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My first PS2 vertical shooter. Not quite as magical as I needed it to be. Everything is pretty much 3D here except for the shots and portraits. The game's pretty average. Music isn't memorable, and there aren't any power-ups. You have one life per credit, but every life has 3 hit points. There are 3 main attacks: normal shots, bomb attack, and a special attack. Normal is done by hitting the shot button rapidly, and the special attack is done by holding down the shot button. For the default character, the special attack is a sword-weilding spirit (think of the Stands from JoJo's Bizarre Adventure) that homes in on enemies and attacks. Like DoDonPachi, while using the special attack, your movement greatly slows down, but for every enemy that's defeated while using it you automaticly receive the coins that generate in their place instead of having to fetch them yourself. These coins are the only way you power-up. After a certain number is reached, your character gains a level and the main attack is intensified. There are only 4 levels to gain with no real variety, and when you lose a life, you start off back at level 1. Try to finish off a boss with the special attack for quick level gain though. There is one more interesting form of attack called "tension". If you're in close proximity to enemy fire, your main weapon gets super-charged for second. If your wading through heavy boss fire, sometimes you can have a super charge last an entire battle. Interesting. The game offers unlimited continues, so there's no real challenge to do well. The 3D bg's are a bit soft in the texture department (sorry, no Ikaruga crispness), but get the job done. There are 5 stages and each is divided into 3 sub-levels, the first being a bunch of enemy waves followed by a boss, second stage is usually a huge boss, and the third is another enemy onslaught follow by the real boss of the stage which is a normal-sized character (like you) with psychic powers. The PS2 version has more back story for the characters, but I've yet to investigate that aspect so far. The game does have a "tate" mode ^_^
