Game:

Graze Counter (2017)

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Hey ho folks, yeah it takes me awhile to upload as of lately, a lot of things have just been happening is all (and also me just being lazy.)

Anyways I knew about this via GM on the switch which is a remake of the original. There's not much else for me to say about this really, good music, fair challenge and the risk reward gimmick that's just incredibly broken making this an casual bullet hell game.

Plot is that two teens, a cosplayer and a guy turned woman pilot their respective ships to save people trapped in the cyberspace overlooked by the virtual network Eden. GM explains it better since this game only has dialogue between characters, only the last boss tells you the what EDEN (better version of earth from what I can garner since the final boss calls it a utopia) is and why she's done it.

It's got 5 stages, 3 levels of difficulty, Extra stage and three game modes, Normal, Pacifist and Unlimited. Pacifist mode is just using the graze counter, you're normal attacks and the break meter aren't present, Normal is what it is and Unlimited which from what I can tell just speeds up the bullet speed with the addition of suicide bullets for Arcade difficulty now instead of it just being expert.

There's a lot of ships to choose from, you unlock them by clearing the game with a specific ship. Each ship has it's own shot type, you start of with Uzuki and Satsuki. Although honestly with the gimmick it has any ship works fine.

Once you have a ship selected you can choose a buff of your choice, auto shield/shield every 15 seconds if you get hit, overgraze where bullets disappear if you graze too much and extended guard which basically shields you when you counter or break (will get into this in a bit.)

So what's the gimmick here? It's in the title, you graze enemies and counter them with your laser. You can graze counter when your meter is half (it'll turn blue to let you know can counter.) At full meter though you'll be surrounded by a barrier when you fire your laser BUT if you're buff was extended guard then the barrier will also appear when you graze counter at half meter. The biggest advantage of this is that not only does it deal heavy damage it also clears bullets making every stage easy, bosses even if you keep grazing non stop.

Now comes the break meter, it's only filled up via the golden stars you get when hitting enemies or obstacles with your graze counter laser. Once full, your ship gets a huge damage boost along with your bullets being bigger which can shred a lot of enemies and bosses, however unlike the graze counter you don't have a barrier to cover you, so long as you have auto shield or a shield pick up even, you can tank it. You can also cancel this if you're having trouble a pattern or get cornered by doing a graze counter.

Given the overpower gimmick you have, any ship will work fine, I much recommend Satsuki's though since her ship has more power, if you really want some challenge you can play the game as a regular bullet hell and just dodge. Good music, smooth gameplay along with a cute artstyle going on, there's really not much else for me to complain here about, it's a super casual bullet hell.

It goes for cheap as well, GM just has more content and goes for a little money, if you can't afford it then base game is fine. Only advice I have first is play mission mode/training mode to get familiar with how the graze counter and barriers work, Hayate best girl.

If you like my runs be sure to check out the group I'm in if you want to see us play more good ol fashion retro games!
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