Just an absolutely incredible Shoot Em Up.
First things first: x.x Game Room is a Japanese indie shmup developer who has previously [url=https://xxgameroom.itch.io/]released a handful of amazing shmups for free on itch[/url], such as Eden's Aegis and Blue Wish. I'm not a hugely knowledgable on the genre, but to me they feel heavily inspired by Cave shooters (DoDonPachi, Mushihimesama) with an edge towards Touhou-style bullet patterns in terms of density and bullet speed. I heavily recommend Blue Wish Resurrection Plus. It's my favourite shmup and it's free.
Blue Wish Desire, on the other hand, feels a bit different. The bullet patterns are just as dense, complicated and beautiful as ever, but this game feels extremely hard. Shmups in general are a very difficult genre, but this game is a big step up in complexity from the previous games by this developer. I've managed a 1CC on original difficulty in Blue Wish Ressurection Plus, but in this game I struggle to even credit-dump my way through the game's novice mode, called Heaven. To help deal with the added difficulty, a new mechanic has been added called Burst. As you damage enemies, a bar at the bottom of the screen fills up, and when it's full you can use your Burst, which does not cost a bomb. This causes some temporary invulnerability, much like a bomb, and cancels nearby bullets, while also giving you a blue shield for the duration of the attack and a big increase in attack power (which does last for quite a long time!). If you get while this shield is active, you don't lose a life, but the effects of the burst are ended. As there doesn't seem to be any standard shmup-style powerups (which feels very strange at first), this is the way to add to your damage while fighting difficult enemies, or just a way to stay alive while dodging the intricate patterns.
Visually, the game is very nice to look at. Low-poly retro 3D backgrounds, like an upscaled version of what you'd see in the background of a PSX game, look interesting (and slightly nostalgic) enough without getting in the way of visibility, and the enemy ship designs are varied, detailed and interesting, if not a bit cookie-cutter for the genre. The bosses are huge and intimidating, ranging from a giant tank that looks like a robot head (reminds me of Megabyte from the old animated show ReBoot) to big spaceships that break apart into smaller chunks as you progress through the fight.
The game does have the standard bullet hell systems of bombs acting as get-out-of-jail-free cards and provides you with two extends at certain point milestones, as well as at least one hidden 1-up (I couldn't find any others, but they might exist). The scoring system heavily incentivizes aggression, as enemy drops are worth more points if you collect them as soon as they appear, and hidden chests throughout the levels provide a stream of point bonuses as long as they're open and remain on screen, so hitting them as early as possible is encouraged.
The boss design this time around is INCREDIBLE, and is the best part of the game in my opinion. All of the bosses are multi-stage fights, with pieces of the enemy breaking off and new attacks coming out as you go. While the stages are fast, hectic affairs, the bosses focus more on the density and precision of your dodging over the speed of your reactions, and finding the right route through an impossible labyrinth of bright pink bubbles feels addictive. It takes a bit of time to internalize the burst system and how you have to make a choice between popping it early for damage and potentially filling the meter again, or saving it for when you're really in trouble and need an escape.
You start with two ships unlocked, as well as two difficulties: Heaven, the "novice" difficulty, and Original, self-explanatory. Beating the game on Heaven difficulty (using many credits) unlocked a new ship; there are three extra ships to unlock, as well as two additional difficulties. I have yet to unlock two of the ships, but if they're anything like the ones from Blue Wish Resurrection Plus, they'll play reasonably differently to add to replayability or just to find your own style. Personally I would have preferred the ships be unlocked right away, but that's a minor quibble and it's fun to have a reason to go through the game in different ways. As for the unlockable difficulties, I can't speak on those as I have yet to unlock them, but higher remixed difficulty levels are always a welcome way to increase game longevity.
The game has an autoguard feature that is on by default, meaning if you take a hit when you have a bomb, the game will take away a bomb instead of a life. This makes mistakes less painful, but can be turned off in the settings menu if you prefer to play without. Unfortunately the ability to change the colour of bullets and point bonuses that was present in Blue Wish Resurrection Plus is absent this time around, but the game is quite readable out of the box. It also worked perfectly with my Qanba Obsidian joystick, although I did have to disable steam controller settings to avoid getting double inputs on everything.
This game is currently on sale, but is well worth the price if it isn't when you read this. If you don't want to spend money, check out the free games from this dev. They are incredible shmups in their own right.
That's a lot of words about this game. TL;DR is it's really solid and a great shmup for the price.
