65. Trouble Witches Origin - Episode1 Daughters of Amalgam - (Steam)
I'm not intimately acquainted with the modern shmup scene, but from what I can tell the Trouble Witches "series" basically consists of a single game that's been retooled many times. First came the original doujin (Japanese indie) PC game (developed by a group called Studio SiestA), then an arcade port by Taito. Following this was a remake available on the Xbox Live Arcade store, which has since be delisted -- the perils of a digital gaming future! Now, the only practical way to experience Trouble Witches is to grab it on Steam; this particular variation is known as Trouble Witches Origin - Episode1 Daughters of Amalgam - (yes, with that punctuation and spacing, I'm just gonna call it Trouble Witches Origin). There are multiple modes of play available, though I found the first two perfectly sufficient. Arcade and Story mode are self-explanatory, with the latter simply inserting cutscenes between each level and before boss battles. The "AC" mode is, I believe, based off an older iteration of the game, while the Challenge mode is presumably for people who are actually good at shooters. There's also a nice text-based tutorial which teaches the basics of the game in about thirty seconds or so.
What first attracted me to Trouble Witches was its superficial similarities to Cave's (excellent) Deathsmiles. With original release dates of 2007, both games are horizontal bullet hell shooters starring a posse of young witch girls. Where Cave went for a darker Gothic approach, Trouble Witches is bright, bold, and incredibly silly. The character designs are flat-out ridiculous, in terms of both proportion and choice of attire, but rather pleasing to the eye. I chose to play as Pril, a blonde witch with a big floppy hat. She seems to be something of a "main character" from what I can tell. There are some DLC characters as well, including the eponymous heroine of the old Cotton series. The "story" - should you choose to view the cutscenes - is rather atrocious. The witches themselves are charming, and the (Japanese) voice-acting is superb, but the sheer amount of dialogue is comically absurd and the overall plot largely incoherent.
On to the actual gameplay. Now, I'm no connoisseur of bullet hells, so I can't be entirely sure how this one holds up against its peers in terms of originality and overall quality. I will say this: what I personally experienced was quite compelling and fun. Each playable character differs slightly in terms of weaponry and speed. The witches also have their own familiars -- Pril is teamed up with a cat (who's annoyingly "sassy" in the Story mode) who provides some additional firepower. Pril's wand has autofire capabilities, but there's a catch. Defeated enemies explode into a flurry of money, which will immediately drop off-screen if the attack button continues to be held. Laying off the fire momentarily will instead cause coins to home in on Pril, and collecting said currency is absolutely essential.
Each lengthy stage contains a few shops, held in a floating pumpkin and staffed by a young gal wearing a pumpkin on her head. (If this sounds familiar, it's a clear homage to the TurboGrafx-16 cute-witch shooter Magical Chase -- check that one out if you have a few thousand dollars laying around). I generally dislike shops in my shmups, including this one, as they tend to awkwardly break up streams of frantic action. The special powers that can be obtained are pretty swell, though, including weapon upgrades, screen-clearing meteors, and life/magic increases. Anything purchased in a shop is stored as a "card" which isn't activated automatically but can be stored until a pertinent time. Like virtually all shmups, the objective of Trouble Witches Origin is to shoot (haha) for a high score. This is where the special weapons come into play. Any enemy destroyed by them will yield star coins, which are cashed in for mega-points when a stage concludes. A star coin total is stored separately from overall points, and losing a life will slice off a large percentage of total coins accumulated.
Bombs. Most shmups seem to have them. You can save 'em for the bosses or do what I do: panic fifteen seconds into stage one and commence the bombing. Trouble Witches Origin has no bombs. Instead we have something much cooler, a magical circle. This mystical device can be activated and canceled at will, lasts for a limited amount of time (MP meter), but will regenerate another charge over time. The circle serves a couple of purposes: it slows down time and sucks (most) hostile bullets into the circle's edges. If you capture enemy bullets and then shoot whatever enemy fired them, said bullets will be transformed into coins. But this carries tremendous risk. Run out of MP and the circle suddenly vanishes, which can potentially cause dozens of captured bullets to proceed in a straightforward path. Worse, if a witch captures bullets but fails to defeat the foe that fired them, the bullets will turn into yellow homing missiles. All said, the circle is a brilliant mechanic, a clever way to maximize score, and the regenerating component allows it to be utilized persistently.
Game visuals are mixed. Sprites are clean and cartoony, as the stage backgrounds. Levels are a bit cliché and seemingly elemental based (ice, fire, etc.) but are generally pretty to look at. That is, until the last few stages where the developers apparently ran out of ideas. The game's concluding "temples" are undeniably dull and constructed from rote copy-paste 3D backdrops. Music is merely serviceable, and generally difficult to hear.
Bosses are huge, tough, and impressive, with their grand "introductions" perhaps the highlight of the entire Trouble Witches experience. Most can only be damaged periodically, when a specific weak point is revealed, which can occasionally drag out some fights. The trend is bucked for the final boss confrontation, which is more of an all-out bullet volley. Overall game difficulty is high but "fair" (I played on Normal mode) and the game allows for infinite continues (otherwise you wouldn't be reading this review). Of course, anyone hoping to climb those leaderboards will have to shoot for a 1CC with maximized score via clever magic circle and special weapon use. Normal enemies are typically one-shot-kills, it's the sheer number of on-screen sprites that complicates things.
I went into this one with no real expectations, but ended up enjoying myself. It's quirky, intelligent, with intuitive mechanics. A true sequel has been stuck in developmental hell for years now; hopefully it one day surfaces.
