ stories has several endings depending on your speed, so there’s a lot of replay value just in the main story mode.
But there’s so much more than that, too. A selection of even more heavily arcade-inspired modes will challenge you to beat your high scores and best times, a Dungeon mode provides an even stiffer challenge than the main game, and an incredibly demanding Challenge mode will infuriate you in the grand tradition of classic Dreamcast games from Sega.
This is a game that started life as a relatively straightforward doujin title on PC, and evolved considerably over the course of several years. The “Sigma” version which can be found on Nintendo Switch is the very best version of the game out there, offering blistering 60fps hack and slash action, cute girls and big swords. What more could you want?
Developed by respected doujin developer Team Ladybug, Touhou Luna Nights is one of many, many, many games based on the world and characters of ZUN’s legendary series of bullet hell shoot ’em ups Touhou. It offers an open-structure 2D platforming experience with a strong emphasis on exploration and action.
Taking on the role of Remilia Scarlet’s maid Sakuya Izayoi, it’s your job to explore a Gensokyo that… just isn’t quite right, and hopefully figure out what the mistress is actually up to. The game features some absolutely stunning pixel art and solid gameplay, and was developed through the Early Access program on Steam. Now that the game is complete, it’s come to Switch so an even wider audience can enjoy it.
Team Ladybug has been around for a good few years at this point, and gained a solid reputation for their doujin games based on properties such as Shin Megami Tensei as well as their own original titles. Touhou Luna Nights makes a distinct effort to provide an experience that is friendly to Touhou newcomers, but which also provides plenty of things that will make established fans happy — such as the adaptation of the series’ “graze” mechanics into a 2D platforming format. Expect a stiff but enjoyable challenge from this one!
If you enjoyed the recent Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin — and it sounds like a lot of you did — the back catalogue of doujin developer Edelweiss is well worth checking out, since it consists of some immensely solid titles with incredible production values. Astebreed is one of their all-time best games, combining solid and creative shoot ’em up action with a mecha anime-inspired narrative and absolutely beautiful presentation.
In Astebreed, you take control of Roy, pilot of the mecha Crossbreed, as you attempt to discover the dark truth behind the Filune invasion — and what it has to do with the sisters Fio and Esto. The story has some exceedingly peculiar twists and turns over the course of its relatively short runtime — one should expect nothing less from a mecha anime-inspired work — but provides an exciting and thrilling tale to enjoy alongside all the blasting. Alternatively, you can actually turn all the story dialogue off and play it as a straight shooter if you desire!
Astebreed is noteworthy for its dynamically changing play styles and camera angles. Levels will often switch from side-scrolling to top-down to 3D rail shooter at a moment’s notice, so you’ll need to be ready to deal with these changes when they happen. With multiple difficulty levels, an excellent score analysis system and some interesting mechanics that take a bit of mastering, Astebreed is one of the best modern shoot ’em ups out there.
I take it back; Croixleur has a rival in the unpronounceable stakes with this one. Don’t let that put you off, though; Cresteaju has an interesting heritage that makes it well worth checking out.
Developed by an individual known only as Shou back in 2001, the original PC release of Cresteaju became something of a surprise hit in Japan back around the turn of the century. It offered a challenging, lengthy scenario that took around 30 hours to complete, and its strategic battle system proved very popular with its audience.
The Switch-exclusive remake remains true to the original 2001 title, but revamps the battle screen to be in full HD widescreen. Japanese character voices have been added to battle scenes, new background music has been added and original author Shou has written a number of new scenarios to add to the game. There’s also an online ranking system to compete against others for the fastest clear time and postgame content to unlock.
Cresteaju is probably the hardest sell on this list due to its dated visuals, even in its remastered scenes. Give it a chance, though; there’s some really solid gameplay to be enjoyed in this one, and although it’s not especially well-known in the west, it’s an interesting piece of doujin history well worth taking the time to explore.
