Update: A few not-so-great comments have been added below pertaining to Hell; though I still maintain that this is an excellent game on Original difficulty!~
If you've read my review for Blue Wish Desire then you'll know that I'm an extremely big fan of X.X Gameroom. My philosophy is: if there's a new X.X game released in a given year, then it will be a good year. All of a sudden the world becomes a brighter place, a better place; a place with less worries, a place with less stress, and a place worth fighting for.
And Eden's Eclipse attempts to set the bar even higher than ever before.
X.X Gameroom is currently the absolute best modern-day Cave we have; every single X.X game wears its Cave influences proudly on its sleeves. Whether you're a fan of the Dodonpachi series, Mushihimesama, or even Espgaluda; one run through any X.X game will make you nod your head in appreciation and go "Yep, I spot this or that influence!"
And despite this influence, X.X still manages to carve out their own identity. Players of both the Blue Wish and Eden's series will find each entry very distinct from one another and yet, strikingly familiar. One look at one game followed by the next, and you'll instantly know you've got an X.X masterpiece on your hands. And this is such an immensely powerful trait to possess.
If you've played any one of X.X's many games which came before Eden's Eclipse, then you'll pretty much know what to expect. It's business-as-usual in the graphics, sound, and music department; and there is nothing wrong with that. Eden's Eclipse's presentation is masterfully executed with every single one of the game's assets complimenting each other in perfect harmony.
Player control is as razor-sharp as ever, and the one thing I continuously praise X.X for is how insanely precise and meticulously choreographed the setup of each stage feels. And this is where I'll be lazy and just copy-and-paste a small bit from my Blue Wish Desire review as it is still 100% relevant here: "Enemies and their projectiles come at you and overlap with each other with a frightening level of grace and fury and the action does not stop until the end-of-stage scorecard. Blue Wish Desire is fast, it's tight, and it does not wait. It's a non-stop adrenaline rush from start to end."
Despite how familiar everything is in Eden's Eclipse, X.X has also thankfully made the game a little more accessible too. There's now a mini help screen which shows you what your basic controls do, and, for what I believe is a first for an X.X game, there's finally an "English" option! Though I do still appreciate that bosses are introduced with their names in both English and Japanese.
Now, while we're on the subject of "accessibility;" this is probably also the hardest X.X game to have ever been released. Right off the bat the "Auto Guard" (read: auto bomba) system which everyone knows and loves has been thrown straight out of the window. Instead we now have a "Guard Gauge." In order to activate your Guard you need to fill the Guard Gauge to 100%, which then gives you a single shield. Lose this shield and you'll have to replenish your Guard Gauge back to 100% for another; no longer are you able to take advantage of your bomba stock as a glorified health bar, instead you'll have to both dodge and plan your resources accordingly. The Guard Gauge can only be filled by collecting yellow gems, and yellow gems are only dropped from enemies killed by Hyper.
This certainly makes the game harder; but I honestly believe it's for the better. There's now actually some strategy involved with regards to how you want to plan your Hyper usage, as certain larger airborne enemies drop a lot more yellow gems than random worthless zako. And because your Guard isn't tied to your bomba stock, there's actually even an argument to be made that you have even more resources now, since getting hit while Guard is up doesn't reduce your bomba stock. Just don't get hit while Guard is down, lol... or your entire remaining bomba stock vanishes into thin air.
What all of this means is that you'll really need to up your reflex-bomba game with Eden's Eclipse, you'll also need to be good at routing your bomba usage for preemptive deployment in "problem areas" which you will come to recognize with experience; areas in which you frequently struggle to survive. I know this change will definitely be controversial, but I like it.
So, to wrap my review up then: Eden's Eclipse is yet another masterpiece from X.X Gameroom which shouldn't be overlooked. Not only is Eden's Eclipse exactly what we have come to expect from X.X, it has also grown up and matured. It is everything we love from X.X's past releases, and then some. Personally, I couldn't ever have asked for more.
And, after Blue Wish Desire, this is only the second time X.X has ever put an asking price on their game; and I strongly believe X.X is being extremely humble with what they're asking for. I would've easily paid three times more for the sheer amount of quality and craftsmanship we have on display here, and I feel so blessed to be able to experience such a masterpiece.
Thank you so much X.X for being around to grace us mere mortals with such an incredible game. Please don't ever change, and bless your heart!~
(P.S.: It is extremely rare for me to shed a tear while playing an STG. This is one of those times. These were tears of immense happiness and tremendous joy. Tears from when you go "Holy efff this is just so darn good." Tears of nostalgia, even; because at times it genuinely feels like I'm playing something made by the masters of the genre themselves: Cave.)
<3
Update: After 20 hours it is safe for me to say that the Hell difficulty has added a fair bit of sourness to what was originally an incredible experience. The Eden's Eclipse thread on system11 covers this in more detail, but the gist of it is that this game on Hell is a rather miserable experience; and it doesn't even have anything to do with the difficulty of the mode itself.
Minor grievances which were easy to ignore on Original are now huge problems in Hell; chief among which is the length of the game. Thanks to the amount of slowdown Hell introduces, Stages 1 to 3 have become a very tedious, tiresome and monotonous grind. Repetitions in enemy spawns are now greatly amplified, and visibility suffers when enemies are point-blanked with Hyper.
The single most critical flaw however is the fact that holding down the Hyper button cancels i-frames. In Original this has a habit of being rather annoying; but in Hell -- where you are frequently diving into thick clouds of bullets -- this can mean instant chain deaths if you just happen to have your Hyper button held down after taking a hit while micro-dodging said cloud.
And you know what is the biggest sin of all? Grinding this game on Hell bores me. Stages which were springing with life and joy in Original now resemble a dead-end data entry job. Because of how draggy so many stages have become, I feel like I can only commit to one run a day, after which I just feel so disinterested in trying more because I simply become bored of it. What a shame.
What's also somewhat confusing is X.X's decision to combine the Heaven & Accel difficulties from earlier games into what is now labelled as "Classic." Now you have double the unhappiness, because casual players will find Eden's Eclipse too difficult while seasoned Accel players like myself (think Original with double the bullet speed) also feel like we're missing out.
And just like that, Blue Wish Desire shall remain as my top X.X Gameroom pick.
