Chuhou Joutai

Cute game! Just like you!

The Chris-Chan of STG's.

[h1] フランドールは最高！ [/h1]

Oh boy, what a game it is. In my first run through, I found myself wheezing at just how... Eccentric the game really was. The artstyle, for one, looks like if you commissioned a local middle school for every design in your game. The writing too, is frankly awful. No seriously, it reads like an issue of Sonichu more than any Touhou game I've ever played. With this, a plot that doesn't exactly know if it wants to be a parody of. Although, the gameplay itself was decent, and in a vacuum, would be a fine place to start if any Touhou games seem too intimidating. I will however, note that the amount of health available make some fights feel rather cheap to win, especially the fight against Fred Fawkes, which I found legitimately challenging, but while in a Touhou game it would've meant having to spend a precious continue, the resources available allowed me to brute-force my way through the boss. The soundtrack, however, is probably the saving grace to anyone who is looking for a serious danmaku experience, with a catchy main theme and some parts of the OST I came coming back to, the game's soundtrack became a beacon of light into any of what the game let down. If only Driller was a full-time composer instead of trying to be the next great solo developer... Oh well... But you may see this rather scathing review, and wonder why I did indeed but a recommended sign next to it, that's because, as much as I do have critiques for the game, I'm not a formal critic, and I had quite a lot of fun with Chuhou Joutai. The writing, the designs, the jokes, they had me laughing all the way through. Thankfully, all of it couldn't be distracted by bad or frustrating gameplay, none spotted! The jokes sometimes missed the mark so much, that I laughed due to that fact alone. The combination of perhaps a serious political crisis in the story, the ridiculousness of the developer's self-insert protagonist, the writing being akin to something crafted by none other than Chris Chan, and just a pinch of self-awareness, yet not too much to feel forced, (thank you, Autism Spectrum Disorder!) made Chuhou Joutai a blast my first run through. Chuhou Joutai, in summary, is the Sharknado of danmaku games. Don't come in expecting a serious experience that will whoop you if you don't sink hours upon hours learning the intricacies of every spell card. As intended, it's something anyone can pick up and enjoy. It certainly is something to shakeup the danmaku genre, because for every Touhou fangame that tries to emulate the masterful creation behind ZUN's masterful franchise, there's Chuhou Joutai standing in the corner, ready for you to laugh alondside (or at) it.

Chuhou Joutai es un bullet hell que bebe directamente de la estética de los shooters de mediados de los ochenta, pero con una dificultad mucho más accesible para todo público. Dentro de su simpleza nos encontraremos con un juego que puede llegar tanto a entrenar como a pulir nuestros reflejos. Review completa aquí: https://retroorama.blogspot.com/2020/05/indie-review-chuhou-joutai.html

[h1]First Look[/h1] On first appearance, I was adamant to play this game. The arcade style sold it for me, and because I'm a fan of Drillimation's music, it added to the recommendation of playing it. [h1]Gameplay[/h1] Similar to Touhou, the game is a bullet hell shooter that utilises the same mechanics from Touhou. However, there are some deviations to the game that gives it a unique experience. One addition, is the advent of a health meter in game. Instead of one hit deaths, your character can take a good amount of bullets before they get KOed. While this adds to the uniqueness of the game, it dumbs down the difficulty heavily, as health can be replenished with powerups in game. Another addition that adds to the unique aspect is the addition of a two-player co-op mode, which is unheard of in shooter games of this genre. This game mode adds replayability and more fun to the game when you play along with a second player. The game's bullet patterns are unique and have a lot of variety, ranging from generic, to colourful, to shapely, to disorderly and to familiar ones, With this, it's certain you won't get bored of this game's 8 stages. One gripe however, is that Stage 7 and 8's boss patterns resemble EoSD's Stage 5 and 6's boss patterns. It broke the uniqueness around there, but it still has it's charm making it's way into the game. Overall, it's a solid Touhou experience with additions that make it unique unlike other danmaku games. [h1]Story and Writing[/h1] The game starts off with a war started by an assasination in a fictional country called Kozan. The big bad and the Soviet Union invade, get beaten, and they get sealed away. Decades later, the big bad comes back again and causes another war and assasinates someone again, and we follow The Real Driller or Princess Kagami as they find and defeat the big bad of the game to stop him again. Why them? Because plot. Personally, I felt writing the Cold War into the game and bridging the story to later include a monarchy, without a main theme was messy. There could have been more elaborating on what happened after the king of Kozan was assasinated, how it affected the nation, and how his son got into power. There aren't any distrust themes or deception whatsoever. Nobody questions whether the son was fit to take over his rule, and he becomes a leader without a hitch. It's like a shotgun wedding, but with writing. The story is quite amateurly written, adding trivial details and unnecessarily making the story longer with Kagami talking about her phone being able to charge due to a magic enchantment, and making sure you remember what the game's plot is about, after being reminded so many times about the big bad. It gets annoying a few times later. The protagonist The Real Driller is a Mary Sue type of character as well, being a half youkai who's a cult of personality with the main and side characters and recognised as the hero at the end of the game. The only flaw mentioned in game is his criminal record, but it is overshadowed with how much focus is put onto his perfect traits. Parts of the cutscenes try to incorporate humour, like references to Fawful, AVGN and Big Chungus, but due to poor execution and being dragged on, it ends up being quite annoying. I cringed hard at the Big Chungus reference, and the overly long dialogue with Hearthcliffe that could have been condensed into fewer words was a chore to read. Overall, the story could have been written much better if the references were to the point instead of dragged on, and if most of the trivial and important parts of the story were condensed into shorter paragraphs. [h1]Atmosphere[/h1] In gameplay, the 16 bit sprites are well done and actually look polished. The 16 bit backgrounds really help bring out the atmosphere, making it feel as if you were playing on an actual PC-98. However, the art in the cutscenes and character designs are poorly made, crudely resembling human beings. The outlines of the characters are too thick, and the poorly thought out anatomy is what breaks them. Pencil thin necks, body parts that aren't connected properly, facial hair looks like a helmet, giant ears, one leg longer than the other, you get the point. They're not attractive. The mix of the filtered backgrounds taken from photographs and poorly drawn characters results in off-putting visuals that don't fit well with the game. These ruin the atmosphere and could have been drawn and edited better. The soundtrack on the other hand is a must hear if you play this game. With tracks sounding Touhou styled and being befitting of the theme of the stages, like that of a calm river, or in the bustling streets of the city, examples being Silk River Lane, and Running Through Konzankyo, they really add to the atmosphere of the game in the best way possible. Furthermore, there's 5 versions of the soundtrack in different soundsets. You'll never get bored hearing all of them. Overall, just the cutscene and character design art can be tweaked or drawn better. [h1]Bugs[/h1] I've been working hard at identifying bugs due to a lack of a playerbase for this game. I've managed to get Driller to fix the achievements being awarded for the most part, fixing the coop mode crashing, and the crashes at different difficulties for the multiplayer mode. The game has also been fairly balanced after I found an exploit relating to the huge amount of bombs both players can have to cheese the final boss. However, there are still a lot of bugs I haven't found relating to typos, some unawarded points statuses, and more potential fixes and balances that can be done in game, so give me a hand and join in testing this game. [h1]Controls[/h1] The controls in my opinion are slightly frustrating. I'm not exactly satisfied at everything. I skip through text very quickly as I'm a fast reader, and during the tutorial, I was able to skip using the focus button. What I'm not satisfied at is the fact you can't skip the text for other cutscenes in the Arcade Mode, but can only skip the ENTIRE cutscene. If the tutorial's text can skipped, let the cutscene's text be skippable too, please. As a keyboard player, without an extra keyboard, I rely heavily on my built in laptop keyboard, which doesn't react well using more than three arrow keys at once as it has a low amount of key rollover and is susceptible to keyboard ghosting. I don't own a second keyboard, or a controller, so I must rely on this keyboard. It would help if I could map my keys to different keys in game, but the game doesn't allow that option, which forces me to use a key remapper. Jigoku Kisetsukan allowed me to remap my keys in game, and I feel that Chuhou Joutai should've done that for more ease of access. I also want to point out that 2 player mode can only be exclusively played with two controllers. This was the most frustrating and unfair part of all I had with the controls as I had to download an Xbox 360 controller emulator to use for this game. Additionally, because of this, this mode went untested by others who didn't own two controllers or wanted to bother with the mode, hence limiting other players from testing this mode. Overall, if you could skip the text in the cutscenes, allow remapping of keys in game, and allow 2 player mode to be played without having it be exclusive to 2 controllers, it would be much more comfortable and less frustrating to play. [h1]Final words[/h1] While this game suffers from a poorly written story and poorly done art, slightly frustrating controls, some unoriginal bullet patterns, as well as some unfound glitches and a slightly rushed and untested release, the gameplay is really good, and that to me, is what matters. I would play this game on coop with friends without needing to look at the cutscenes or story, just need to focus on the stages and boss fights and compete together to see who's grazed the most bullets and accumulated the most points at the end of the game.

ストーリーが良い

This Touhou AU style game is a good start up to see the story and learn about the characters. This game has a feature to have a health system that gave me the motivation to get to the end of the game on Lunatic mode. The levels are lengthy and the in jokes and memes come at the right time.

It's really easy to dunk on Chuhou Joutai: the character art is contorted and disproportionate, the dialogue is meandering and full of lame references, the gameplay is consistently easy and bosses can be cheesed by the sheer amount of hitpoints you are given. That being said, once I sat down and played through it I actually started liking it? Like it's not on the same level as most other, better-regarded shmups (like the Touhou games it strives to be), but it's a fun experience. The core engine is not bad in my opinion, and the game itself plays fine. I also like the soundtrack, and the option to change the "sound chip" the game uses is neat. What I think Chuhou Joutai suffers from is A. a lack of play-testing and B. relying on a solo developer for aspects which they do not excel at. This results in a game which takes shortcuts in the wrong places and turns into a strange product that I think only the creator can fully understand. That being said, I've shown this to several groups of friends who have really enjoyed watching me play it, so if you want a fun time, go get Chuhou Joutai.