Dream of YukiHana

For a free Bullet Herr Shooter, that heavily reminds me of Touhou, this game is surprisingly good, including the music. It may have some technical issues here and there but nothing that would break the game. Definitely recommended. Overall good but still needs more development and QOL updates. And maybe better key bindings.

Before starting this review, a word of warning: This game was made in RPG Maker VX Ace, and as thus a danmaku game like this is quite volatile. [u]I had several unexplainable slowdowns and stutters on Windows [/u] that made the game barely playable on Standard and unplayable on Ultra, I'm talking literal frame-skips happening that felt like 6-7 fps. This was completely solved by using Linux (Proton) on the same PC. I'm still not sure what caused the incompatibility, but I would have put thumbs down if it weren't for Linux and the fact that I was a lone case. Moving on. Dream of YukiHana is a vertical shmup made by Mr.JX and presented as a Hololive fangame. Mr.JX has made at least one shmup before, so it's not their first rodeo, but this is the first game of them I played. You control one character trying to get to the center of Taisetsu Montain looking for answers and prayers. There are two modes, Story and Last Battle. Story mode is the regular game; it consists of 5 stages, each with midbosses and bosses, and a Final Boss at the end of all that has no requisites. Last Battle would instead be the equivalent to Touhou's extra stages (one long brutal stage and long boss battles with no breaks). The game is extremely straightforward, your only keys are movement, shoot, focus and bomb, like Touhou. The game has an autobomb system that works exactly like DoDonpachi Resurrection (you use one bomb per hit before dying and restoring your default stock of 3, autobombs last less time and do nothing), which is extremely helpful for surviving. Resources are also straightforward. You start with 2 lives and 3 bombs. You can earn up to 4 lives by scoring and reaching undetermined thresholds (you will do this naturally), 1 life given by the stage 4 midboss, and 1 life that is HIDDEN and only obtainable if [spoiler] you destroy the wings of the first boss.[/spoiler] You also earn one bomb for each phase of a midboss or boss defeated. Phase thresholds are extremely variable, some enemies have several and others have a single phase (so you only earn 1 bomb). The scoring system is also very straightforward. Defeating enemies or cancelling bullets makes medals drop on your screen, and collecting those gives you value equal to (idk for sure but it's tied to) your current medal bonus. This medal bonus is increased by damaging and killing enemies, and decreases by autobombing or dying. So playing perfectly or strategically bombing, as well as cancelling bullets with good timing (there are several enemies that trigger cancels over the stages) is the way to go. Medals are collected by getting close to them, and focusing increases your pickup radius which is quite small without it. The game has three difficulties: Easy, Standard & Ultra. I cleared Standard barely on my first try, stutter galore and all. It felt inbetween normal/hard in Touhou. Ultra feels like a step-up above Lunatic instead (though remember: you have autobombs). Ultra also has some added gimmicks: there are no medals on screen because they're automatically given to you. In exchange, you get revenge bullets on every single enemy (though they don't shoot those if you're close to them when they die), and all enemies become emissaries of hell and shoot ten thousand bullets at you. The stage layout has some thought put into it, but you don't really see it until Ultra. Even though there is a lot of streaming involved, often you have to actively path towards a key hazard, or sidestep back into the fire. Else you get overwhelmed and have to bomb/autobomb. Like... Mushi Ultra. Controlling enemies during stages becomes actively important. The bosses are challenging on Ultra, but I feel some of their attacks are noot particularly balanced, or at least I can't see how would you actually dodge their patterns. I'm talking stuff like being walled by fast spreads and waiting for your death by slow bursts, or a hundred needles coming from all directions... for several seconds. But hey, I've 1CCed both modes on Ultra so it must be doable. Has local leaderboards, replays and a basic practice mode. I don't have anything particular to say about the art, music or story, they felt cohesive enough. I don't see these VTubers so I know nothing about them. The characters themselves play fine, though the hidden chara is probably the best for Ultra due to the defensive bomb.