Preliminary: Welp, after a few disappointing games where the ideas were cool but in reality felt dull or tedious, I came into this unsure. Seemed like another adventure-influenced shmup that unfortunately had the controls where the direction you want to shoot is the way you have to go. I'm never a fan of that. But after a preliminary playtest, actually getting through the first stage quite quickly (tho I'm sure I missed some stuff), this seems like a very worthy title!

Look: 8/10 Super cute. I love all the Shinto imagery and references. And lol I love the girl's head that jumps out at you! Not my screenshot but to show what I mean

The sprites keep reminding me of that pixel art world I've always wanted to become a bigger part of but don't have the right mindset to create. I always wanted to make my own PC RPG Maker art but never managed to. A lot of these sprites are what I pictured in my head though ha, especially the boss sprites.

Sound: 7/10 For the most part, just decent and fun. Some real fun parts to the jingle though. Really just not enough variety to the songs, though, especially for being such a quality arcade game. I did love the jingle with the bass-heavy percussion after Scene 7 though! When all the people you saved come thank you... or ... well I don't read Japanese but. And decent credits jingle.

Play: 8/10 I love how you can just jump in and play. Been a while since I had that. And it's also nice to add that replayable factor where there are hidden items to find, lots of power-ups, etc. Not quite the Tecmo platformer vibe of in-depth secrets or Nintendo absurd secrets, but a good balance imo. (Oh shoot turns out there's lots of replayability in the sense that when it does the usual re-cycle, it's not just a higher difficulty but some different mechanics for the bosses.) Also cool how, for instance, going through a torii can get the weird clingy enemies off of you. Other nice little touches.

As I continued on to the 4th stage, gotta love those tight arcade controls for last-second dodges and shots. And those accurate, forgiving collision masks. I was starting to think the game was quite easy for 86... but as expected with a quality shmup, there's a quality difficulty curve. And I definitely felt that starting up more and more in Scene 4 (as it should be for replayability and arcade fervor). It was also on Scene 4 that I realized how valuable the Purifying Wand is: not only for those lanterns for power-ups, but also a great melee weapon! Comes in handy when you have swarms like in Scene 4! (and seems more powerful than your projectiles). It was also on Scene 4 that I first got that taste of usual later shmups part where it's more about surviving than massacring. It was allllso on Scene 4 that I realized how grateful I am that there's not a time limit factor, never been a factor of that in games except maybe as a way to get a higher score not as a way to kill you off. Better to take your time in Scene 4 tho I'm sure in the later scenes I'll just do the 1942 chaos method where I just push forward and try to dodge projectiles and enemies lol.

Pro-tip: You can fall off bridges and cliffs and whatnot unlike a lot of shmups of this style :-X learned that the hard way

One-hit kill is a bit brutal. I wonder if a power-up eliminates that factor hmmm. I love that there isn't a limit to how much ammo you have or to your purifying wand. I also like, as I have mentioned, that the controls are so tight and collision masks so accurate that you can last-second dodge even when you think all was lost.

Feel: 9/10 Lol I love this "The boss of stage 1 is known as a mametou, which is quite literally a bean head. His name is Zuzu." Cute look, good concept, interesting Shinto references, really neat bosses. And I know this is petty, but I love that it actually shows that I'm doing damage to the bosses. For the first boss, I assumed you had to hit the eyes to do damage, but luckily it indicated to me that I was doing damage even when I missed the eyes. Etc. Also petty but I like that the Key to unlock the boss is always straightforwardly visible: like let secrets be secret/hidden, but if someone wants to just enjoy a shmup, let us enjoy it! I've been liking the blending of adventure and action genres in 86 but dang did too many games focus on the tedious side of adventure games imo.

Something adventure game-y about the way the doors open up after bosses; instead of a new stage loaded it felt like you were continuing your journey on the same world map so to speak. Speaking of adventure game feels (done right in this case, unlike King's Knight imo), for some reason the bosses reminded me of Zelda? In both look and mechanic.

Attachment: 9/10 After that 15ish min preliminary playtest (unfortunately I was playing it in a way I couldn't accurately keep track of playtime), I knew I would come back.

And sure enough, I did. I was still having fun as I wrapped up scene 3. That's a good sign. I do wish you didn't have to walk in the direction you shoot; I do wish the Sound was a bit more endearing; and I do wish the boss mechanics were a bit more interesting (I wound up taking that back, the boss mechanics are fine, just took me a second to adjust to them not being how I expect shmup bosses to be). But I only wish those things because I want this to be a favorite, not just a great game. And that says a lot. What also says a lot is I started back from the beginning on a system that can keep track of my playtime. Good stuff!

And as I was finishing up Scene 6, getting to that point in the regular levels where it was borderline 1942-style where I was just surviving not really exploring or going for points anymore and just focused on finishing up, I was thinking how the lack of interesting smup style boss mechanics was one of the main issues with the game. And then I got the Scene 6 boss. Interesting! And the Scene 7 boss (pro-tip: exploit that boss's weakness to your Purifying Wand stunning him and then shoot him as much as possible in between. Don't give him a chance to recover, go right back to that wand when he's about to recover!). Definitely spiced up more. Not to mention, really, this had a lot of later Zelda boss ideas in it already, I just wasn't feeling it as shmup bosses I suppose.

Not in love with the Stage 8 mechanic it's borderline Nintendo/Mario secret style where you have to find hidden scrolls for it to stop endlessly scrolling, don't be like me and just keep going and going proud of yourself for not dying though hey, it boosted my score ha.. Wait... was that it? No final boss? Boo! That allllmost makes me wanna replay at least the first Scene and see what the revamped bosses are like.

In the end, the only 2 drawbacks that stuck were the repetitive Sound and the mechanic factor where you have to take steps in the direction you want to shoot (it even has a faux set ending, despite re-cycling!). Great game. As per usual, I wasn't willing to start back at Scene 1 with a higher difficulty, tho the fact I even slightly considered it says a lot. This will be on my list of 86 shoot em ups for sure, and definitely the best of the combination adventure-shmup I've seen a lot of in 86! And yay that it's the start of a series!

... ok yea I wound up doing Scene 1 again ("Scene 9") just to see. It definitely was more difficult but still completed it quite quickly and without dying. Who knows, maybe I'll play through the "new game plus" some time!

Completion: All 8 unique scenes, then replayed the 1st one on the higher difficulty. 269, 350 Score Playtime: ~33 minutes (plus the ~15 minutes spent on the initial playtest)