Danmaku Unlimited 3 Review (Faith)
Danmaku Unlimited 3 is the misunderstood and somewhat eccentric byproduct from a marriage between a Touhou-style and Cave-like arcade STG. This however does not mean that DU3 doesn't have its place, because it most certainly does; and what a joy it is to behold.
DU3's greatest strengths lie with its presentation and ability to effortlessly fuse together two very different styles of STG's. Touhou-inspired shmups tend to focus on boss fights with fancy and mesmerizing bullet patterns -- or spell cards -- while Cave-like arcade STG's tend to focus more on chaotic levels with plenty of bombs, hypers, and chest-thumping music from the beginning up until the very end of each stage. For reasons which escape me however, DU3's graphics take some time to appreciate; both enemies and even stage backgrounds may seem bland at first, but they're so full of easy-to-miss detail.
DU3 is one of those games where the more you play, the more you see, and the more you appreciate. Which is a pity really, because I see many players picking DU3 up and putting it down mere hours later thinking that it is either too dull, not exciting enough, or doesn't offer anything extraordinary.
What was love-on-first-sight however was DU3's extremely sharp visuals. Both your hitbox and enemy bullets are extremely clear and easy to distinguish from the never-ending chaos and destruction; and critically, complex bullet patterns employ well thought out color palettes which make identifying individual sub-patterns a breeze. Even when patterns begin to aggressively overlap on higher difficulties it is always easy to distinguish one pattern from another and to quickly identify and establish an escape route; this means that spell cards are often extremely fair despite being outlandishly difficult at times.
It isn't just the boss fights which shine in DU3 however; stages themselves are very well thought out with well choreographed enemy formations and attack patterns complemented by beautiful level design and harmonizing special effects and music.
Behind all this grace and beauty however is an immensely hardcore and punishing game, even by STG standards. For starters, DU3 doesn't really believe in invulnerability frames; you can get hit repeatedly so quickly and lose all your extends in absolutely no-time that you'll be scratching your head first in confusion, then disbelief, and ultimately awe. Next up, DU3 employs an all-or-nothing approach to scoring: your score multiplier -- which does NOT counter stop -- is increased by grazing bullets, which is fine, but this multiplier can be carried all the way from the second you start, through boss fights, to the end-of-stage scorecard. What this means is getting hit just once (which resets your multiplier all the way back to zero) or even using a bomb (which cuts it in half) is more often than not run-ending when playing for score, as a multiplier of 10,000 becomes a very big deal when clearing even just one additional pattern.
DU3 also has a habit of augmenting its mesmerizing bullet patterns with speed and this results in one heck of an adrenaline-rush; not only do you need to be able to work well with Touhou-style spell cards, but you're going to have to be snappy as well as boss phases transition extremely quick.
With all that said though, DU3 is still an approachable and somewhat accessible game as the easier difficulties are well balanced and will still make you feel like an absolute champion. And for those who are looking to get better, I genuinely feel that each increase in difficulty is a very natural evolution from the previous one which results in earlier difficulties being a solid foundation for the next tier up. This is a trait I'm always fond of as maintaining a certain degree of familiarity is a kind of fairness which tends to compliment what is otherwise an extremely challenging game to master.
All-in-all Danmaku Unlimited 3 is a proper danmaku in every sense of the genre and it's always awesome to see more STG's embrace the mesmerizing beauty of bullet patterns which are more typically associated with Touhou-style shmups. What an awesome game!~
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