Doujin Gamer

Creator: Watanabe Seisakujo (French Bread)
Genre: Action

Before the popular doujin circle French Bread was known by this name, they called themselves Watanabe Seisakujo. Even back then, it looks like the group had a love for 2D gaming, as this fun little side-scrolling action game suggests. Players here are trying to save their friend who has been kidnapped by a little angel-like being. It's a cute, lighthearted romp with very good, fluid controls, all with an old school flair.

Seeing as the game was made almost a decade ago, it has a much more retro look to its sprite-based graphics more reminiscent to what one might find back in the 16-bit era. Nonetheless, it still looks very good, with nice use of bright colors, and some very cute character designs. The enemies that players face off againsts are all rather cute, with little angels, gun-toting frogs, and chubby, balloon-like cats being among them.

Controls are very simple, with the arrows providing movement, and the z and x providing attack and jump. Players also have special weapons that they can use on a limited bases by pressing up and attack at the same time. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be and gamepad support for Demon Hunter Mai, and be careful about hitting escape, as that quits the game instantly. Nonetheless, controls are very responsive, which is certainly more than I can say about a lot of the professionally made 2D games coming out during this time.

From a historical perspective, it's interesting to take a look at a game like Demon Hunter Mai, as it shows some of the early work of French Bread. Keeping the good fight going for a decade for 2D gaming is certainly commendable.

Creator: Shinkenden
(Home Page)
Genre: Other

Today we're going to look at a slightly different game from the fighters and shooters we've talked about so far, in this case Shinkenden's Qualia2 ~ Evolve. I'm categorizing it more under "other" than anything else, because it's not quite an action game, and not quite a shooter. The game has a slightly more unique feel to it than that.

Basically, players control a little creature on the screen that has to fight other little creatures by dropping bombs, and luring the enemy toward them so that they get hit by the explosions when the bombs go off. Every so often one will also face off against a boss. In this situation, luring them to the bombs usually isn't an option. Here players must try to slip through the boss' defenses and place the bombs near its vulnerable points so that they will inflict some damage when they go off.

As players progress through the levels, little green and red dots will somethings appear and float around the screen. Coming into contact with these will cause the player's on-screen character to evolve into a more power powerful creature. Depending on which order one takes these dots will impact the direction in which that creature will evolve. Everyone starts off as a flea, and it branches off from there. For example, a person could follow one evolutionary path and become a starfish, a creature that isn't terribly maneuverable, but can launch three bombs at once for massive damage. On the other hand, one could become a dragon, a far longer, more slender creature that can drop one bomb at a time, but is much faster and more maneuverable than the starfish. Half the fun is discovering what you can turn into. One other thing that I should note quickly in terms of gameplay is the physics, as the whole game feels like you're flowing through water, almost like your character is in the primordial ooze. It works quite well, and is a nice tough.

Qualia2's visuals go for a more abstract approach. Your character and the enemies are all wire-like outlines flowing around on a hex grid background that morphs as bombs go off around it. All the while some nice jazzy electronic music (that reminds me a bit of Ridge Racer 4) is playing in the background. It's simple and relaxing.

If you want to see the game in action, take a peak at the video below. Shinkenden has a demo for the game available for download from their site. Just follow the link I've provided at the top of this post to head there and check it out.

Creator: Team Shanghai Alice
(Home Page)
Genre: Shooter

It's unrelenting shoot 'em up time, as we take a quick look at The Embodiment of Scarlet Devil, the first game released by the popular doujin game maker Team Shanghai Alice. This is actually the sixth in a series of shooters, but we saw marked changes with this installment. Firstly, the series switched from being developed under the Touhou Project banner to the Team Shanghai Alice label. Essentially they're still all done by the same person, known as Zun, it's just a change in development names. Also, Scarlet Devil saw the series shift firmly to a Windows platform, whereas all of the previous games in Touhou Project were made for the PC-98.

In the game, a red mist has spread over the region, and two heroines (the playable characters in the game) set out to see why this is and do something about it, each for their own reasons. One is the shrine maiden Reimu Hakurei who feels it's her duty to get to the bottom of this, and the other is a magician named Marisa Kirisama, who wonders if whoever did this may have some interesting magical goodies she can use. In the end it turns out that it was a vampire who did it in order to block the sun so that she could walk the earth in the daytime.

Scarlet Devil's action is intense bullet-saturation, with players dodging unyielding onslaughts of incoming fire. Depending on whether on chooses to play as Reimu or Marisa, their attack styles will be quite different. Reimu has a wide shot, allowing her to take out the cannon fodder a little more quickly, while Marisa is swifter, and more powerful, but doesn't have a wide shot. There are also a number of different features associated with bomb usage in the game. Firstly each heroine has their own unique bomb attack, as well these bombs can cancel out certain enemy attacks if timed correctly. One other interesting feature in the game is that players get special bonuses for not dying or using bombs during certain phases of enemy attacks.

Zun has created a mountain of amazing shooters over the years both under Touhou Project and Team Shanghai Alice, and The Embodiment of Scarlet Devil is no exception. If you want to try this game out, you can find it on his download page (as well as a a number of his other games).

Creators: French Bread & Type-Moon
Genre: Fighting

I'm on a bit of a fighting game kick as of late, so I thought I'd revisit the genre again today, this time with the doujin classic Melty Blood. This game is of particular note because it is easily one of the best examples ever of both doujin soft and manga achieving a large level of success not only in Japan, but internationally. The game itself was developed by the popular circle French Bread, and was based on a visual novel by a manga-based doujin circle called Type Moon, both of which turned professional as their creations became more and more popular.

By and large, Melty Blood is a fairly traditional fighting game with the usual mix of chain combos, cancels, and a powerbar that can be filled for unloading super powerful attacks. There are also abilities such as mid-air recoveries, something called Magic Circuit that is required for a number of special attacks and can help regenerate health, and clashing (two attacks strike each other cancelling both out). The most important feature that the game brought to the table, though, was shielding. It would block an opponent's attack and leave them open to a vicious reversal afterward. However, attempting a thing was always risky, because if the timing was off it would leave the player open to attack instead.

Seeing as Melty Blood was originally a visual novel, the game had a very extensive story mode that changed depending on how players did in battle. It was an interesting approach compared to a lot of other fighting games that had a far more static, rigid approach to storytelling. The game had six characters to choose from at the beginning with more being unlockable as players progressed. Over time more were added to the series as patches were released for the game. Initially Melty Blood was introduced back in 2002 during that year's Comiket. Since that time the game has made its way both to the arcades as well as the PS2.

There aren't many doujin softs that have reached the level of commercial success achieved by Melty Blood, but it shouldn't come as a surprise given the quality of the game. It's an excellent fighter, has very nice sprite based 2D graphics, and has received constant support from its creators over the years. The series is well worth tracking down, with most import shops having at least the PS2 iterations in their inventory.

Creator: Light's
(Home Page)
Genre: Fighting

Crucis Fatal + Fake is the sequel to the Light's earlier doujin fighter, Fatal + Fake, all of which are based on the Fate/Stay Night franchise. As one might expect from a sequel, there are a lot of improvements in this new fighting game.

What's interesting about the setup for combat in Crucis is that players control a pair of characters where one is the master, and the other a servant. Normally players will just control the servant for the fights, where things take place in a typical manner for the genre, swinging away at their enemies, trying to pull off impressive combos and what not. As you might suspect, the masters are much more powerful characters that can do healing, and unload far greater damage, as well as taking the field should their servant be defeated. The twist here, though is that should a master be defeated at anytime it's a loss for that round no matter what. A big part of the fun is deciding how to pair servants and masters in the game as well as to find a combo that you're happy with, and there's quite a few of both to choose from.

Visually, the game looks great, just like the first game, with a nice cel shaded motif. The action is fast, and the graphics are able to keep up with it no problem. Like so many other games, this too has a demo available for download at the developer's site. You can snap it up over here if you like.

Creator: Kenta Cho
(Home Page)
Genre: Shooter

We can't really have much of a discussion about doujin soft without the name Kenta Cho coming up from time to time. He's one of the first game makers to really rise to prominence in the field over the last decade, putting out a number of interesting games at a steady pace. One of his early efforts was the side-scrolling shooter Tumiki Fighters (2004).

"Tumiki" is a variation on the word "tsumiki", which means building blocks. In the game the player takes control of an airplane made of these blocks, and blasts up wave after wave of enemy ships also made of blocks, with a nice boss fight at the end of each level. Unlike his other games, Tumiki FIghters does not use random enemy or level generation. It's a far more structured experience with a defined ending.

Like Kenta Cho's other games, Tumiki is a very solid experience. The controls are bang on, the visuals have a more abstract look to them, and the music is appropriately peppy electronic fair in this instance. The game provides a very respectable challenge with a lot of incoming enemy fire both during the stage and the boss fight at its end.

If you're unfamiliar with his work, Tumiki Fighter is as good a game as any to see what Kenta Cho is capable of, and there is the added advantage that this game is available not only on Windows, but also for the Mac and Linux (the game even got a commercial release on the Wii last year via Majesco). Check the links below for download files for your respective OS if you feel like giving this game a shot.

Tumiki Fighters Windows
Tumiki Fighters Mac
Tumiki Fighters Linux

Watched Paprika for the first time in a while today. I've always been a sucker for Satoshi Kon's work, but this film in particular is a favorite of mine. The existential themes discussed in it are quite interesting, and the way the imagery walks a very fine line between the dream world in which much of the movie takes place, and utter madness is brilliant. The only real downside is that after watching it, I've got the parade song stuck in my head now. It's a good track, but after it's been repeating in my mind for a few hours it gets a little annoying. ^_^;