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Certain scenery bits can be destroyed. For example the candles scattered across stage 1, these release extra enemies when you break them (other summons hit them so no idea why Sonay passes over).

Gold chests on hard difficulty, these let you farm tons of extra coins.

Sometimes you'll notice bosses release these spheres that can be destroyed (or ghosts in the Lale fight) and give extra coins for doing so. If you keep Sonay locked onto the boss these sometimes get missed. Like the multiplier fairies, you kinda have to know when these are coming to take advantage of them.

Edit for new discoveries:

Turns out you can trigger extra enemy waves after a midboss. Using Lale's reflect summon to quick kill them (turning it on point-blank, and then one full volley will kill an entire bar), I was able to get additional enemies to attack. You have to be extremely aggressive to pull it off so I don't think I'll incorporate it into my regular play. The opposite is also true, if you let the midboss escape or kill just as it's leaving, the usual first enemy wave after it may fail to show up.

I've been trying out milking the boss patterns that have bonus spheres (not sure what to call them). So far it seems like you can get more points from the extra coins than you would get from more time bonus. Also seeing nice bumps in my score if I don't suicide, as the coin base value drops quite a bit. For a while I would get hit just before the next extend to get more bombs, but as far as score goes this is probably a mistake.

Maybe Sonay's familiar prioritizes active enemies at all times? Is there any part where there aren't any enemies but destroyable ground objects are still there? If so, you could test that theory and check if said famliliar would attack the candles if that's all there is on the screen at the moment.

Those insights about milking and speedkilling are pretty interesting. Previous Shiki games rewarded you in certain stage sections for speedkilling enemy waves, but midbosses were mostly self-contained (and some could be milked like the Shiki 3 stage 3 midboss). Here I imagine that the ground scrolling and the walls make it harder to have freely dynamic wave spawning, but the midboss can now be part of the stage itself so it's easier to have spots in the level design for bonus enemies.

Are the bombs useful for scoring in this game? It looks like it is back to the Shiki 2 formula where dying to get more bombs should mostly be avoided if you are going for score since said bombs are mostly useful for survival. In Shiki 3 you could lose lives against (mid)bosses to replenish your bombs and then use them as hypers to get big score boosts for the next section, but that wouldn't work here since the hidden fairies replace said hypers.

There's some down time after the midboss, with a candle on the left side of the screen. You can even turn on the summon right on top of it, and it'll just hang out over the candle but nothing happens. These objects also don't build the Tension multiplier like bullets/enemies do, so perhaps that's why they get ignored. As always, normal shot will let you get the enemies out of it.

Anyway, normal mode clear. Once I stopped trying to 8x every damn thing in stage 5 it went smoother. The second life bar in the Seytan fight is a great example of milking bonus coins, as it just vomits out orbs to the left/right for most of the pattern. To hit them with Sonay I had to switch to normal shot, as it seems intentionally designed to avoid the area where her familiar hangs out.

I got my physical copy for PS4 and was able to finally do some comparisons to the Switch version. Sadly, it's basically identical and doesn't fix the dithered, slightly wavy background issue. I *think* it looks slightly better, but without two TVs running side-by-side I can't say with enough certainty. Unless you're a physical media psycho like me, you're probably fine with any version of this.

The game also came with a loose artbook and a CD soundtrack, but they weren't listed in the product description as far as I know. The book is actually quite nice for what it's worth, and shows full breakdowns of all the characters and enemies, as well as some unused concepts. The back pages have a few pages of comics for anyone that wants to extend the "story" which I assume is very few players.

IIRC they were a first-press bonus rather than a permanent part of the package, but it looks like some stores still have stock. Given how fast Coffee Talk from the same publisher went, I was expecting the first-press bonuses to be pretty much gone by now.

I managed to make it to the 2nd form of the final boss with 5 bombs and 1 life, only to die in the first section because I forgot how the bullet patterns were, lol. They were those yo-yo circular bullets that he throws at you and they come back to him. I treated them like normal bullets and went right into them. I'll get it someday.

Which character are you using primarily? If you want a quick and dirty 1CC I'd recommend Ode (DLC). Her bomb attack deals serious damage to bosses and allows you to drop at least one on the boss per section of life bar throughout the battles. I wait for the boss to recover, drop one, and then try to queue up another before they start shooting. The cubic mid-bosses stand NO chance, and I can sometimes take them out before they can even get a shot off. At any rate, keep at it! Seems like "the game" is there for the taking if you're getting to the second form of Demon Dude.

For the yoyo pattern, as long as Ihave a way to hit the boss from anywhere on the screen, Ican go middle (easiest to dodge them straight on), then right side of the screen (the yoyos won't reach), then left side of the screen (again yoyos won't reach), repeat. This way I only need to pay attention to a few bullets.

Well, this was in the "wait for sale" pile, and the sale came. $8.50--I used accumulated gold points--so I got it for nothing.

And... Holy moly is it a lot of fun! Love the art, the "grazing increase your shot power" gimmick is excellent, and makes this the most purely enjoyable shooter, since Radirgy Swag.

In interest of full disclosure, I found Mamorukun to also be a blast. So there could just be something about this gameplay style that appeals to me. I'm not sure. But I do know that grabbing this and the Panzer Dragoon remake in the same week, has made this week an all-timer.

Man, I'd love to play this... is there any word on the PC/Steam release? Or has it evaporated?

I was tempted but... call me shallow but it seems like the whole "narrative" is that the sisters are fighting over a guy? That turns me off.

I'm enjoying this a lot but find playing on a switch Lite pretty miserable. Hoping the PC version materialises, because it's really fun but I don't think I'm actually going to play it like this.

Oh man, vertical shmups on the Lite, lol... It's bad enough on a regular Switch handheld--the Lite's screen is even smaller. Stick to horizontal and vertizontal dude. Steredenn is on sale if you don't have it. RIVE is only a buck fifty, haven't tried it yet, but it's supposed to be a good twin stick.

Holy crap! I been playing this all friggin afternoon!

I was tempted but... call me shallow but it seems like the whole "narrative" is that the sisters are fighting over a guy? That turns me off.

It's done in a very lighthearted manner. It's more about how petty and terrible they are rather than what they're actually fighting about...

There is an option to turn off the narrative if you want to, and I think it would get a shame for anyone to miss out on this gem over thematic concerns. As said, it’s all done in a very self-aware tone, with the DLC character basically mocking the core cast as well. It’s the best time I’ve had with a new shmup in a long damn time and certainly well worth the $8.50.

Fine, fine. I bought it. First run just now was pretty fun.

I just finished capturing and uploading a 4.58 billion point all clear with Sonay on Hard Mode (Switch version): https://youtu.be/HuJJNVNQ5aE

I made several stupid errors during the run but hopefully, the routing can help some of you out.

Nice run! While the character you've picked looks like it's one of the easiest for the clear, we can also notice how its homing ability makes you miss out on many of the treasure chests' coins since you have to choose between them or the regular enemies. Seeing that the bombs can also be used to facilitate scoring tricks against bosses or to milk said treasure chests as much as possible when there aren't many enemies to kill is pretty cool too.

I have a few questions about your strategies :

-The death at 4:37 looked intentional since you get back the lost life right after it. Am I assuming wrong and the game should be 1-lifed for optimal score, or are there any reasons to regularly sacrifice your lives to get scoring resources like in Shikigami no Shiro 3 ?

-Is it faster to damage the boss phases with the familiar instead of using the tension shot and then finish off with the familiar? I would assume the tension shot would be a lot more powerful but the power gap may have been decreased compared to the Shikigami games given how quickly the boss phases still seem to be cleared with the familiar.

-Is it always better to keep the boss fairy for their last phase, or is it just more convenient for you? Since some earlier boss phases also spawn enemies I suppose you could use the fairy, kill some enemies and then the boss phase too.

With Sonay, I've found that prioritizing enemy killing over treasure chest milking yields more coins... plus killing enemies on Hard yields more projectiles to scratch keeping the 8x active.



Sadly, that was a complete accident. I really should not have been hit there. Getting hit is pretty bad.. you lose something like ~100 million points each time you take damage (to raise the coin value back to max). It's not really worth suiciding for bombs in this game since resources are handed out like candy. Best to shoot for the No Miss.



Honestly, I haven't really tried drilling the bosses with auto-fire before switching to the familiar. I'll make it a point to try it just to see if it's more powerful.. although, in general, Sonay's familiar deals a fair amount of damage.



The final phase carries the max value, so it's best to try and capitalize on that with a 16x. Although, it is possible to pick up the fairy right before killing the third phase, trigger the 16x kill, and then bomb the 4th phase to do enough damage to kill it as well for a 16x right before the fairy disipates. Of course, the window for that is incredibly slim but I have managed to do it before.

Thanks for sharing some strategies in the game, Kiken! I was replaying the other night with Nur, experimenting with how to maximize my output. I completely forgot about the treasure chests; there probably isn't an easy guide for finding them online.

Nur's familiar makes it a little harder to stay out of danger during a boss, but I find that it's easier to get bonuses on destructible bullets with her circling attack. I have to get better at unlocking the fairies for those final boss phases to make my score jump up.

Played this for the first time today.

There are definitely some barriers to entry. Let's just get the big one out of the way; the art style/themeing is pretty bad. More boobies than an HBO show. And gameplay-wise there are some questionable choices like the environmental hazards. I also no missed the first few stages but since you can only have 3 lives it gave me a bomb instead? That's pretty stupid.

But you know what? I'm having fun.

I don't see this game sniffing anywhere near my top 25 but I am entertained. The dodging is fun and engaging and the difficulty is pretty relaxed. I've only tried 3 characters so far but Sonay seems really stong compared to the other two.
I've played without music so far, so I'll reserve judgment on the OST for another day. Not bad for $8.50.

the idea with the lives is that since you can earn them back pretty quick, they won't let you stockpile them
its more obvious with Castle of Shikigami 3 where you can get lives from score so frequently that suiciding for bombs to then use for MAX-state is part of the scoring process (this game doesn't have that mechanic tho)

So I did some experimentation and here's what I found in regards to using Sonay's auto-fire on bosses... it's only really effective against targets that remain still and that you can perfectly center on. If a boss is moving all over the place, it's far better to use the familiar. Sonay's auto-fire has a hard sprite draw-limit in both normal and tension shot varieties. Let's say for the sake of explanation that normal is 6 salvos (4 spear bullets wide) and tension is 9 salvos (6 spear bullets wide) on screen simultaneously. If either of those limits are hit, Sonay must wait for one of the salvos to either make contact with an enemy/obstacle (all bullets of the salvo) or pass off-screen before another salvo can be fired. This is complicated by the fact that if Sonay isn't centered on a target (hitting with all spear bullets of a salvo) then any stray spear bullets that don't hit the intended target keep moving and count (as a full salvo) toward the sprite draw limit.

Example, about a third the way up the screen, Sonay is firing her normal shot at a target that's at close-ish range (but not close enough to trigger tension shot). She is only hitting with 3 of the 4 bullets in each salvo, thus, the remaining bullets are each traveling the full length of the screen. As a result, after 6 salvos are fired, one shot from each is still on screen and Sonay hits the draw limit. This causes a gap in her firing (the same as if she was just shooting upward from the bottom of the screen with nothing in front of her). She can't fire another normal shot salvo until the first remaining bullet either makes contact or leaves the screen.

After testing with a couple of the other characters, it seems that Sonay's auto-fire rate and draw limit rate are the lowest (which makes total sense from a balancing viewpoint when you consider how efficient her charge attack is). So while the shot draw limits are active on all characters, the rest of the cast is impacted less as their values seem much higher.

Got well in the top 100 with Ece. Not so much of a feat seeing that she seems to be by and large the least popular character. But I'm happy...

Onward to the top 50!

I picked this up on the switch while on sale for just under a tenner. Really great fun and got in top 100 with Sonay after about an hour. Games beautifully simple but seems to have a lot more depth than some really bad reviews would have you believe.

Topic subject mentions PC - what's the deal with a PC release? Confirmed?

This is the sort of game that looks easy to slam in reviews. Alfa System have made quality shmups in the past and I think they did here as well. Is it among the pantheon of great shmups, of course not, but I think its a solid "C" and the price is right for genre enthusiasts.

I got my $8.50 worth out it, for sure.

Kiken : Thanks for the technical breakdown! It seems like Sonay's familiar VS tension shot damage output is an inversion to Kuga's weaker shiki and stronger shot. I imagine that was made in order to make her character even more accessible for newcomers to the game.

Norty : According to this article about the initial announcement, the PC version is planned for later. (And so is the XONE version) :
https://www.gematsu.com/2019/08/shoot-e ... d-pc-later
I am waiting for it, hope it won't take too long to join the fun.

Plus, when her familiar locks on to a target, the entire model becomes a giant damage box (IIRC in the Shiki games, only the knife/talisman of Kohtaro's familiar had a hurt box). This is really apparent when attempting to milk the orbiting crystals during the stage 1 boss fight. Once the familiar is locked onto a crystal, if it's anywhere other than directly in front of the boss, it's dealing damage to her (and at the exact same rate as if it was directly locked on to her).



I guess if you're playing on a Switch Lite, the best option is to set the game to display in tate, place the console on a vert stand and then link another controller/joystick so you're not stuck trying to use the built-in joycons. Even then, you'd have to have the screen less than 12 inches from your face.

That said, it's clear from the chibi designs and the overall default size of the bullets that Alfa System understood that most players would be playing on a horizontal display (either directly on the unit or docked to a TV) as everything feels far chunkier than the Shiki series. I find that the game actually feels comfortable playing in yoko on my 22 inch LCD screen.

What's the way to trigger the treasure chests? Is it based on standing in a specific spot and attacking/using a familiar?

I feel pretty good playing this game in yoko. Slightly less in handheld mode but the game's difficulty on Normal isn't going to tax your reading ability on a small screen.
Game's pretty good fellas, try it out.

Game title makes me hungry as fuck, sounds like ROYALE W/ CHEEZE

Also, cute running animations! I may have to give this a look, I like the groundtype shumping and the Shikigamis too.