No Need for Flowers

Played through Hard mode with all three characters. Stage design is pretty interesting and forces you to do a bunch of unconventional things. Boss patterns are also beautiful and unique. You actually have to make use of most of the play field, which I’m a big fan of. Attacks are well-telegraphed and you probably won’t die from a cheapshot. I say probably because I’m a moron and for my first playthrough, I didn’t notice the purple colour gradient during one of the final boss’ attacks and she proceeded to rain hellfire on me, oops. Final boss in general has neat setpieces. The system for survival is pretty vanilla, but that's fine because the stages do most of the innovating. Can’t speak for scoring because I have zero experience on that aspect. If I had to nitpick, I’d say that there’s too much aimed patterns sometimes. Eg. With the exception of one burst wave which is random, the entirety of the stage 5 boss’ last stand is aimed at you and all you have to do is slow streaming. That attack feels like the Rainbow Ring of People of this game. Not quite sure what happened there… Bullet visibility isn’t an issue in this game except for possibly Poly’s third nonspell on Hard (the one with a ton of crisscrossing fireballs). For me, the particle effects of the fireballs made reading the pattern a bit of an eyesore. You can reduce particle effects in the settings and it’s probably just skill issue on my part, but the final boss throws a lot more fireballs at you and I didn’t have a problem with bullet visibility there whatsoever. The overall story is alright. It didn’t wow me or anything, but for a genre where the story typically just exists, I’d say this one did a pretty good job. The characters are cute, and their writing is fun. Love Lobelia. Plumeria’s mid-battle lines, coupled with their theme, got me a little emotional. You can really feel her desperation to prove herself there. Speaking of themes, holy crap the music in this game is great. Each track holds up well in a vacuum, but the music fits the game perfectly in the sense that it complements the narration of the game well. The stages in the game are very well choreographed in that regard, stage 4 especially. The game feeds you quite a bit of lore throughout this stage, and each portion of the music fits the line of narration it corresponds with. It can happen with the bosses as well. For example, during the Stage 4 boss, the “holy” part of the boss theme typically plays for me when I reach the 3rd spell and the boss says “Even when I may suffer, I am blessed!”. Of course if you shoot down the boss too fast/slow then it doesn’t apply, but I really like the idea that each musical phrase/idea embellishes the portion of the story the game is conveying at that moment. It’s common for stages in Touhou-styled bullet hells to be synced with the music, but man this game takes it up a notch. Sorry if I don’t make much sense, I have too little musical knowledge and vocabulary to describe what I mean. Both creator and composer did an excellent job combining storytelling with music basically. Overall, it’s a good game that’s a lot of fun. If you’re a fan of Touhou-likes or shmups in general, I definitely recommend picking this game up. If you’re just here for cute dragons and are new to the genre, give it a try too! I played in Normal mode briefly and thought it was pretty accessible, and there’s an even easier mode (Easy) for complete newcomers to get their feet wet. I eagerly await the extra stage. TLDR: good game, decent story, fantastic music, cute characters, accessible to all skill levels.

Yes. 100% Yes. This game is a wonderful (and surprisingly accessible!) Touhou-inspired danmaku shmup made with love. It tells a lovely story with a host of endearing characters, has fun and exciting patterns, and a ZUNpet-filled soundtrack that is absolutely perfect. It even has a few little secrets here and there! If there's any part of you that enjoys danmaku games, or even WANTS to like danmaku games (but perhaps finds Touhou too difficult,) then I can't recommend this game highly enough. Lily, your froggy spell is wonderful; thank you for sharing it.

Definitely a solid bullet hell. The final boss is a little bit of a freebie compared to earlier stages, but the soundtrack and presentation sells it. The writing and story aren't bad per se, but it's a little strange how it kind of feels like going through the aftermath of another story. Who plays bullet hells for the story, though? Good music and some shockingly unique ideas for patterns. I don't find them all fun, but the game was still a solid experience overall.