Weaponry is fairly devastating from the get-go. Being a fallen angel, intent on beating up a lot of demonic creatures, Homura’s celestial arrows can really do some damage, cutting a swathe through the enemy horde. Fire rate and coverage is impressive – around a fifth of the play width gets smothered when he starts firing. Player movement is slower when holding fire, but you can get round this by rhythmically tapping fire slowly to have full speed whilst retaining full firepower. The defeated demons drop gold blocks and picking these up will increase a power-bar. Each time the bar is filled, the arrows power-up slightly, up to a maximum of four times, indicated by glowing spheres next to Homura. He also has the obligatory screen-smashing smart bomb.
However, his other weapons are where the game’s hook comes in: waiting. If you give the enemies time to come onto the screen and start firing at him, tapping the secondary weapon button will smack the bullets back at them, sword-swipe style, for large score bonuses. So waiting for a few enemies to build up is advantageous, albeit risky and exciting. Alternatively, if there is an enemy nearby, the same button sends Homura into a wild dash-attack, decimating every enemy already on-screen at the start of the attack. Again, waiting is important, to allow a large number of demons to build up because the more you dash through, the higher the score multiplier, with more than 40X being attainable. The current multiplier is shown on each kill. Every enemy destroyed after this will be affected by that multiplier, so keeping it high is imperative. If it only it were that easy though. Dashing through a lower number of foul fiends than the current multiplier will reduce it, so using the dash as a get-out-of-jail card will not lead to decent scores, even if it might help in a tight spot.
Half-way through each level you can choose the easy or hard path (left or right respectively) and as expected, the hard path has more beasties to twonk straight back into the underworld for higher scores and all the associated stress of dealing with it. It makes more difference on some levels than others and a bit of consistency here would have been better.
Due to the nature of the gameplay designed around waiting till the last possible second before dashing and grabbing high scores, progress is well within the grasp of mere mortals by using the tried-and-tested “kill everything that moves” technique, combined with the sword swipe defence in boss attacks. Satisfaction isn’t guaranteed with this method though and there are far better straightforward shooters out there. Instead, choosing to invest some time in trying to max out those multipliers really ups the thrill factor and it all starts to come together.
However, whilst it will initially excite, the actual method of attaining those high scores doesn’t impart nearly the same level of addiction as the Buzz in Psyvariar 2. The comparison is difficult to avoid, since hints at its heritage are littered throughout Homura. The way the backgrounds swoop past is familiar, the avatar’s size and movement rings bells and a few of the bullet patterns are lifted without the slightest alteration apart from colour. Conversely, the music has taken a drastic departure towards a rousing cinematic orchestral style, reminiscent of TV series “24”. It works with the game very well.
Homura is a solid shooter that has enough panache to compel a substantial initial time investment and there are plenty of concept drawings to unlock on extended play. If you can find it for a decent price, it’s well worth picking up. However, once the initial honeymoon period is over, it doesn’t have quite enough spark to provide the compulsion to come back time and again that some other games enjoy.
Score: 6/10