An action game that I enjoyed way more than I expected.
The highlight is definitely the combat. Though Homura Hime has a lot of that "Vergil's daughter" style in her moveset, the actual play experience was closer to a Ninja Gaiden 2 mayhem, in my view. The game is Nier Automata control feel adopting a Devil May Cry moveset, balanced like a milder Ninja Gaiden through Tohou bullet hell chaos, with i-frames generated by Sekiro parry rather than UTs and OTs. Oh and there's dodge offset (dodge/parry doesn't reset your combo) so there's some room for creativity in manipulating Homura Hime's moveset as well.
The way the combat experience ramps up was very consistent too. Obviously, the first stage is pretty simple, making the game feel more like a DMC-lite with overpowered parries. Admittedly, I'm not a big fan of the Simon Says flashing light parry action, and that's why I wasn't super keen on Homura Hime when I tried the demo (which covered the first stage). The second stage started to add more complex enemies with varied encounters that piqued my interest, and by the third stage, I was hooked by this progressively messier bullet hell chaos. When 10 Simons are shouting at you from left, right, and above, it was a fun mayhem to dance in.
The stages also have platforming sections, some annoying and some clever. I liked how the parrying plays into platforming as well. They're mostly linear and didn't overstay their welcome.
The story is pretty "obvious" if you're familiar with fictional story tropes, especially the more edgy end of the Japanese manga, novels, games subculture. Some may find it cliché, but I generally believe in the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" philosophy in videogame story, unless the writer has some [i]really[/i] unique and creative idea with a matching writing competency. Though the game is made by a Taiwanese team, the Japanese localization was very good. They also got a lot of pretty big name, new gen Japanese VAs, so the delivery of the story is also very competent. Non-Japanese speaker may notice some familiar voices in there!
Shout out to the music. Nice ambient tracks, good upbeat combat music, some matching music for story hype moments, and kickass and varied boss music. It's not just that the tracks were good, their usages were pretty on point too!
Quick notes on potential downsides. Some of the "story" parts, like cutscenes, exploration sections may be boring to some who want in on the action. My total playtime was 13 hours, and I'd say at least 30% or so was probably spent on those. In terms of action, I didn't like how the game forces hard lock-on in certain parts (some "parry sequence" of elite enemies, boss fights). I feel the game plays perfectly fine without using the hard lock-on, as the soft lock-on's priority was quite intuitive. It felt like an oversight that I couldn't unlock when I wanted to in those specific contexts.
All in all, this was a very pleasant surprise. Well worth the price personally, but understandable if some isn't willing to pay $20+ for a 10-ish hours experience. Definitely give the game a shot if on sale though, passion projects by indie devs should be supported, especially when they're fun!
