After the very first credit spent on this game, I took a short bathroom break, thinking about its mechanics: enemies that drop silver coins, filling a gauge that lets you enter a special mode that turns silver coins into red coins to keep the special gauge up while increasing your score? This is DoDonPachi! DoDonPachi SaiDaiOujo's X360 mode to be precise, and then I recalled that at least one of the men behind that game left Cave for 5pb/Mages, which are incidentally publisher and developer of Bullet Soul Infinite Burst.
Now, I haven't played the original game, but to my knowledge, Infinite Burst is more of a remix than a true successor, with an extra ship and at least one new game mode.
You can select between Normal, Burst (a possibly new game mode...can anyone confirm), and Caravan. Normal and Burst have two variants but haven't tried them yet.
Common mechanics include a shoot (wide reach, fast ship movement) / laser (narrow reach, slow ship movement) firing and the four ships available: you've got a shoot type (fast, with extra wide shoot), a laser type (average stats, secondary laser beams lock on targets), a lock type (laser unleashes four satellites that constantly attack the locked enemies), and a grappler type, the new ship. Grappler type? Yes, because the ship in question has two hands (bigger than the ship itself, I might add) that fire missiles in shoot and punch enemies in laser. Well, it should be mentioned that the lock type ship is piloted by a guy that resembles a mix between the Burger King, a wrestler, and a Greek god and he has a loyal catgirl always with him.
Caravan is what you would expect: 2 minutes, special stage, ship of your choice fully powered up, aim to the highest score.
In normal mode you've got your stock of screen-clearing bombs, power ups, and a multiplier meter that fills up the more enemies you destroy, and slowly (veeeeeery slowly) decreases when not killing things. There aren't many big twists here except for level bonuses, I'll talk about them later.
Burst mode is the first I tried and the one I opened this post with: lives and bombs are placed by a hyper...erhm, no, burst gauge and a shield gauge.
All enemies drop silver coins when killed, and these coins slowly go toward the bottom of the screen; when they reach it, they bounce upward, increasing their value. Coins increase score and the burst gauge. With the gauge full, you can enter burst mode (increased firepower and movement speed), where coins become red and used to keep the burst gauge up. Red coins keep the same "bounce" mechanic of plain silver coins, and bounced red coins increase the burst gauge dramatically, but the same gauge goes down pretty fast, thoguh it's nowhere near DoDonPachi...yes, the vibe that Burst mode gives is that of a more lenient X360 mode from DoDonPachi, with the added bonus of complete lack of Element Doll and Operator constantly talking.
Crashing into an enemy or getting hit by a bullet will make the shield gauge go down, and it's possible to replenish it, though I'm not sure how.
In both burst and normal modes, you can collect several bonuses, based off several factors: "mistery" and "secret" bonuses are awarded by destroying certain enemies/background objects, "collection" bonuses are awarded for collecting a lot of coins in a short amount of time.
In all modes, killing an enemy will also cancel its on-screen bullets, and after relatively quiet first and second stages, you'll be grateful about this.
Bullet Soul Infinite Burst plays well, though it doesn't seem the most original title, as you can distinctively feel a strong DoDonPachi influence in it, although the difficulty and pattern memorisation to keep gauges high have all been toned down.
Graphics are clear enough, though they get a bit blurry on TATE 24" and play area set to maximum. In later stages, enemies tend to enter the screen from the sides completely unnannounced, and unfortunately there's no option to place the score/burst gauge on the top or the bottom of the screen (which is empty anyway in TATE if you want to keep the correct aspect ratio).
Bullet patterns are on the easy side, though there are a lot of on screen at any given time, but since bullets are cancelled when the shooter is destroyed, cheap deaths are not so common.
The four ships play very differently between each other, moreso than DoDonPachi, and there's a healthy amount of video, audio, and controller options, though the total package is not as complete as BS's main inspiration.
Not as surprising as Ginga Force, but definitely a well made shoot'em'up.
Now, I haven't played the original game, but to my knowledge, Infinite Burst is more of a remix than a true successor, with an extra ship and at least one new game mode.
You can select between Normal, Burst (a possibly new game mode...can anyone confirm), and Caravan. Normal and Burst have two variants but haven't tried them yet.
Common mechanics include a shoot (wide reach, fast ship movement) / laser (narrow reach, slow ship movement) firing and the four ships available: you've got a shoot type (fast, with extra wide shoot), a laser type (average stats, secondary laser beams lock on targets), a lock type (laser unleashes four satellites that constantly attack the locked enemies), and a grappler type, the new ship. Grappler type? Yes, because the ship in question has two hands (bigger than the ship itself, I might add) that fire missiles in shoot and punch enemies in laser. Well, it should be mentioned that the lock type ship is piloted by a guy that resembles a mix between the Burger King, a wrestler, and a Greek god and he has a loyal catgirl always with him.
Caravan is what you would expect: 2 minutes, special stage, ship of your choice fully powered up, aim to the highest score.
In normal mode you've got your stock of screen-clearing bombs, power ups, and a multiplier meter that fills up the more enemies you destroy, and slowly (veeeeeery slowly) decreases when not killing things. There aren't many big twists here except for level bonuses, I'll talk about them later.
Burst mode is the first I tried and the one I opened this post with: lives and bombs are placed by a hyper...erhm, no, burst gauge and a shield gauge.
All enemies drop silver coins when killed, and these coins slowly go toward the bottom of the screen; when they reach it, they bounce upward, increasing their value. Coins increase score and the burst gauge. With the gauge full, you can enter burst mode (increased firepower and movement speed), where coins become red and used to keep the burst gauge up. Red coins keep the same "bounce" mechanic of plain silver coins, and bounced red coins increase the burst gauge dramatically, but the same gauge goes down pretty fast, thoguh it's nowhere near DoDonPachi...yes, the vibe that Burst mode gives is that of a more lenient X360 mode from DoDonPachi, with the added bonus of complete lack of Element Doll and Operator constantly talking.
Crashing into an enemy or getting hit by a bullet will make the shield gauge go down, and it's possible to replenish it, though I'm not sure how.
In both burst and normal modes, you can collect several bonuses, based off several factors: "mistery" and "secret" bonuses are awarded by destroying certain enemies/background objects, "collection" bonuses are awarded for collecting a lot of coins in a short amount of time.
In all modes, killing an enemy will also cancel its on-screen bullets, and after relatively quiet first and second stages, you'll be grateful about this.
Bullet Soul Infinite Burst plays well, though it doesn't seem the most original title, as you can distinctively feel a strong DoDonPachi influence in it, although the difficulty and pattern memorisation to keep gauges high have all been toned down.
Graphics are clear enough, though they get a bit blurry on TATE 24" and play area set to maximum. In later stages, enemies tend to enter the screen from the sides completely unnannounced, and unfortunately there's no option to place the score/burst gauge on the top or the bottom of the screen (which is empty anyway in TATE if you want to keep the correct aspect ratio).
Bullet patterns are on the easy side, though there are a lot of on screen at any given time, but since bullets are cancelled when the shooter is destroyed, cheap deaths are not so common.
The four ships play very differently between each other, moreso than DoDonPachi, and there's a healthy amount of video, audio, and controller options, though the total package is not as complete as BS's main inspiration.
Not as surprising as Ginga Force, but definitely a well made shoot'em'up.
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