Amazing! It plays really well. In fact, I’d like to be able to play this with a controller (hint hint). The story is just the right length, and doesn’t get boring while offering enough to be interesting. The music sounds great, it’s really special and really contributes to the storytelling. There is even some enemy variety, but I feel it’s a little stretched over the five stages. Boss fights are nice, especially the boss themes.

Balance wise, the game is not too hard (on normal), but the [L]aser can feel a little OP. Also some of the pickups are a little confusing. They all have a single letter, no popup text when you pick one up, but I managed to at least guess that the letters mean [E]nergy, [S]hield, [L]aser, and [W]here did my laser go? Is energy used for anything? You can easily spend half the stage with 100 energy just sitting there.

There is also an issue that you are sometimes alone, with no bullets, enemies, and only a scrolling background. I’d fix it by skipping forward if there aren’t any enemies left onscreen.

In summary: one of the best games I’ve played of this jam! I might return and go for the good ending even.

This is a very nice, well made game. The art looks good and it plays very well, at least it seems to play well to me.

I suck at bullet hells and though most of the gameplay was okay the boss battles did start to strain my eyes, so I did not finish the game.

I think the only thing I was on the fence about was the dialogue, which sometimes lacked context and was hard to follow. I also wish there was dialogue skip, especially when I had to repeat dialogue after dying.

I didn't understand what energy was for but I just assumed it was a common genre thing I wasn't aware of (I don't really play this kind of game much).

There are also a few minor glitches- high score is listed as NaN and enemies don't have hitboxes for a brief moment after they spawn (though this might not be a glitch?).

Finally, I think I recognize the death scream

I had a lot of fun playing this one! I gave it a spin last night and got wrecked... but after some rest, gave it another go and got a 1cc clear on normal mode.

The graphics, audio, and music are all great, and fit together nicely. It has an arcade presentation that I like a lot.

The gameplay itself is easy to learn, but fairly challenging (at least to a SHMUP/Bullet hell novice like myself). I found the laser to be the best weapon, and stockpiled bombs for the bosses... though even then used them sparingly. I had a giant pile by the final fight!

While playing, I had no idea what the energy was for... though I had a vague idea that it might be for powering up the weapons. Based on comments below, looks like that was correct. "Dodge" was also a complete mystery to me, but again, reading other comments below cleared that up.

I never really used the shift key at all. The movement speed was already fairly slow, and if anything I felt like I needed a speed boost key, not one that made me slower.

Anyhow, overall a great submission! One of my favorites for sure, nice work!

Hm. My bullet hell skills must have rusted too much to Normal 1cc this game on my first try. Did the first three stages no problem, two continues on stage 4, and did stage 5 no problem. This is what no-longer-playing-Touhou for 6 months did to my skills... huh... m(_ _)m

Well done on the arts and musics -- both are not bad at all.

Also love some of the attack patterns here... I have got a feeling you really have taken a liking on EoSD's stage 4 lol. Some enemy attacks in stage 4 really reminds me of the green-bullet-shooting books (which to this day still give me nightmares T_T), and I think the slow bullets in stage 3 is kind of reminiscent of Patchouli's Fire Sign "Agni Shine" which you encountered playing as Reimu A...

A few comments on the gameplay. If I remember correctly you were trying to make a bullet hell game, right? And more specifically Touhou bullet hell? If that's indeed what you were aiming for, there are several problems:

• The bullets move way too fast and not dense enough for that genre imo. With that bullet speed and density, there is no need for hitbox indicator; because there is no need to hyperfocus on the player character (in fact it is much better not to when the bullets are that fast)...
• Also with regards to the bullets, make them flashier and more beautiful next time. Touhou's bullet hell patterns are arts :D
•  The character also feels too slow -- it's so slow that I don't even need to use the LShift button at all. Focus mode in bullet hell games is for micrododging extremely dense bullets when moving without focus mode is just too fast. At this point this game is not really bullet hell SHMUP but just regular SHMUP but harder. If this is what you were aiming for there is nothing wrong about it though... but if you are aiming for bullet hell, the experience is definitely very different.
  
• Is there a reason why the continue sends you back to the beginning of the stage? This is a quite odd design decision imo; Touhou 11 and 12 are among the most hated Touhou games mainly for this reason -- and those Touhou are still more merciful because despite sending the players back to the beginning, they have unlimited continues as a tradeoff.
• I actually love the idea of putting L, S, and W shot types BUT... practically they seem to do the same thing it seems. They cover about the same area and they do the same damage. In other SHMUPS those different shot types have different functionalities: usually 1 for small-area-high-damage attack, 1 for wider-area-but-less-hurtful attack, and 1 for homing. Other possible shot types are burst attacks that shoot high damage attacks but only occasionally (e.g. rocket launcher), high-damage but inaccurate attacks, and close-range attacks among other things. Just some food of thoughts to consider the next time you make a SHMUP game (bullet hell or not) with shot type power-ups like this one in the future
• Let me tell you something... aimed shots are very easy to dodge when you know the trick. The trick is called "streaming" -- this is a SHMUP technique where after the enemy shoots you only move very slightly to dodge it; done properly, a machine gun of aimed bullets will trail behind the player. Vast majority of this game's bullet patterns are aimed shots from what I can tell, and they can be cheesed this way. Also include static shots and more random shots (well I think some of the aimed shots in your game have random deviations but it's still not enough I think) in your game.

This is a fun bullet-hell game. The controls are comfortable and intuitive, the graphics are clear and presented well, and the sound adds that extra layer of enjoyment. I do have a criticism: I don't understand how "energy" or "dodge" work. Besides that, I enjoyed my time with this game.

First off, nice to hear your music! Those extended chords coupled with the simple catchy melodies are perfect for getting that vibe. Really liking the color palette, too. Feels good to play, and it reminds me of ye olde days playing these kinds of games in the arcade. Now, I am terrible at these games, but for some reason I still find them fun, haha! Nice work.

This would be one of the few bullet hells that I actually played semi-seriously, so I don't have much of a comparison but I thought it was pretty good. I really liked the coin/credit system wherein you could reset the level upon death with added boosts. That sort of thing really makes the game more accessible, which is great. The enemies and bosses were straight-forward, the story is very functional above everything, which fits well into this game. That's because the everything just flows. It's a game you can pick up very quickly—which means it ends fast, but more levels could surely be added to alleviate that, which I don't think it needs. Now, the difficulty levels are really suited for players with previous experience and the brief tutorial isn't at all suited for the layman, but you can figure most of that out by playing. It feels like a game that is paying homage to its origins, which I think is fine because it feels like the developer achieved the game they wanted to make. You can tell, because it's a good game. Great work!

holy projectiles batman! this is hard! even on easy mode, but I liked it, great presentation and fun gameplay.

Haha, I am way too incompetent at bullet hells to complete this, but I had fun with as far as I could get.

Observations:

• Boss battles were actually the easiest part because you just spam bombs until they die. How many bombs can you stockpile? It wasn't clear if there was a limit and I managed around seven or eight at one point.
• Laser objectively best weapon. No travel time and all that.
• Difficulty levels and the big hunk of energy given on respawn were a nice touch
• Backgrounds are top-notch!