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Sora Kake Girl is not the best DSi shmup out there (that probably would be Metal Torrent), but it intrigued me for quite a while and felt so elusive, so I had to play it sooner or later.

Back then, it was only available on the JP DSi Store/eShop. Region-locking sucks. Since it was so niche and also relatively inaccessible, there really wasn't much coverage of the game or footage of higher level runs. Even the official website ( https://web.archive.org/web/20150118004506/http://www.itl.ne.jp/title/sorakake.html ) was lacking in game footage. There were a few basic written reviews in some gaming websites as well as a more in-depth French review on shmup'em all ( http://forum.shmupemall.com/viewtopic.php?f=5 ) which was probably the best source of info you could get even if the player didn't unlock all the difficulty levels.

The game got delisted in 2014, even before the entire DSiWare and 3DS eShop got closed, which didn't help. The likely reason is licensing, because this shmup is based on the anime "The Girl who leapt through Space", which I haven't watched yet. I watched "The Girl who leapt through Time" though! But AFAIK these two aren't related like a Palkia and Dialga would, nope! After playing this, I feel like I should check it out. It sounds cool. Robots and pretty anime girls, what more do you want? An entertaining story I hope!

You have three player characters, 4 stages, bombs, a lot of hit points, and a form change ability that lets you switch between 2 forms with each their sprite, shot type, and speed. In the lower difficulties, clearing is pretty simple since you are fed so many resources, of which there are three : power, life recharge, and bombs. Power is very quickly maxed and there's no power loss (why even have powerups then, aside from the gallery unlockable for clearing a stage at default power?). Once you reach max power, life points are dropped by enemies if you are not maxed out on life, and then whenever you are maxed out on life you get bombs instead. It's really generous, and since bombs are capped at 3, you could spam them quite a bit.

Higher difficulties are a different matter though. While still quite accessible since the life point drops are still there, you eventually don't get any bomb drops anymore, and you just have 3 per stage. This comes into play for Kagura difficulty, which is the hardest AFAIK (Clearing it didn't unlock yet another difficulty like it did for previous difficulty levels). Revenge bullets on ennemies, boss health a bit higher, no bomb drops. The second-highest difficulty already had those characteristics but this makes the revenge bullets faster. The girl I'm playing as has a wave shot that erases bullets and I am not even sure Kagura level is reasonable without her? Or perhaps the other two would often need to stop shooting, which sounds ehhh. But Kammagi seems to be the best overall, maybe why you unlock her last.

Enemy waves are not too bad for the most part since you can euro your way through anyways but the main source of deaths is gonna be the (mid)bosses as you don't get life restores on them. I like to keep my bombs for those, especially the last one which can go wrong fast in that winder or DNA spiral patterns.

Oh there's also a scoring system with multipliers! Killing enemies spawns these gold number items which reflect your current multiplier. You can also collect them for extra points. The multiplier keeps increasing as long as there is an item on screen, but if there's none it resets to 1. Wait, it is kinda like Metal Torrent cube chaining now that I think about it! I actually fucked up for this in stage 2 here, breaking the chain halfway through even though it is a fairly simple section to score on. Oops.

Scoring is encouraged as well to unlock most of the in-game gallery artworks. Cumulative score is a condition for many of the pictures of the girls (and mechas I guess), and while the multiplier is capped at 10 in the easiest difficulties, it can get much higher in the higher difficulties. I wanna say 99 is the cap but no idea if 3-digit is actually possible. I often get close to it in stage 3, but not beyond. Since the highest multiplier you got in a stage also applies to the end-of-stage bonuses, you will be the girl who leaps through numbers! Not a bad way to push you not to stick to easy mode.

After all these years of wondering how the game is like, I have to say it was fun to finally try it out! I didn't have huge expectations but the higher difficulties and scoring system were a pleasant surprise as I assumed it would be a much more basic game. Also there's so much artwork from the anime to check out!

Sure, the euro life bar aspect, the horrible SFX sound balance (with no options to adjust it from what I've looked WTF), and the character viability may not be the best but it was a good way to spend an evening...or a night should I say actually as you can see from the displayed clock hahaha.

Played on melonDS 0.9.5