Sora

Now that I've somewhat calmed down after FINALLY getting through the last stage, I can say I would eagerly recommend this game to folks. (especially if theyre better at bullet hells than I am)
Controls are really smooth, it sorta allows for you to come up with your own preferred setups for each stage, and, while frustrating, it makes the clearing of each stage WAY more satisfying.
Also, I LOVE the music in this game!! It's darker than some other entries, but that's what I like about it, pure bangers all around.
And, again just like with my Suguri review, it's nice to finally go through the Orange Juice series and learn a bit more about each of the games which all the characters came from. Great time!

This is the second game in the Suguri series developed by Orange_Juice, and I honestly think this is one of their best games period. The main gameplay loop focuses on the dash mechanic - instead of avoiding bullets, you're encourages to in fact dash into them to build up your meter.

While dashing grants you i-frames from bullets, more solid projectiles like missiles, and laser beams cannot be dashed through, and overuse of this mechanic builds up a heat gauge from 0%-300%, the higher that percentage, the more damage you take, thus taking on this risk reward approach.

Bullet patterns and particle effects are gorgeous, DEKU's music is atmospheric and almost thought-provoking at times, I can only hope we'll see more from Orange_Juice in the bullet hell genre one day other than their 100% Orange Juice party game, but this is an impeccable localisation still updated to this year and I highly recommend and hope more people will give a shot.

it's alright

A fairly old game in what is apparently called the "Shoot 'em up" genre, I purchased Sora as a fan of 100% Orange Juice, both for the character you get for having both games on Steam, and to learn about Sora (the character)'s story.

Most stages follow a pattern of going through a stage filled with weak enemies and the occasional mini-boss, followed by a showdown with that stage's boss. While I consider the bosses to be the highlight of these stages, the area leading up to there never felt repetitive to me, as learning how to save as much health as possible for the boss leads you to optimise your path through the stage, sometimes taking out enemies before they even appear on screen.

After playing through normal mode to completion, this is an incredibly fun, albeit short (for the main story), game. The story and world are interesting, the characters are all unique and memorable even just with their character designs, let alone some of their battles!
The dash and heat mechanics, which I assume are unique to this series within the genre, prove a very interesting and satisfying tool to use. Even before I learnt how to use it well, just dashing around in a stage is fun due to the sudden speed you get. It is so fast, in fact, that it would normally be overpowered, but due to the aforementioned heat mechanic it becomes more of a "high risk, high reward" option where the risk is taking more damage and the reward is feeling absolutely awesome.

I couldn't recommend this game more, especially at such a low price point (most games cost twice as much as their story lasts for nowadays, whereas this one was even).

For anyone who does get into it, I recommend the following difficulties based on your case:
Easy - For those who haven't played games known for their difficulty before e.g. Touhou/Souls.
Medium - For those who have played difficult games but not bullet hells e.g. Souls but not Touhou.
Hard - For those who have played bullet hells before. I recommend if this difficulty was fun but a little too easy to check out Special mode as well!

where is the duck where is goofy why is this touhou

This game is cool and I like it personally.

Just some incomplete comments coming from a player who doesn't know anything about the OJ franchise:

Originally, YouTube recommended me one of the soundtracks from this game (Gray hued) and I found myself being invested upon hearing it, so I decided to check out this game and now I am kinda addicted to it!

The game is hard for sure, by the time of reviewing, I still haven't beat StarBreaker in normal mode, but that's expected as I am new to shump games. However, the sense of progression it brings makes me continue to play it (Not because I am a masochist). I could feel that I am improving each day I open up this game, and the progression quite obvious for me.

While there is little lore or stories, It amazed me that all character in this game are quite memorable due to their unique and distinct traits, each character is fighting for their own purpose in this war and there really isn't a real antagonist in this game. Not to mention the background scene and the soundtrack for each level are so well-designed aswell.

If there's anything this game lacks, I would say a way to check the stats of enemies we encounter, more detailed weapon stats and their unlocking requirements.

Game is definitely not for everyone, as you need to spend quite some time to get the hang on it. I would recommend waiting for sales if you want to play this game, as the replayability varies hugely depending on the player.

Last but not least, I want to hug Sora so badly <3

Bullet Hell games has never been a genre I've fully tapped into. I've never played any official Touhou games and I haven't even played the prequel to this game (as of writing this atleast), Suguri. So it makes me wonder, why would I go out of my way to buy a game that just doesn't even seem like it'd be for me? Well, I will get to my reasoning in a bit. First, I want to talk about a few things.

The difficulty of this game is incredibly high, it can take hours even finishing a stage and ramps up in difficulty incredibly quick. Even if you played "easy" mode, it's still incredibly challenging. There is unfortunately no way to make the game easier besides learning the controls and mechanics. (aka, git gud). This is overall a negative for the game, as I would imagine some would want to see this game for its story and characters rather then suffering through the game's difficult gameplay.

The controls are very snappy and fun, I've never had any issues playing with a PC Keyboard. There are several weapons to choose from for your attacks, and it's all nicely customizable. (You DO have to unlock weapons though by playing the game.)

The sound design is simple and pretty generic, but the music for this game is outstanding and one of the highest points in my opinion. DEKU composed an incredible late 2000's-trance OST that meshes perfectly with every stage and boss. Highly recommend to check out the game's OST if you love trance. Grey Hued, Le Train, Regalia, Grand blue, they're all fantastic.

Graphics are nothing to really scream about, it's exactly what it looks like in the store's preview pages. Should not be an issue to run at all. Some nice usage of 3D map environments in the stage backgrounds, though.

Alright. Now that I have yapped for way too long, why *did* I buy this game?

The premise.

The premise for this game is outstanding. Everything about it is completely up my alley. It starts off with a girl who was raised into a world of war where it has lasted so long to the point where nobody even understands why they are fighting anymore. Sora, the main character of the game (which has a double-meaning for this game's theme, since Sora is Sky in Japanese, I believe.) is put to immediate use to fight for her country.

While loyal to her side, she questions the entirety of her purpose and goal in the first mission. After fighting Alte (The first stage's boss), she wakes up and learns that there are still others who cannot fight that want to fix the world to be a brighter place. This overall motivates her to be apart of her own faction and take on the entire world by herself, with NO outside help. The rest of the game follows this path, and it's just an amazing story-telling premise the entire way through that shows the actions of Sora's selfish choice.

While I praise the premise for its high-stakes and concept, the overall story introduces several characters who have their own goals and resolves to fight. There is so much premise in these character designs, themes, and even the music that you are sucked into this world of mystery and chaos and you just want to know even more.

Unfortunately, this game suffers from a lack of further exposition and has little to no interludes between each stages. Every stage will have you jump towards a completely new environment and plot point of Sora's character, which can be incredibly jarring and confusing. There's not enough cutscenes and dialogue to fully flesh out this beautifully tainted world that one like myself would love to learn more of. It's not even a matter of loss of translation or something, there just *isn't* enough descriptions for several characters and plot points. While it DOES add to the game's mystery, it can be rather frustrating not knowing a lot that is going on-- especially in the final mission (which originally WAS the finale for the game, until they added an EX stage that salvaged a bunch of questions.)

There is extra detail of characters and lore in other games such as 100% Orange Juice, 200% Mixed Juice, Acceleration of Suguri 2, etc but it would have been nice to see this game fully flourish in its amazing premise. Sora HD remastered when???

Overall, this is an incredibly fun (and frustrating) game that I highly recommend anyone to pick up and try out despite my nitpicky complaints and rants. Playing Suguri beforehand is recommended as well!

I am hilariously bad at this game

"Hugs end wars."
- Sun Tzu probably

tsih keeps throwing rocks at me