There’s nothing quite like a sleep-deprived purchase at 4 A.M. of a game in a genre that you’ve had some interest in, but not quite enough to actually drop money on. For me, that purchase was Danmaku Unlimited 3, a bullet hell, a genre I have almost no knowledge of except by talking to Somebody336 & a bit of online searching. Danmaku 3 brings accessibility to newbies of the genre, while still providing a challenge to those that need to ‘git gud’ & veterans alike, via both its Spirit & Graze modes plus an awesome rock soundtrack.
Danmaku Unlimited‘s mechanics are extremely simple to pick up, no need go out of your way for power-up picks ups or anything of the sort. It just involves simple shooting in various available fire patterns with a fair few available to unlock by doing various challenges, like destroy X amount of enemies or gain Y amount of points. Of course, I am far from being good enough to unlock anything past the 2nd set. Sigh. Needless to say, this adds a fair amount of replayability outside of trying to get a high score. When it comes to taking down the endless hordes of enemy ships, a simple press of the ‘A’ button will have you auto-firing a regular shot, while pressing ‘X’ will focus your beams into a single high-powered attack as well as slowing down your ship. Use this to your advantage so as to squeeze the tiny yellow dot in the middle of your ship between the barrage of enemy bullets. This tiny dot is your hitbox, get hit & it is bye-bye for you. Striking a balance between this focused beam & regular projectiles is a must, as not all situations call for your super-powered beam vs. using your widespread beams. Masters these to get through all 5 levels & maybe move on to higher difficulties.
Bombs are the last tool in your arsenal. They are consumables which clear a fair amount of the screen, plus makes enemy bullets harmless, which brings up the Spirit/Graze mechanics. The game features 2 modes of play, ‘Graze‘ which is more in line with classic bullets hells, a feature of it is being able to get your ship’s hitbox as close to enemy bullets as possible. A crazy maneuver. Of course, this risk/reward play will up your score and help you charge up ‘Trance’ mode, which is just a time-limited power-up to your beams. It also makes enemies drop gems which add to your score. ‘Spirit‘ mode, on the other hand, will render enemies’ bullets harmless when the ship that shot it is destroyed, “collecting” these duds will add to your score & ‘Trance’ bar as normal. Grazing shots is also effective in ‘Spirit‘ mode & believe me, with the amounts of shot on-screen at all times, it will become part & parcel.
Danmaku Unlimited runs at a nice & smooth 60 FPS both docked & undocked on the Switch & can be played vertically undocked. Enemy bullets are easy to see against all the chaos which is a plus. As mentioned, a pretty damned good soundtrack, though I feel that the sound effects are a bit lost due to it though. A minor complaint. Besides its 2 modes of play, it features a boss rush mode which adds to the already decent amount of replayability & allows you to practice against these multi-stage monster ships.
All in all, the game provides a decent amount of content to keep me coming back for more punishment & definitely made me a fan of the genre thanks to its accessible nature with its multiple difficulty modes. Maybe someday I will get “gud” enough to branch out to its higher difficulties or other games of the genre. Needless to say, I highly recommend this game, which besides being available for the Nintendo Switch is also found on Steam, iOS, Android & PS4. Plenty of places to pick it up from. Now if you will excuse me, I am off to 1CC Ikaruga while blindfolded & using only my feet.
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