Crescent Pale Mist - PS3 PSN

[Sketcz]

Wow, a western company releases a Japanese doujin game on PSN in the US and UK and no one on NTSC-uk talks about it? Come on guys, are we NTSC-uk, or PAL-usa?

Game published by Rockin' Android who brought us the terrible Gundeomonium collection. A trio of dull and repetitive 2D shooters for $15. Or $6 each. I got burned on these because I played them once and couldn't be bothered to go back. So I was reluctant to try this.

But I did, because I had spare 5 Euro on my mainland account (I've got like 8 PSN accounts - it helps for tax evasion purposes).

I played the tutorial and first level. It's actually quite good, mechanically, but it's not very exciting to look at. The polygonal environments are sub-Yaroze quality and there really isn't any variety in the graphics. The main character and boss sprites look awesome thought. It's 2D overlaid onto 3D.

Mechanics are difficult to describe. The first part of a level is just you dashing about slashing up easy enemies until you reach the boss, at which point it's a bit like Suguri, which was a bit liek Senko no Ronde. Basically an arena fight with bullet patterns.

You can slash with your sword or throw daggers. You can also cast magic by tapping button directions followed by normal attack. This causes your EXPLOSION METER to fill up. It continuously decreases, but if you spam your magic if overflows and you detonate, taking personal damage.

There's also a special attack button which utilises the pale mist orbs released by enemies when attacked. So one tactic is to lay waste to several to release these orbs, then dial in the special attack combo whereupon all the white orbs either turn into homing daggers or a giant blue laser. You can also collect orbs to release manually, to set up devastating attacks.

There's also dashing, dash-knockback-cancelling into invincibility, dagger moves, and other stuff, like dagger homing attacks where you can teleport to where you fire your dagger.

The first true boss is an epic sized dragon skeleton.


QUICK OVERVIEW
The game feels like it was designed by a bunch of hardcore beat-em-up and shmup fans, who've created an easy to pick up system with a lot of depth, but lacked the resources to make the game look polished.

Maybe, I only played briefly.

I've had some fun, but I'm a shallow guy, and I don't know how long I'll stick with it before returning to something with truly visually bombastic flair, like Vanquish. Still, a fiver, right? Not bad, not bad. Better than that crappy Gundemonium Collection at least.

[briareos_kerensky]

I spent some time with the game last weekend and got up to the second boss...largely unimpressed. The "story" is told in the usual cryptic way of inexperienced doujinshi developers and it gave me Castle Shikigami II-like vibes...dialogues were awkward and all over the place.

I couldn't help to feel absolutely helpless aginst the second boss; I think this would be solved by mapping the dash to a different command, having it to down-forward+square means that dashes will always point downward when flying and the bosses like to move at your character's dashing speed while spewing bullets and movement-stopping attacks.
Landing hits on the second boss was difficult and hit detection with enemy sprites felt somewhat off, there's no clear indication where hotspots will start, often resulting in getting shot or being bounced back due to physical contact.

I'll hold final judgment when I'm done with the game, but right now first impressions aren't exactly good.

I don't think the game had any voiceovers to begin with, the original release was for Comike68 (5 years or so ago) and it didn't have any...at least there are new character portraits.

[Sketcz]

Bloody hell, my mind was playing tricks on me. I could swear I'd seen a Youtube video with voiced dialogue. Checked and they're all without... What's wrong with my memory briareos?

Any way, cheers for the thoughts. It took me 2 days to get around to loading it up. I might leave it. I really must stop buying **** off PSN. >_<

[briareos_kerensky]

I've tried.
For two hours I've tried to complete the game but in the end I got only frustration, repetitive environments and dialogues that are on par with Shikigami II "translation".
I was able to reach the third (of four, apparently) stages but after spending an hour or so wandering without aim in a rock maze I gave up.

Before that I've gave up my hopes on completing the game on normal without snapping the pad in half and restarted the whole game in easy.
Nice touch: the third level has a different layout between easy and normal - or so I thought because it's hard to tell the difference between parts of the same level...it's even difficult to tell complete stages apart as the rock texture used in the 3rd stage is a recolor of the rock texture used in the first stage!

Player's avatar aside all enemies, including bosses, have an handful of frames each and within the same level there are recolors of the same enemy or exactly the same enemy using different attack.
As the game uses multiple depth planes to create some sort of three-dimensional maze, discerning planes in the background from planes in the foreground is difficult, especially when special items shine at the same intensity whatever plane they are on.
Also "usable" background planes are hard to tell apart from real backgrounds...graphics are a mess and only the redrawn portraits and the main character's sprite stand out as decent work.

While wandering around the labyrinths large groups of enemies attack the player, often in very cheap ways that see the avatar bouncing from enemy to enemy without the player able to pull off anything...however defeating enemies to do grant anything besides points and items (and I think they're just for collecting purposes), so the whole game consists in dashing through enemies to explore the levels trying to figure out their layout, reach the boss and defeat it.
Upgrade items are scattered throughout levels and while all levels (except the first) feature some sort of environmental puzzle, going around to solve them is simply tedious, especially when enemies gang up on the player and hit detection is inconsistent...not that everything about the game is bad though.
Hitting enemies with the standard sword attack will create white orbs that can be used as attack (triangle) or healing items by letting them disappear; long-range attacks can be followed up by a teleport to link sword combos and then enemies can be juggled into air combos; certainly some thought went into the whole system, but the execution is simply abysmal.
There's no incentive to kill all enemies and environments are uninspired and boring to explore, with the platforming element featuring the worst wall jump ever...apparently you can wall-jump only on certain wall portions or you need to time the jump to the opposite wall with a perfect timing or it will fail.

While playing through Crescent Pale Mist the impression is that the difficulty is not given by a genuine challenge, but rather unfairness from the game toward the player.

The Gundemonium Collection is a far more better purchase than this one.

[Sketcz]

The Gundemonium Collection is a far more better purchase than this one.

And that was crap to begin with!

Yeah, not played this since starting the topic. It sucks.

[Strider]

Gundemonium is a great collection. You're crazy Sketch
As an aside I didn't like Crescent Moon as much. Seemed really random to play and it just wasn't enjoyable.

[Sketcz]

Gundemonium is a great collection. You're crazy Sketch

One shmup fan disses another shmup fan's cred. Ooh, it's on now, bro.

Well, Higotapa, the vertical one, was OK for a single playthrough. The two hori ones I couldn't find much of a difference. I played each once, one afternoon, and after that couldn't be bothered to go back. I didn't like the bullet patterns, weapons, pacing, backgrounds, story or overall feel. Art style was OK, and music was... Well, I can't remember the music.

I love a good hori shmup, and I have a diverse collection, so I'd rather be playing any of the following: Keio Flying Squadron, BariArm, Rayxanber II, Rayxanber III, Gaia Seed, Einhander, G Darius, Hydorah, Thunder Force IV, Axelay, R-Type III, Biometal, and of course, Gradius V.

I mean, I suppose if I didn't already own the above, I'd probably like Gundemonium. But the collection was $15, whereas the individual games were $6 each, and for $6 (or 600 Yen) Gaia Seed or Einhander are better than either of the hori shooters.