Tobi Tsukihime, final shop version with super play DVD

(tags game, Windows, shmup, 横、同人, 月姫, replay-data, 弾幕)

I reviewed the demo of Tobi Tsukihime last year September. Two weeks ago, my local Melon Books got a shipment (apparently it sold out at Comic Market 69) and I quickly bought a copy. It was 1890 yen and this time the shop version includes a super play DVD. I mean, last year's two level demo was enthralling. The music was kickin'. The sheer point scoring feeling and sprite storm was mega stokin'. It was a no-brainer to pick it up. And I'm glad I did!!!!1 It's been calling me pretty much for the last couple of days, now that I figured out the scoring system. (What is the "magic" gauge? What is the "amber" gauge? What is the shot gauge? What is the combo gauge?) Of course I spoiled myself by watching the super play DVD. I don't have time to figure out this stuff by myself anyway.

You can check out a movie of this game by downloading the Comic Market 69 advertise movie (63 MB, .wmv). Why didn't they include this in the shop version? You can also try out a free demo of the game (preview 2, stage 1 only, easy difficulty only, 19MB).

Right now I'm having fun just stage selecting "normal" "last stage" and trying to make the points rain in. What I mean by that is if you pass a certain condition, you start getting more and more bonus points. The "presents" start appearing and you start auto-collecting them in increasing frequency. The sound effects reward you by telling you you're raking in the points. The last stage is not overly difficult danmaku but rich in "presents", and this makes it ideal for practice. The screen fills with "presents" and your drone racks up the kills with its half-screen barrier. The whole screen is noisy and you can't tell friend or foe, but the auto-collect kicks in with all the "presents" flowing toward you, the level-up chirp whistles, each present shows a "+100" at it's screen position (very noisy but very satisfying), and your score skyrockets. Ah the feeling of just making the system work for you. What the hey, I'm a sucker for shmup bells and whistles.

I even like the sound effect when you get hit by a bullet and die. How can I describe it? Somebody knocking you off your broom with a bamboo mallet? Okay, that doesn't describe it at all.

This time, the real game brings pictures of the characters and some veneer of story and dialogue. The drawings are very cute and clean. I'm not talking Lum girl eyes, I'm talking To Heart 2 eyes. It's the eyes, everybody is drawing like this now. (This is a topic for another post, however.) But the actual in-game "ship" and "boss" characters are 3d models of the characters, and they are not moe-able at all. They're downright ugly. Ah what the hey, they're servicable.

Looking at the official web page I see that there is a plan to release a original sound track (see the picture above). I'm going to get this too even though I've played each stage tens of times. The music is urgent rock. Okay, I can't classify music but I can tell you my pulse races when I hear it.

Finally, this game kind of reminds me that I'm still in the mood for collecting the DVDs to the anime Tsukihime (yes, I do care now). I have the first three DVDs, and Sofmap has been keeping the used prices at around 3000 yen. I've recently seen the anime version of Fate/Stay Night and I have come around on Type Moon stuff. Or, at least I have figured out that Tsukihime and Fate/Stay Night are not the same thing, and that Type Moon is the biggest thing to come out of the doujin world out of recent memory. (Yes I don't know squat.)