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Sparrow's Perfect Cherry Blossom (PC)
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| [September 1, 2004 10:55:16 PM]
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Every time I play this game, I appreciate the creator's craft more and more. This, folks, is a work of art.
I've been running Extra. The boss of the stage, as I've previously mentioned, is ridiculously hard, but a lot of her attacks have a "trick" to them - this does not make it EASY to play, just POSSIBLE. I've already figured out how to consistently "break" the first one (of about 20... :P ), and have got to the point where I've seen 2 more of her attack patterns. Both of these are quite beautiful in a peculiar sense; it's not just the visual aesthetic but the way they move - almost like dancing - and the way the player needs to interact with them.
Another thing about it is that the difficulty is perfectly tuned - each second of the game is just perfect, to the point where it is challenging (to a greater or lesser degree) but always scrupulously fair. Whenever something out-of-the-ordinary (bullets changing direction, insta-hit lasers firing, etc) happens, you ALWAYS have advance warning.
Whilst PCB is still not available in the West (unless you go through a Japanese online-auction proxy), the sequel 'Imperishable Night' is up for preorder at shop.himeya.com, and I've already booked my copy...
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| [August 25, 2004 12:35:29 AM]
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w00t.
I cleared Normal mode last night. Now my score wasn't nearly as high as those of the real experts at this game (the mark of a true master is scoring upwards of 1 billion points), but it was pretty decent.
The final boss fight was really a battle of attrition. I can only break some of her patterns, so I had to throw quite a number of bombs around and completely abuse the Border system. It was, however, one of the most memorable boss fights I've ever experienced - right up there with the battle against Metal Gear Rex, the Mars Assault in X-Com, and Metroid Fusion's SA-X (also an awesome boss). Believe it - the designer of this game is a true master of his craft.
I'm not done with this game yet - there's still the other difficulties, and Extra mode, to tackle. Plus, once you finish the Extra level, there is one last level "Phantasm", made especially for that unique group of people who can bend spoons without touching them...
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| [August 14, 2004 09:21:28 PM]
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New high score - booyah. I made it to the final form of the last boss, but it appears that this form is sort of similar to the final boss of Ikaruga - it's invincible and you have to wait for it to time out and vanish (while dodging an unreasonable number of bullets). There may be another way to beat it (I might have done that on Easy, but I'm not sure whether I did), so I'm experimenting to see what works.
This time I managed to "break" another of the level 5 boss's attack patterns which I hadn't before - i.e. beat it without using a smart bomb. In addition to giving you a point bonus each time you manage such a feat, the game keeps track of which of the patterns you've broken on each difficulty, and you can look over the whole list - sort of a "gotta catch 'em all" feature ;)
Finally, I have to mention the replay feature. The game has an awesome recording and replay feature - although you can't pause and search when playing a replay, you can choose to view only the boss fights, only the "non-boss" sections, or both. I haven't actually looked at anyone else's replays though.
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| [August 13, 2004 02:28:12 PM]
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I think I should not play when under stress. It decreases my performance and makes the game less fun to play.
Last couple of days I've been playing on Normal. I finally broke my high score record, but in the same game I lost all my lives (7!!!) to stupid mistakes in a single stage when I could have (potentially) cleared the game on one continue. Sigh.
I need to take a break from this game.
On another note, when you clear the full version of the game (on any difficulty), it gives you access to an "Extra" stage - which is ridiculously hard but funny. It's funny precisely because of the ludicrous volume of enemy fire thrown at you - but each enemy wave, just as in the "normal" stages, can be "broken" with the right sequence of actions. It's immensely satisfying when you manage that. I'm unlikely to ever complete Extra - the boss of the stage has about 20 (!) different forms, all extremely deadly, AND can't be damaged by smart bombs (!!!) - but Extra is a fun change of pace.
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| [August 11, 2004 12:12:26 AM]
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I picked this up about a month ago, and finally cleared Easy mode without continues, so now's as good a time as any to blog it. This will be something of a review (English reviews of this game are virtually nonexistent), so it's likely to be long...
First, I must serve notice that PCB is a shmup - and not just any shmup. This game is what they call a danmaku ("bullet curtain") shooter. It even has a little warning symbol on the jewel case saying, in Japanese, "Warning: Contains danmaku scenes."
Which is to say that this is the kind of shooter where the enemies have at their disposal approximately as much firepower as the combined military forces of any five Third World nations - all of which is hurled at you, the player, in screen-filling sheets of light.
Now that we've got that out of the way, how does the game play? The short answer is - it's dead fun. This is a beautiful example of the shmup designer's art; the smart level design and well-crafted enemy patterns put even commercial shmups to shame.
The story, since my Japanese is mediocre at best, runs something (very vaguely) like this: this bunch of evil (or simply misguided - the game seems to lean towards the latter) spirits have somehow caused the winter to drag on and prevented spring from coming. Or something. And so the player, as one of three characters (all cute anime-style girls), has to find and defeat them and their motley assortment of goons, including but not limited to snow fairies, insects, and various other small sprites which are beautifully-drawn but very difficult to see (especially when one is focused on avoiding the hail of bullets emerging from said sprites), in order to have spring and the cherry blossoms appear once more.
The art of the game is good, as indie games go. Oh - did I mention that this game was made by an indie developer, Shanghai Alice? Apparently they're incredibly famous in certain circles in Japan, such that people line up for hours to BUY DEMO DISCS containing the DEMOS of their new games. It's surprising enough when that happens for commercial developers; to have this sort of furore over one guy ("Team Shanghai Alice" is a one-man outfit whose only member goes by the name Zun) is pretty impressive. But I digress.
As I was saying, the art is good for an indie game. Zun's sprites blend well with their environment, and the backgrounds, which use 3D effects, are (cliche alert!) simple but elegant. His character portraits (anime style, and inevitably cute girls) aren't outstandingly awesome, but considering that the guy did all the designing AND coding AND composed/performed the game's great soundtrack, that's excusable.
The soundtrack is terrific. While the effects here are the standard selection of whooshes, roars, and beeps one would normally expect, the music is professional-quality and has a fairly unique style, being inspired in equal parts by traditional Japanese music and popular dance/trance music. While I can't say I'm a big fan of any of those styles, the resultant fusion is very easy on the ears, and I've found myself launching the game just to go into the Sound Test menu and listen to the music.
So... how does it play? Well, Perfect Cherry Blossom is by no means easy. It starts out simple, but in the early stages you're scrambling to collect powerups, and by the time you're at full power, the bad guys are throwing a LOT of stuff at you. It's an excellent balance between memorization and skill, as often the patterns can be dodged with a simple shift - if you're quick enough to spot it. Later enemies require more careful handling, like the bullet-spamming Fallen Angels (I think) which inhabit Stage 4.
The bosses (all cute girls too - figures) and their attacks deserve a section to themselves. They're not BIG HULKING TARGETS like in every other shoot-em-up; they're as small and nimble as the player, which presents a problem when trying to hit them. Thankfully, some of the player-characters have homing or tracking attacks, which leaves the player free to concentrate on dodging the intricate and beautiful patterns the bosses throw around.
There's a little wrinkle, though. Remember that old shmup standby, the famous "smart bomb" (which dates back to Tempest)? Well, each boss has a number of them, and when they get low on health, they'll use them. In practice, this is just the boss changing into different "forms" with different attack patterns, but it's pretty cool to watch.
The first couple of bosses are pretty standard fare, but after that things get more interesting. The boss of Level 2, for instance, has the ability to change the direction of her gunfire when said gunfire is in mid-flight - this is accompanied by a little chime to let you know You Are In Deep Doo-Doo. When she's in one of her later forms, she will also zip across the screen launching a spray of large bullets - then pause in the center and split them into a shower of small, but equally deadly snowflakes. Level 3's boss uses little dolls to launch attacks from different directions, and Level 4's is actually a trio of spooky musicians who can fire off some very nasty formation attacks. The boss attack patterns are usually inventive, always beautiful, and invariably deadly, and discovering the "secret" to beating each one is very gratifying indeed - although sometimes the "secret" can be something as simple as "dodge and don't get hit".
In summary, this is possibly the best shooting game I've ever played. Sadly, it's not available outside of Japan now; the only online store I know of which carries it is out of stock. Watch this space, and I'll post if I come across a place which has it.
p.s. the demo (3 levels) is available at http://www16.big.or.jp/~zun/html/th07_update.html - look for the first link under the purple heading, dated 2003/07/12.
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Sparrow's Perfect Cherry Blossom (PC)
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Current Status: Played occasionally
GameLog started on: Thursday 15 July, 2004
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