Graze Counter GM (XBOX One - X|S - PS4|5 - Switch - PC)

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Sturmvogel Prime
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Graze Counter GM (XBOX One - X|S - PS4|5 - Switch - PC)

Post by Sturmvogel Prime »

DANGER ZONE (PART XXVIII)
DOUJIN SHMUPPING "GM" STYLE.


Time to review an indie shmup. This time is not Graze Counter, but Graze Counter GM. ¿GM? ¿Like General Motors? Well, this ain't "People building transportation to serve people" but what I'll do in this review is more like "Gamer writing reviews to serve people". Yeah, because there's nothing like trying to pick a quality game at quantity price, right?
I've never played the original game, so I'll give a shot to the GM version of this game. First let's go with "GAME START".



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Looks like you're asking for a challenge.

Before starting the game, you can select between two modes that will provide you a certain degree of challenge: Standard and Unlimited modes.
I'll explain what's up with the Unlimited mode later, but first, let's pick the Standard mode, which is the basic "Main" game.



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By now you can choose between two pilots.

Right after selecting the mode you're gonna play, you have to pick your ship. You're granted two options.

Type-1 APRIL DIVIDER - Piloted by Uzuki Ginyose, a crossdresser boy who dresses like a girl for combat reasons, but he feels OK with that. This ship is the spread shot type ship that fires three frontal bullets backed up with two diagonal shots. It's spread shot makes it a good starting choice. This ship can use of three available "Skill Cards", giving it an unique feature to improve performance and gameplay.

Type-2 FREEDOM DANCER - Piloted by Satsuki Furuyama, a boy turned into a girl due to a failed military experiment, this is the full-frontal ship with 7 bullet-wide rapid fire to destroy anything infront of the ship. Like April Divider, it can carry one of the three selectable Skill Cards.

After playing and finishing the game with these two, you'll unlock more ships, and playing with the unlocked ones unlocks even more ships.

Type-3 REVOLGEAR - Piloted by Hayate Katori, a maid who is also a computer genius. This ship is a stronger variant of the April Divider, as it utilizes a 5 way spread instead of three: The frontal 3 bullet wide shot with 4 2-bullets wide diagonal fire, providing a much wider range of attack. This ship can use one of three available "Skill Cards" for it.

Type-4 KIRISAME BLADE - Piloted by Kiriko Kirisame (not related with Marisa. Sorry Touhou Project fans), a Shrine Maiden who thinks Eden is not necessary in human life. This one is another full frontal fire type like Freedom Dancer, but it replaces the two bullets on the sides with large beams to cause more damage. Like the other three, it can carry one of the three selectable Skill Cards.

Type-5 SHADOW DIVIDER - Piloted by "Uzuki Alter." (Alternate), this ship is virtually identical to April Divider in weaponry, but alters the bullet scratching mechanics of the game due to its character exclusive "Exchange" Skill Card. This means bullets will charge the Break attack while the stars obtained through it will fill the Graze Counter gauge.

Type-6 ALTERNATIVE-D (Dancer) - Piloted by Itsuki Furuyama, the real identity of who we know as Satsuki. The true nature of the failed experiment is revealed on this ship: Sex change at free will when the pilot enters the Break Mode as an "Alternate personality". Its weaponry is the same as the Freedom Dancer. Like Shadow Divider, its Skill Card switches the game rules. Itsuki's card is the same as Uzuki Alt.'s, but carries the 15 Second-shield recovery.

Type-7 REVOLSABER - Piloted by Striae Alis, the antagonist AI in charge of Eden who controls the Bullet Angel, the final boss of the game. Her ship is also a three way spread type, but slightly weaker than April Divider since its side bullets are 2-bullets wide. she's also stucked with an unique Skill Card that allows her to unleash 3 attacks simultaneously which is basically all the three default skill cards at once.

Type-8 KIRISAME BLADE 2 - Piloted by "Kiriko Alt." Kiriko with different clothes. Nothing short of poetry. However, her ship plays different from any other ship in the game. Replacing the bullets with a short-ranged swinging beam sword with the 3 Way "cutter" beams as the Break Attack, making it closer to the boss version from Stage 3. Her Skill Card allows her to obtain invincibility when the Graze Counter gauge is fired at 50%. Unless you are an expert in this game, don't pick this one.

Type-9 HAZUKI HACHIMIYA - She is both the ship and pilot, her main weapon is a frontal 3 bullet wide fire, but she's backed with side pods. Her Skill Card is "Peaceful Death" which makes the side pods to fire an Auto-aim vulcan when the enemy is close to her firing radius.

Type-A MACHINERY TOMOKO - Like Hazuki, she's also both ship and pilot at the same time. She's a blazing fast character, so holding the slow-down button is HEAVILY recommended. Her Skill Card and Main Weapon is "Singularity!" which is a Drill Weapon with incredible power. ¿How much?, combined with the Graze Counter attack, the drill can take down the final boss in seconds. However, it is a short ranged weapon, so I can only recommend it if you're a pro in this game.

Type-B PURPRETTIES NEXALTS - Piloted by Rayne Sakurano. This is the ship from Grand Cross Renovation, it features the same spread shot as Revolsaber. Her Skill Card is "Eternal Sphere" which replaces the big bullets with a thin laser which the player can swing and lock in the desired angle by holding the slow-down button. This laser while weak in strength, it can destroy both lasers and bullets and that means spread rapid bullets from bosses, resulting extremely effective for high-scoring.

Type-C SAS-02-G2 ARYS - Piloted by Lily Butler. This is one of the selectable fighters from Morikem/Blue & White's Blue Sabers series, but its based on its Blue Sabers: Early Mission version since Henteko Doujin is also the distributor of that game. Features the same spread shot of the Revolgear. Her Skill Card is the "Another Mission" which summons a GARUDA (short for "Gunship And Reload Unit Directly Airsupport" in Blue Sabers continuity), a large aircraft that replaces the super fast-strong firing with auto-aiming vulcan. But here's the catch: The ship is the slowest of the whole game, which is a double-edged sword effect. While its good for newbies and for those who want to navigate through tight spots, it makes you an easy target at the same time.

Type-D COCOA - A devil-like maid which fires a 3-Way spread of laser beams. Her Skill Card, "Hyper Drive" allows the player to use both Graze Counter and Break Mode attacks simultaneously, resulting in a long burn, "Near-infinite", bomb attack. Good for those who want to fight their way through the game on the Extreme difficulty.

Type-E EUGENE - A cat girl in jogging clothes and sports jacket. Fires a green colored frontal fire just like Freedom Dancer. Her Skill Card is "Manual Shield" which allows her to generate a Shield by bullet scratching.

Type-F SCARLET EDGE - Piloted by Akane Isshiki (not to be confused with the Akane Isshiki from Vividred Operation), Her ship fires the same three way spread fire as April Divider. Her Skill Card "Quick Draw" allows her to increase the charging speed of the Graze Counter for fast beam blasting attacks, making it a good choice for hard difficulties.

Type-0 BLUE LIGHTNING - Piloted by Shizuku Mikazuki, Her weaponry is the same as the Freedom Dancer. Her Skill Card is the "Eternal Memories" and grants her the ability of reduce the consumption of both Graze Counter and Break gauges to 50%, granting the player longer gauge burn times for the sake of High-scoring.



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*In Yami Yugi's voice*
Now, I summon the next card to reinforce my April Divider: The Auto Shield!


Time to talk about the Skill Cards. These give you the ability of perform a special feature for your ship. Like I said, only the first four ships can pick one of the three available cards.
AUTO SHIELD - This card allows you to obtain a shield for free after 15 seconds, making it a good choice for both beginners and expert players.

BREAK BOOSTER - This gives you the ability of charging the Break gauge twice as faster and allows you to enter on Break mode when the gauge is at 50%.

SAFETY SYSTEM - This one grants you the option of being invincible when you fire the Graze Counter with the gauge at 70%.


After unlocking the Types-5 to 0, the game will make a few changes to the main gameplay. Quick learning this is required to make progress and even complete the game.
1.- You've better learn and get used to the new game mechanisms. For example, Shadow Divider and Alternative-D will swap the scratching mechanics of the game. While this turns the gameplay upside-down a little, ironically, it makes much easier to recharge both the Graze Counter and Break gauges, making a switch-recovery between modes much faster, and the refilling of the Break gauge through bullets means one thing: More bonus stars, making them the High Score makers of the game. Also, they can't change their Skill Cards due to this.

2.- The extra and special characters will disable Pacifist Mode. Some of them might provide additional challenge with their presetted configurations.



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No, I'm as great as Mihaly Shilage.
Minimizing the damage received as much as possible before going down.


Once you're done with the game mode, character and program, you have to make one final choice: ¿Which difficulty do you want to play? The descriptions might be funny when you select the higher levels but they're not fooling around, if you decide to play the game on Extreme, the game will make sure you'll see the ultimate in bullet hell terror. If you can make your way out of level 1 with the April Divider on Extreme, consider yourself lucky. The game also allows you to toggle Pacifist Mode on or off. If you're new to this game, Pacifist Mode deactivates the Break Mode and your rapid firing, forcing you to rely on performing Graze Counters all the time, adding even more difficulty to the selected difficulty level.



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Fast, Beam-blasting action from the Doujin PC to your console!

Alright, now that I've explained the pre-game features, let's go with the game. In this vertical shmup, the main mechanism of this game is bullet scratching. Unlike Raiden Fighters Jet, this isn't just for a few added points, it is used to perform the Graze Counter, which is the special attack of your ship. All ships have this frontal murder-beam that destroys bullets and turn them into small stars that grant you points. So this power-up bullet scratching sounds a little more like Risk System and Psyvariar, but actually it is more than powering up. Bullet scratching is also the score multiplier of the game, as long as you're grazing a bullet, your multiplier will rapidly increase, making the score value of an enemy much higher than before up to 1,000 times its default value, so naturally you're gonna be doing bullet scratching for both firepower and bonus. While Raiden Fighters and Risk System required the utmost control of the ship by flying with the ship's default speed, Graze Counter gives you the option of reducing the ship's movement by using a "Slow" button, which is a good solution to flying at normal speeds helping you to navigate through those massive bullet rains and curtains. But you don't have one single special attack to unleash against your enemies. You also have the ability to enter on Break Mode, which works like this: When your Graze Counter beam destroys bullets and cuts through laser beams, these will turn into stars that you can pick. In return, these will fill a red bar on the right side of the screen, once its full, you'll be able to fire a powerful rapid fire that will make your enemies to drop larger bonus stars as they're hit by the heavy bullets you'll be firing. To put things simple, this game is about focusing on fine-yet-easy ship handling and heavy concentration of high-scoring, but in this case, control and navigation are easy to learn despite the bullet hell you'll be facing.



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The "Pick the Shield or the Power" dilemma.

The game will provide you with an Item "selector" where you can pic one of three options. Actually, the game drops up to four, but they're preset on these triangular case.
BOOST: Raises the multipler to 1,000 instantly.
GAUGE: Fills both Graze Counter and Break Mode gauge immediately.
SHIELD: Gives you a shield that protects you from 1 bullet.
1UP: Extra life to keep you in the game a little longer.

At first it looks like you can only pick 1 item, but there's a trick to get all of them at once. ¿How? Simple: Just get in the middle of the triangle and it will spin as it shrinks and it will give you the three items instantly and a "SECRET!" 5,000,000 bonus points for doing this trick.



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"Down in flames" goes that "Ace" mentality of yours.

Boss fights, while at first seems to be the traditional "Blast them before they blast you", they're an exercise of using and switching between the Graze Counter and the Break Mode in order to get the highest score possible too. Although the battles are time-limited, you still have plenty of time to exploit some of their bullet patterns and sometimes to recover the multiplier back to 1,000 if you lose a life during the fight. But the curve ball comes at the final stage where the final boss will activate a shield to protect itself from the Break Mode bullets. The shield will last for at least half of your Break Mode time 'cos you can inflict some damage after depleting part of your Break Mode, but you can exploit that invencibility to obtain more bonus stars without damaging the boss. Learning about this is the difference between life and death in this game. You might be considering the "Pause-unpause-move-pause-unpause-move" trick to navigate through the bullets, but seems like this game already knew you might be pulling that move, 'cos like Sisters Royale and the Dreamcast port of Triggerheart Exelica, the game will drop a countdown to unpause, effectively killing that possibility.



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Those are some bright results.

Everytime you clear a stage, your total of accumulated stars and spare ships will add large amounts of points to your score. This also increases the chances of getting an extra ship through scoring, and combined with the occasional 1Up item, this results in even greater bonus rewards.



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Looks like things "Went Darius" this time.

This is another feature exclusive to the GM version. Before you go to stage 2 and 4, the game will ask you to select if you want Stage 2A/2B or 4A/4B. While Stage 2B was the original Stage 2, and 4A is the default, picking any of those doesn't affect the ending which means good news for those who hate branched paths that lead to endings and the question of "Which one is canonical?".



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Death isn't the end of your enemy. Those green bullets can take you down.

Now that we've played the "Normal" mode, it's time to talk about Unlimited Mode, which makes things even more difficult than the regular game throughout a simple mechanic: Enemies release green bullets when they're destroyed. The rate and amount of projectiles increase depending on the difficulty.



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Basic Training, ideal to learn the ins-and-outs of the game.

Mission Mode is the "Practice Mode" of this game. Each mission involves to perform an objective based on the mechanics of the game. From learning to graze a bullet, get the Secret bonus from the Power Up item and even fighting all the bosses of the game, including the final boss. Curiously, you can get the boss achievements on this mode without playing the main game.


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Think you're a pro on Graze Counter?
Here's a super boss waiting for your challenge.


Extra Mode is the last "Addendum" of the game. The first thing that features is a Practice Mode for those who are new in the game, the All Stage Mode which is clearing all the levels without split-paths. This mode lacks of the pre-boss dialogues since it skips them making it more of an "Arcade" styled game, but unfortunately it lacks of an ending sending you to the Game Over screen once you're done with the mission. Boss Rush pits you in a fight against all of the game's bosses one after another and finally the Extra Stage where you're sent you a variation of Stage 4 with different enemies and an exclusive boss which is a much harder version of the original final boss. I definitely recommend you to play this mode on Normal because this is gonna be a tough battle in the higher levels unless you're a blazing-fast, Psyvariar and Risk System professional with superb skills on Cave shmupping. Like in the normal game, you can choose your ship, defensive card and toggle Pacifist Mode on or off.



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Maid VS Funny-looking Things.

After completing the game 7 times (try to play with each character), you'll unlock Laser Maiden 2, the final bonus game where the final achievement lies up on a simple objective: Getting 30,000 points. The gameplay here is very similar to Galaxian and Space Invaders. You can only shoot one bullet on the screen and if you die once it's Game Over. The goal of this game is to prevent the enemies called "Necokaburis" to reach the ground, if they do they will block your path. Unless you take down a color-flashing enemy that clears the screen with vertical lasers. Screen clearing is the core mechanic here. After taking down a falling Necokaburi, it will became a ghost. Shoot the ghost and it will become an horizontal laser that can kill other falling Necokaburis. While taking down a Necokaburi is worth 100 points, a laser swept enemy is 500 points worth. But you have to be careful with the red enemy that fires 3 way bullets. While you have a fire rate of 1 bullet on the screen, you're granted a fast moving button, allowing Hayate to run across the screen giving you a chance of keeping the enemies from reaching the ground and/or colliding with you. The only off-place thing in this minigame is the use of the Game Over theme from the original game, while it fits on the main game, it contrasts with Laser Maiden 2's hilarious theme. Something like that would be like if in Ace Combat 7 the "Life Lost" theme of The Bugs Bunny's Birthday Blowout plays as Trigger goes down in flames before his jet blows up.



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To Skies Unknown...
The path to mankind's vast future remains standing, Granddad.


Graphically, it feels like a missing TurboGrafx-16 or a Genesis shmup as the graphics and color palettes are quite reminiscent of 16-bit consoles, but with additional arcade inspired visual effects like pixel rotation in some of the enemies in the style and smoothness of Konami's and Namco's arcade games such as, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, The Simpsons, and Assault giving as a result a retro-styled shmup with some modern visual effects without losing its emphasis on pixel-based graphics and does that job pretty damn well at the point that doesn't feel "Home made" at all. After watching gameplays of the original Graze Counter, I've noticed how the menus and most interfaces were redone, looking waaaaay better than before. Like U.N. Squadron, you have the image of your pilot on the screen which reacts to any damage given to the ship. While the original game had a close up of his/her face, in the GM version it is more of a portrait.

One major detail that I've noticed was how inclusive this game was by adding a crossdresser (Uzuki) and a transgender (Satsuki), breaking with the idea of only male or female or all-straight cast in favor of a more open character cast and in a more serious approach without the effeminate jokes of the past or having the non-binary being a robot. While I approve this concept of inclusion, I can't say the same of the drawing style. I know it's anime style, but I've saw better looking characters before. I mean look at ALL of them, it is hard to tell who is the boy and who's the girl 'cos all have the same rounded head and eyes on pure loli style which I strongly dislike. It look a little better than the original Graze Counter artwork, but to put it simple: Pick a better artist for the character design, but to quote Margaret Whitetail from Ginga Force: "Tsugi wa mosukoshi ganbarimasho" (Let's try harder next time), and yes, the artist has to do better the next time he decides to work on a doujin shmup.



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Saviours, the unsung story of the second Vanquish Crystal Defense squadron.

While the graphics are Konami-esque in most apsects, the bosses borrow heavy influences from Raiden in the style of Raiden II and Raiden III as we have Crystal embedded machinery with super overwhelming weaponry, a design which was carried well into Raiden V.

The music of this game is incredible, as it borrows elements of both modern and classic games. with fast, energetic and rhythmic beats and paces, there's reminiscence of titles such as Ginga Force, Triggerheart Exelica, Blazing Star and a few of Thunder Force. For instance, the track "Player Select 2" borrows a guitar similar to the "Capcom Guitar" or "U.N. Squadron Guitar" and it sounds like a Megaman X theme in most parts of the song. But the best song is "Drive All Enemies" (Stage 3) which fills the marks that a shmup track shall include; Calm introduction, got it, fast tempo pace, got it, electronic beats, got it and fast-yet-calm rhythm, you got it. The only flaw I've found is that the music doesn't loop like most games nowadays, instead, it fades off and then repeats like the old CD-based games of the 90's. It is worth to mention that the music was arranged and sounds much better in terms of rhythm and pace, as if we're looking at an exercise of perfection in terms of soundtrack.



TRIVIA COUNTER GM


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SEE YOU NEXT MISSION

- Bullet Angel's name, Striae is the plural for Stria and has different meanings.
-- In Geology it refers to the parallel scratches or grooves on the surface of a rock caused by abrasion resulting from the passage of a glacier, or motion on a fault surface.
-- It is also used to refer fine ridges and grooves on the surface of a crystal caused by irregular growth.
-- In Anatomy it is used to refer a narrow band of colour or a ridge, groove, or similar linear mark, usually occurring in a parallel series.
-- In Architecture, a Stria is a narrow channel, such as a flute on the shaft of a column.
- Striae Alis is also the name of the Scenario Supervisor of the game.

- This is one of the few shmups that includes crossdressers and LGBT characters as protagonists with a more serious approach, making it one step further into equality and inclusion.
- The Itsuki/Satsuki change when Alternative-D enters Break mode is similar to the character gender-change from ESPGaluda.
- This is the second time Blue Sabers is involved in a crossover since Rayging Blue's Conflict Warred where the SAS-05-B3 Epsy appeared as the Musyou, which had a more F-14 like design.
- The GARUDA used by Lily in this game is the the SUA-03-A1 "Congress".
- The ship "Blue Lightning" shares the same name as the Atari Lynx and Jaguar shmup.
- "Blue Lightning" is also the name of the Trophy/Achievement on Raiden IV.
- The "SHMUPS SPIRIT 57300" indicator on the character select screen is a reference to the fighting power level indicator of the Saiyan Scouter from Dragon Ball Z.
- The "Super", "Hyper" and "Ultra" on the Special Thanks are obvious nods to Street Fighter II's upgrades: Super Street Fighter II: The New Challengers, Hyper Street Fighter II: The Anniversary Edition and Ultra Street Fighter II: The Final Challengers, along with the Super and Ultra versions of Street Fighter IV.
- The sparkling star on the "SHMUPS NEVER DIE" is a reference to "WE LOVE GRADIUS I" at the end of Parodius and "WE LOVE SHOOTING GAMES !" from Gokujyou Parodius.
- The extra characters don't have a storyline or their character portrait shown on the starry background of the staff roll, with the exception of Striae.




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It's always great to find a good shmup that's worth the time.

Graze Counter GM is an incredible bullet grazing experience that really puts your shmup skills to work, even on Normal difficulty. Even if you hate Psyvariar and Risk System, you'll find Graze Counter GM as an enjoyable bullet scratcher and an easy to learn for those who are new to "Bullet Hells". If you ask me, this one is definitely a recommendation because it is challenging, yet fun and what's more important fair with every skill level you're going to play with.



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