Everything is missing

(tags game, doujin, shmup, Ikaruga)

I purchased the game from last post. It's eXceed2nd -VAMPIRE- 属性シールド弾幕シューティング Ver 0.01. No it wasn't even 2100 yen, but 1500 yen. It's no Ikaruga. The subtitle is "attribute-shield" danmaku shooting, and it does deliver that, that is, bullet absorption of light or dark bullets. That's where the similarities end. There's no homing bullets, no three same-color take-down combo system, no high scoring, no inspired enemy movement, no bonus enemies from fast takedown.

The bullet patterns are mundane and reminiscent of some Ikaruga movements, but really its closer to most Cave shmups. One thing that's interesting is that the normal enemies send homicide bullets even if you are the opposite color. This is because the emphasis is on filling up your meter to let loose your forward bomb.

There's also a bonus point system where you get +100 points for downing ememies. You earn extras pretty early.

I can get to level 5 after some practice. The difficulty doesn't ramp up in a smooth climb, rather bosses have out-of-place difficulty. Sometimes the final form of a boss is a push over while its second form is killer hurt me.

Can I just get this off my chest? The bullets are ugly. I suppose we have been spoiled by the eye-candy bullets from Ikaruga, but this one is blocky upscaled crude sprite belching. Oh sure, some of the bullets are glowing, okay those are fine. Its the other 90% of the bullets that have got to be remade for the 21st century.

There are voice actresses acting out the story. One name caught my eye: "ひと美" (Hitomi). As we all know that's actually 北都南 (Minami Hokuto), one of my favorite doujin/ecchi seiyuu voice actresses. She's usually moe moe voice, but this time she's oneesan (older sister) voice here. Not that it adds much to this shmup.

This is a quick, intermediate difficulty shmup. Try the demo for yourself, but I don't think it's worth more than a week's play, even though it's novel.