Dream of YukiHana - 雪花的夢 — Story Mode Ultra 1CC (Yukihana Lamy)

Final score: 1.641.088.860 Enable close captions for some commentary. ------------------- Dream of YukiHana is a vertical shmup made by Mr.JX and presented as a Hololive fangame. Mr.JX has made at least one shmup before, so it's not their first rodeo, but this is the first game of them I played. You control one character trying to get to the center of Taisetsu Montain looking for answers and prayers. There are two modes, Story and Last Battle. Story mode is the regular game; it consists of 5 stages, each with midbosses and bosses, and a Final Boss at the end of all that has no requisites. Last Battle would instead be the equivalent to Touhou's extra stages (one long brutal stage and long boss battles with no breaks) which is covered in a separate video. The game is extremely straightforward, your only keys are movement, shoot, focus and bomb, like Touhou. The game has an autobomb system that works exactly like DoDonpachi Resurrection (you use one bomb per hit before dying and restoring your default stock of 3, autobombs last less time and do nothing), which is extremely helpful for surviving. Resources are also straightforward. You start with 2 lives and 3 bombs. You can earn up to 4 lives for each 5M points scored (you will do this naturally), 1 life given by the stage 4 midboss, and 1 life that is HIDDEN and only obtainable if you destroy the wings of the first boss. You also earn one bomb for each phase of a midboss or boss defeated. Phase thresholds are extremely variable, some enemies have several and others have a single phase (so you only earn 1 bomb). Midboss/bosses attacks are set through phases. All of them loop if taken enough time without defeating, though some of them have extremely long attack patterns meant to put pressure on you. The scoring system is also very straightforward. Defeating enemies or cancelling bullets makes medals drop on your screen, and collecting those gives you value equal to (idk for sure but it's tied to) your current medal bonus. This medal bonus is increased by damaging and killing enemies, and decreases by autobombing or dying. So playing perfectly or strategically bombing, as well as cancelling bullets with good timing (there are several enemies that trigger cancels over the stages) is the way to go. Medals are collected by getting close to them, and focusing increases your pickup radius which is quite small without it. Now. There's a catch. The game has three difficulties. On Ultra, which is the highest, there are no medals on screen because they're automatically given to you. In exchange, you get revenge bullets on every single enemy (though they don't shoot those if you're close to them when they die), and all enemies become emissaries of hell and shoot ten thousand bullets at you. The stage layout is actually well thought. Even though there is a lot of streaming involved, often you have to actively path towards a key hazard, or sidestep back into the fire. Else you get overwhelmed and have to bomb/autobomb. Like... Mushi Ultra. Because controlling enemies during stages becomes actively important, range and crowd control is needed, and this filters out two of the 4 characters available. So you're left with Nene and Lamy (the poster girl, unlockable by completing both modes once). And I didn't even talk about the bosses being very dangerous, but I'm running out of description characters so I won't talk more. I'll go ahead and list advantages and disadvantages. I decided to go with Lamy because she shines better in a "skill issue" situation against the final bosses, which I had. Perks of Nene: Wide straightforward shooting range Bomb is a long wide-screen wipe Good shot damage Most bosses are big, so they get the full width of damage from her shot, which means they die faster than with Lamy You can't get enemies from the other side of the screen, gotta plan ahead more Mediocre against small, humanoid bosses, you barely hit any shots so you have to fight for more time Bomb with iframes means the TLB's bomb iframes are big too. And the TLB is small. She REALLY struggles with the final attack Perks of Lamy: Homing reduces thought and let you focus on dodging The homing is actually not that bad Her bomb is defensive, cancels and slows down new bullets and gives you a temporary barrier (which doesn't decrease your medal bonus if hit). This bomb triggers less TLB bomb iframes, and thus becomes extremely powerful in these long fights. Homing guarantees small bosses get killed faster than Nene's output Less damage output against big bosses, you will have to fight them for more time If you autobomb often you're at a disadvantage compared to other characters A few specific sections in stages directly overwhelm her and you're forced to bomb 0:00 Stage 1 3:07 Stage 2 7:08 Stage 3 13:19 Stage 4 20:55 Stage 5 27:40 Last Boss 33:01 TLB 37:56 Ending ------------------- Steam link: https://store.steampowered.com/app/34...