东方栖霞园 ~ Blue Devil in the Belvedere (Trial) || Lunatic Marisa 1 Miss 2 Bomb Clear
122EIoS devs weren't slacking off - look what got released today! The trial version of Blue Devil in the Belvedere. Nice!
The game sounds promising, maybe with some balancing issues, yet I do really hope later stages to be as challenging, and most importantly - exciting and creative. These days, we have a ton of incredible fangames. Let's hope this one would be too!
(Livestream version of it can be found here: https://youtu.be/u85naal3LPU)
----------
[ OVERVIEW ]
东方栖霞园 ~ Blue Devil in the Belvedere - is a Touhou fangame, made in LuaSTG, released by the same devs responsible for Elegant Impermanence of Sakura, another fangame available on Steam. The trial version got released 28 August, 2020 - so just today. ETA for full version is around 17 April, 2021.
Consists of four difficulties, and three playable characters - aka human crew. Reimu, Marisa and Sakuya are ready to solve the incident at their hands. What's more important, the game can be played in variety of resolutions - both in 16:9 and 4:3 ratios! Magic of LuaSTG it seems.
----------
Game's mechanics / system concentrates around several concepts. At first:
[ Scoring ]
...which fits more the term of "scorevival" unfortunately. Why is that?
Chaining enemy kills increases the score output, by multiplying current point value - as seen in the video.
But beware - dying on the run resets multiplier to x1.00. Bombing has no effects on it, thankfully.
Point items have the same value, regardless to the position. Which is either a bug or intended behaviour. So, do not be afraid to stay bottom and grind from there!
[ Power gems system ]
You gain the bigger power output, the more full gems you possess - visible on the right. Your power oscillates between 0 and 3, with power of 4 being the special case - we'll return to that later.
Power items alone do nothing. Collecting enough power items though, and grazing fills the first bar on the right. Once filled, it will either produce a gem fragment to collect (while on stage), or store them and spawn after clearing the attack (on bosses).
Also, each collected gem or gem fragment invokes auto-collection.
It should be noted that every bomb used reduces the power by 1 (i.e. using gem). A bit like in MoF/SA, but you still need bombs in stock to use.
[ Hyper Mode ]
When you fill all four gem spots, you will temporarily turn into Hyper Mode (exact name is unknown to me, so let it be it). Doing so, your power output is much larger - just like hypers in WBaWC - but at the cost of increased risk.
During it, most of the enemies produce doubled bullets, and many bosses have stronger versions of attacks. So, it is quite risky to collect the gems after reaching Level 3, unless you know what you do.
You can take up to three hits during it. Of course, not without consequences. Every such hit reduces your power by one when it ends. Combined with bombs rule, you might even lose two power when you attempt to death-bomb - something worth noting I guess.
----------
[ MY OPINIONS? ]
The game on its own is quite intriguing. Some new mechanics, I'd say really new at least regarding power itself, might make some runs really spicy! Power directly tied to gem collecting, hyper mode which makes the game even harder...
All of it brings to us, Lunatic players, some real challenge. Hoping for as good or better later stages!
And yet, Stage 1 is a joke in terms of difficulty. Way too easy. Guess it happens, hoping for rebalancing :V
Should play, definitely. Give it a try, fam. This game looks promising - let's hope for the best on the full game release!
----------
Play the trial of Blue Devil in the Belvedere right here: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1365750/__Blue_devil_in_theBelvedere/
Touhou Grand Fangames List (check it out for more!) - http://nazr.in/11ww
Discord (Fangames 'n Chill) - https://discord.gg/wBVwcxU
Twitter (Aka Some Extra Thoughts™️) - https://twitter.com/CreepyNinja_
Patreon (Thanks for your support!) - https://www.patreon.com/creepyninja_
Enjoy! And I hope you'll stay for longer! ^^