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Bullet Soul Infinite Burst

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    Bullet Soul Infinite Burst

    After the very first credit spent on this game, I took a short bathroom break, thinking about its mechanics: enemies that drop silver coins, filling a gauge that lets you enter a special mode that turns silver coins into red coins to keep the special gauge up while increasing your score? This is DoDonPachi! DoDonPachi SaiDaiOujo's X360 mode to be precise, and then I recalled that at least one of the men behind that game left Cave for 5pb/Mages, which are incidentally publisher and developer of Bullet Soul Infinite Burst.

    Now, I haven't played the original game, but to my knowledge, Infinite Burst is more of a remix than a true successor, with an extra ship and at least one new game mode.

    You can select between Normal, Burst (a possibly new game mode...can anyone confirm), and Caravan. Normal and Burst have two variants but haven't tried them yet.
    Common mechanics include a shoot (wide reach, fast ship movement) / laser (narrow reach, slow ship movement) firing and the four ships available: you've got a shoot type (fast, with extra wide shoot), a laser type (average stats, secondary laser beams lock on targets), a lock type (laser unleashes four satellites that constantly attack the locked enemies), and a grappler type, the new ship. Grappler type? Yes, because the ship in question has two hands (bigger than the ship itself, I might add) that fire missiles in shoot and punch enemies in laser. Well, it should be mentioned that the lock type ship is piloted by a guy that resembles a mix between the Burger King, a wrestler, and a Greek god and he has a loyal catgirl always with him.

    Caravan is what you would expect: 2 minutes, special stage, ship of your choice fully powered up, aim to the highest score.

    In normal mode you've got your stock of screen-clearing bombs, power ups, and a multiplier meter that fills up the more enemies you destroy, and slowly (veeeeeery slowly) decreases when not killing things. There aren't many big twists here except for level bonuses, I'll talk about them later.

    Burst mode is the first I tried and the one I opened this post with: lives and bombs are placed by a hyper...erhm, no, burst gauge and a shield gauge.
    All enemies drop silver coins when killed, and these coins slowly go toward the bottom of the screen; when they reach it, they bounce upward, increasing their value. Coins increase score and the burst gauge. With the gauge full, you can enter burst mode (increased firepower and movement speed), where coins become red and used to keep the burst gauge up. Red coins keep the same "bounce" mechanic of plain silver coins, and bounced red coins increase the burst gauge dramatically, but the same gauge goes down pretty fast, thoguh it's nowhere near DoDonPachi...yes, the vibe that Burst mode gives is that of a more lenient X360 mode from DoDonPachi, with the added bonus of complete lack of Element Doll and Operator constantly talking.
    Crashing into an enemy or getting hit by a bullet will make the shield gauge go down, and it's possible to replenish it, though I'm not sure how.

    In both burst and normal modes, you can collect several bonuses, based off several factors: "mistery" and "secret" bonuses are awarded by destroying certain enemies/background objects, "collection" bonuses are awarded for collecting a lot of coins in a short amount of time.
    In all modes, killing an enemy will also cancel its on-screen bullets, and after relatively quiet first and second stages, you'll be grateful about this.

    Bullet Soul Infinite Burst plays well, though it doesn't seem the most original title, as you can distinctively feel a strong DoDonPachi influence in it, although the difficulty and pattern memorisation to keep gauges high have all been toned down.
    Graphics are clear enough, though they get a bit blurry on TATE 24" and play area set to maximum. In later stages, enemies tend to enter the screen from the sides completely unnannounced, and unfortunately there's no option to place the score/burst gauge on the top or the bottom of the screen (which is empty anyway in TATE if you want to keep the correct aspect ratio).
    Bullet patterns are on the easy side, though there are a lot of on screen at any given time, but since bullets are cancelled when the shooter is destroyed, cheap deaths are not so common.
    The four ships play very differently between each other, moreso than DoDonPachi, and there's a healthy amount of video, audio, and controller options, though the total package is not as complete as BS's main inspiration.
    Not as surprising as Ginga Force, but definitely a well made shoot'em'up.

    #2
    I've complete two continue runs, one in normal and one in burst mode: I'm liking the game, though few wringles have begun to surface.

    First is technical: BGMs and voice samples are incredibly compressed, and sound like a 56kbps MP3. Even the closing songs suffer from this, and I would totally go BGM-only in this game, as all tracks are rock/hard rock tracks, some of them very well composed. But the compression is painful, and really drags down the presentation.

    Second, still on the presentation side, the graphics are nothing to speak about: fast, a bit on the dark side, with some nice ideas, but nothing exactly new or done in a exciting way. Again, the ending is incredibly plain, and unfortunately matches the highly compressed music, as if everything but the game was an afterthought.

    Third, playing for survival is very dependant on firepower, in both modes. As bullets are cancelled, ships with heavy firepower can perform very small movements, offsetting their low mobility, as most of the projectiles will be cancelled once very near the player's ship. The game tries to counterbalance this by giving the two most powerful ships a relative short range (plus their low movement rate), and the later stages will get more resistant enemies on the screen at once, but the game doesn't feel as finetuned as it could have been after a few credits.

    Fourth, user interface. Bullet Soul provides a good amount of customisation options for the screen, but menus, ship selection screen, and ending credits have been though for horizontal screens, as don't scale/rotate as the game itself. Characters' ending illustrations are also horizontal only. The game also asks you to upload scores and saving replays every game over, and both require too many button presses to cancel, especially the replays, that require to accept a prompt, enter the actual replay saving menu, cancel and confirm the cancel to avoid saving. Ugh. Also, no wallpapers except the standard one? Kinda cheap.

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      #3
      Thanks for sharing your impressions Quite tempted to pick this one up, even though I never played the original.

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        #4
        Thanks for the info Luca, sounds good

        Originally posted by Atticus View Post
        Thanks for sharing your impressions Quite tempted to pick this one up, even though I never played the original.
        I actually picked this up because I didn't get the original & had heard such good things.
        I went with the LE because it comes with DLC for the original version



        Might actually get time to play this on Sunday as missus is out (Got DDP: SOJ as well so could compare them back to back to see how similar they really are)
        Will need to rescue my Arcade Stick from the Storage unit first I think

        Neil

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          #5
          So only the LE comes with the DLC for the original? I didn't know that. Cheers for the info

          Look forward to hearing your impressions too

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            #6
            As far as I can see it's the only version with the DLC.
            It also has an arrange Soundtrack & a Famitsu special on Bullet Souls

            No problems will let you know as soon as I've fired it up

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              #7
              1cc'ed the game with the laser type (the policewoman...I think. I'd wish that Japanese character designers would come up with something that resembles an uniform), autobombing; might upload the replay later.
              Tried the same with the grappler type (drillhair woman...nah, don't know their names), only to get toasted by the last boss when a fly landed straight on my nose, and just before an extend! Fly's dead now.

              Anyway, I've enjoyed BSIB a lot, though it falls on the easy side. At least you don't have to worry about surgically bursting and/or bombing to have a good time with the game, and I think a good score. Ended up with little less that 1.5 millions, though I know that I can improve it. I think the grappler type was a little higher than that, I'll know when I'll get around to 1ccing with her again.
              I think that the "vanilla" Bullet Soul is even easier, as it gives one bomb at the end of each stage. Can anyone confirm?

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                #8
                What's different about this release and the original Bullet Soul from last year? I have the original but is it worth buying this one too?
                EDIT - Never mind. I'll just read the 1st post

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                  #9
                  Can anyone confirm they've downloaded the original Bullet Soul via DLC with this game?

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                    #10
                    Only the LE comes with the download code.

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                      #11
                      Is the download code that's included tied to a Japanese region console or does it play on a PAL one too?

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                        #12
                        It should be tied to a Japanese account, but then work from any.

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                          #13
                          Thanks for that. Just wanted to be doubly sure as my local importer couldn't confirm it.

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                            #14
                            Had the "brilliant" idea of recording my first two 1cc runs with the Grappler and Laser types and synch them for a comparison video...since I play in TATE, both are good for a 1080p 59.94fps (the 360's output framerate) video. Result: 5 GB. Took quite some time to upload.

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                              #15
                              On sale on PA right now: http://www.play-asia.com/bullet-soul...iate_id=304999

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