Murasaki

Si wtetsu tiene 5 mil de fans yo soy uno de ellos si wtetsu tiene 100 fans yo soy uno de ellos, si wtetsu solo tiene 1 fan, ese soy yo, si wtetsu no tiene ningún fan es porque yo ya no estoy en este mundo. Es muy recomendable para la gente que no esta muy entrada al tipo de juego "Bullet Hell" PD. Tetsu te quiero.

Strangely compelling. Bittersweet. I like the music. An off-beat bullet hell.

9/10

music to listen to right before world destruction

An absolutely fascinating game. I honestly like it more than the touhou series.

Everything's satisfying about Murasaki. All of the levels are fun to play, and each remains fun throughout the level. Even the tutorial level is worth playing and replaying because it has such an interesting boss with such good music. The levels are fun even after you know them well, and aren't so quickly trivialized. Even the scoring is unusually satisfying. In similar games where you get points for killing enemies, knowledge of the level allows you to kill an entire wave before it even gets bullets off. Enemies flooding the screen with bullets is what makes the game fun, but preventing that fun gets you points more reliably. In Murasaki the enemy bullets matter more than the enemy for points, so the more-fun gameplay is also the higher-scoring gameplay. The bosses have a ton of character and move around the screen and react to your play in satisfying ways. If you damage a boss you'll interrupt the boss's dialogue. If you beat a boss quickly enough you'll get a 'duel' which gives you another harder round, which you can decline to save the run, just like you can more defensively clear the screen if you have to. The setting and story have a great tone, which reminds me a bit of Dept. Heaven games like Knights in the Nightmare. It's a little sad, a little serious, and a little funny. It's all very genuine and human while not being shy about being a game. On the Steamdeck there's some jank: it always crashes when I leave the Collection, there's a broken replay file, and input occasionally gets stuck. The Steamdeck forces resolution by default but on normal Linux some gamescope customization is needed to get a larger window. The sequel, Murasaki Tsurugi, has none of these problems but it's not a remake of this game: it has different bosses, levels, and a different feel to the gameplay, so I recommend this game and am playing it despite the jank. EDIT: the sticking is much worse with a controller, so map a controller to keyboard input. There are so many subtle touches. You're never invulnerable, not during specials and not even after beating the boss. Neither the tutorial nor the dialogue interrupt the gameplay. The characters feel very different to play and add a ton of replay value. The Collection motivates more gameplay and also explains the game and adds some character. The little bit of physics makes the levels less somehow static and mechanical than these games can feel sometimes - less like a puzzle that becomes uninteresting once solved, contrary to the "puzzle explosion game" billing. Mursaki may be a little off-putting at first. I complained that it didn't have replays - but it has a better than normal replay system! The start of the second level made me think I'd triggered some copyright protection and the dev thought I was pirating the game. Best to read the manual out of game, and the very good guide in the Steam community section. There's a Spanish translation in the forum, and looking at that, I'd like to make some other translations after I get far enough in the game that I won't spoil anything from reviewing the text. Cons: it's too cheaply priced, and the player % on my achievements is way too low. Play Murasaki! Very brief comparison: Touhou's a little more thrilling, with seat-of-the-pants dodging that leaves you amazed that you're still alive; Murasaki is a little more oppressive, after bad play has you trapped in a corner or against a wall.

In many ways Murasaki is the duo expanding upon their ideas, as they've always done, but this time they've taken it to a whole new heights, Irisu Syndrome's DNA can be felt all over this game, the amazing composer Takeaki Watanabe returns from Irisu Syndrome and once again it's a huge highlight, he gets to spread his wings, making far more chaotic and energetic music and it's a delight to listen to. But the game itself is an incredible take on bullet hell genre, taking the puzzle mechanics of Irisu Syndrome and bringing them over to this format and it works incredibly well.