Bouhou Koumakyou: Scarlet Family
Developer: Marecha
The Bouhou Koumakyou series is a set of three doujin platformers that draw clear inspiration from
DORAGON SUREIYA IV DORASURE FAMIRI. All three are about exploring gigantic interconnected mazes to find treasures and defeat bosses. The first game
in the series, Bouhou Koumakyou: Scarlet Family, is about Remilia Scarlet's quest to take revenge on Reimu Hakurei. Remilia, Sakuya, Flandre, Patchouli, and Meiling must find their way through a gigantic cavernous maze beneath the Scarlet Devil Mansion to ultimately ambush Reimu
in her shrine. Much like
in Legacy of the Wizard, you control one character at a time and can switch between them at home. Each character has different stats and will gain different equipment and abilities as you progress. The first thing you want to do after starting a new game is to enter the dungeon and then immediately return home again to save. If you die before saving you'll have to watch the long introduction again and you don't want that.
Exploring the dungeon
As
in Legacy, the dungeon is laid out with a central area near your home that branches out into character-specific sub-dungeons. If you're familiar with Embodiment of Scarlet Devil's soundtrack, you can use the sub-dungeons' background music to tell which character is supposed to be used there. You have to do them
in a specific order, at least up until you find the upgrade item that the next character needs to explore her dungeon. Bouhou Koumakyou's biggest departure from Legacy's formula is that shooting costs nothing. This fundamentally changes the nature of the game, running out of resources is a huge concern
in Legacy. Despite there being no reason to not be shooting constantly, Marecha neglected to implement an autofire feature. A bad call. Fortunately this is a PC game so we can easily circumvent that. I used JoyToKey to set up 4 hz autofire and that felt about right.
The map and inventory screen. Blue scraps are really convenient and can be used to get characters into the wrong dungeons
When entering the dungeon, you can equip your character with up to two items. There are generic rings that can be used by any character and improve various attributes, character-specific weapons that greatly improve fighting ability, and character-specific upgrade items that grant new abilities. Since upgrade items are mandatory and weapons are better than rings there are essentially no choices to be made here. There is a third slot hidden
in a treasure chest which grants a bit of choice, but to my knowledge it's impossible to reach until you've got Remilia's wings, right at the end of the game. Bit of a missed opportunity!
Ganbare Meiling!
Shops run by Marisa Kirisame are scattered throughout the dungeon. She sells healing items, fast travel items, revival items, and permanent health and strength upgrades. It's not as cool as Legacy's shops that let you sequence break by buying unique items. The shops' inventories are a bit randomized but they refresh every time you visit, so if they don't have what you want you just step out and then right back
in. It's a bit inconvenient and there's no reason for it. The prices are fairly high and it's always a tough call whether to buy now or save for something better later. My experience is that you'll never regret buying tickets to teleport back home and the cheapest healing items almost always pay for themselves.
Enemy design tends to overly simple. The great majority of enemies fit into one of three categories: those that fire a single bullet right at you, those that fire a three way spread where the middle bullet is aimed right at you, and those that fire a circle of bullets spread out
in every direction. With that said, even painfully simple enemies like these can create interesting and dangerous situations when they attack
in numbers, so it's not too bad. Each dungeon ends
in a boss battle and they're not very good. I damage raced most of 'em. Each dungeon boss drops a coin and you'll need all four to get past Reimu's donation box and enter the final dungeon. I've seen claims that the box is bugged and will only let you pass if you donate all four at once. I haven't verified this but I'd say it's best to play it safe.
After passing the donation box you'll earn Remilia's wings which change her from useless to the best character. Remilia can explore areas of the dungeon the other characters couldn't reach and is good for getting treasures you missed on your first pass. She can access a few optional bosses and they're a big improvement on the main dungeon bosses. There's not much reward for beating them -- the reward money I got about covered the cost of the consumables I used against them -- but it's a nice inclusion. Reimu at the end is pretty vicious, especially compared to the other bosses. You'll want as many upgrades as you can find and a full stock of healing items.
Sakuya doesn't want to go. The items scattered around the house are all upgrades found
in the dungeon.
Bouhou Koumakyou: Scarlet Family has a lot of personality. The player characters don't want to be chosen to explore the dungeon.
In some games' character select screens the characters perk up when you point your cursor at them, here they turn away or hide themselves. After you choose one, the others lift her into the air, rush to the entrance of the pit, and toss her
in. Your character plummets downwards, bouncing off the cavern walls while you select your equipment loadout. Every once
in a while, while exploring the dungeon, the characters back at home will start a conversation. A lot of the time they talk behind the player character's back -- Remilia considers sealing Flandre inside the dungeon and firing Meiling. Sometimes they discuss ways of using their upgrade items
in everyday life. The action doesn't pause while they're doing this and you can ignore it completely if you want. It's great feature that goes a long way towards livening things up.
Bouhou Koumakyou: Scarlet Family isn't a bad game but overall I find it to be weaker than Dragon Slayer IV. It focuses a lot more on combat but doesn't do it well enough for it to work as a selling point. On the other hand, DSIV's exploration and puzzles are much stronger. Bouhou Koumakyou: Scarlet Family has a complete and high-quality english fan translation, though it's a simple enough game that you could probably get through even without understanding any of the text.
Didn't know his madness had extended beyond the 
I know Slug scoreplay gets ridiculously intense, but it's not what I'm here for! I just want to tear shit apart 
It's the big obnoxious cheeseburger movie to the first game's ultra-tight graphic novel adaptation. 
). I can do 'em, just takes a bit more conscious effort.
I used to find st3/IRON CAVALRYMEN 
)
I 
The familiar pleasure of pushing the murder BPM to the limit at the risk of being a frame too slow and eating a LEAD SANDWICH. A veritable LEAD HUMBLE PIE.
Versus waking Gigantos, who OFC can't be grappled by Non-Raidens and will axekick you into next Christmas if not blocked, a tumble will usually spoof 'em. That's my go-to if forced next to a waking boss I can't grapple for any reason.
I'm gonna go back at some point and try for sub-2500 aka MAD MURDER MACHINE 
Metal Slug X removed MS1's Mario-style "hold jump for bigger bounce off enemy tanks" mechanic. God damn, just when I'd finally learned to appreciate it.
Low-G Man always sounds very cool, as well, and both GI Joes have always enjoyed praise from people I trust.
