Johou Battle is a bullet hell shoot 'em up game putting you in the shoes of Jotaro Kujo, the legendary fighter of Jojo's Bizarre Adventure fame or Ichirin Kumoi, a fighting spirit from Touhou Project, and pits you against the other! Take on a barrage of attacks based on those seen in Jojo's Bizarre Adventure: Stardust Crusaders and Touhou Project: Hopeless Masquerade in this challenging yet loving tribute to the two franchises!
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Full disclaimer, a very good friend of mine made this game! That being said, Johou Battle was pretty fun despite my general aversion to shmups.
The game presents you the option of two protagonists (Jotaro or Ichirin) as you go through a gauntlet of a boss fight to defeat the other. Both characters have two basic attacks: their standard projectile, and a focus attack. While focusing, you can see your core (hitbox) and move much slower. I honestly spent most of my time in focus mode expect in necessary circumstances just due to unfocused movement being too fast, and your projectiles have bigger hurtboxes as well. Both characters also have a set of three bombs for emergencies. Ichirin's bomb feels much better to use than Jotaro's, however Jotaro's normal attacks are a lot better, so both characters have their strengths and weaknesses.
In the manual, you are told that to get a good ending you must beat the game without using a continue. I ended up trying a fair bit with Jotaro, retrying when my lives were up and learning patterns. I got pretty good until I realized just how long the battle was and how much harder it got, so I only had the resolve to get the bad ends for both characters. Still, I feel I got a glimpse about what people like about mastering shmups.
I think all of my gripes revolve entirely around the health bar. In the first phase, the boss has a health bar that is maybe 90% white and 10% red. In actuality, the damage needed to whittle down the red part feels equal to the white part! More importantly, due to the health bar's placement at the top of the screen I didn't really get to see my progress much because I had to be focused on my own positioning at the bottom. I feel like this is key information for your DPS and improving if you can more readily see that information, but maybe that's how shmups are supposed to be.
Overall, I did still enjoy my time with the game. The art is vibrant and colourful, and the projectiles are usually pretty distinguished from the background so you don't take any unfair deaths. I might not have been able to get the good endings yet, but I got the top of the leaderboards so that's gotta count for something!
The game presents you the option of two protagonists (Jotaro or Ichirin) as you go through a gauntlet of a boss fight to defeat the other. Both characters have two basic attacks: their standard projectile, and a focus attack. While focusing, you can see your core (hitbox) and move much slower. I honestly spent most of my time in focus mode expect in necessary circumstances just due to unfocused movement being too fast, and your projectiles have bigger hurtboxes as well. Both characters also have a set of three bombs for emergencies. Ichirin's bomb feels much better to use than Jotaro's, however Jotaro's normal attacks are a lot better, so both characters have their strengths and weaknesses.
In the manual, you are told that to get a good ending you must beat the game without using a continue. I ended up trying a fair bit with Jotaro, retrying when my lives were up and learning patterns. I got pretty good until I realized just how long the battle was and how much harder it got, so I only had the resolve to get the bad ends for both characters. Still, I feel I got a glimpse about what people like about mastering shmups.
I think all of my gripes revolve entirely around the health bar. In the first phase, the boss has a health bar that is maybe 90% white and 10% red. In actuality, the damage needed to whittle down the red part feels equal to the white part! More importantly, due to the health bar's placement at the top of the screen I didn't really get to see my progress much because I had to be focused on my own positioning at the bottom. I feel like this is key information for your DPS and improving if you can more readily see that information, but maybe that's how shmups are supposed to be.
Overall, I did still enjoy my time with the game. The art is vibrant and colourful, and the projectiles are usually pretty distinguished from the background so you don't take any unfair deaths. I might not have been able to get the good endings yet, but I got the top of the leaderboards so that's gotta count for something!