Shoot the enemy: PlatineDispositif's Dandelion Starchild Journey

(tags game, Windows, doujin, mouse, shmup, puzzle)

I made my usual rounds on Wednesday to anime stores. I haven't visited Melon Books in a while, but I saw doujin game maker PlatineDispositif released another game called Dandelion Starchild Journey (だんでらいよん、MSCD-0024) for about 1500 yen. (Try the demo here). Anything that looks like a shmup by PlatineDispositif is an automatic buy for me, unfortunately I don't have the skill to complete their games. The back cover had some bullet patterns, but Melon Books classified it as a "action game" instead of "shooting". I thought, I'll buy it and figure it out at home.

So I got home, installed the game and gripped the gamepad controller. Nothing happened at the start up screen. My mind raced with "my controller's b0rken" until I bumped my mouse. Ugh, a mouse game! Then I jumped directly into the game without doing the tutorial. I don't get it. I click expecting to shoot something and nothing happens. I had to do the tutorial slowly, and it wasn't until the fifth or sixth chapter in the tutorial that things finally clicked.

Well hey the game play is different, not just another shmup. The bullets and bullet patterns were very PlatineDispositif. It was as hard, as expected. Whoa, my computer is slowing down when the screen scrolls, lame. Still, it didn't feel very exciting to me. The only thing that was fun to me was the voice telling you to "shoot the enemy" or "dodge the bullets". That and the starfield zooming in with a very interesting effect.

Yet again I play the game before checking the web site for a patch. I must be expecting PC games to be like console games, just insert and go.