If there’s one genre that’s been slightly under-represented this generation, it’s the shoot ‘em up. I mean, in most previous generations you couldn’t walk into a video game store without being surrounded by shmups. They were everywhere. Now there’s barely any of them in stores, and the network marketplaces of PSN and XBLA just have a handful of them.

Gundemonium Collection is a set of 3 shmups featuring “cute” chibi anime girls, and tons of bullets on the screen trying to murder them. The 3 games are: Gundemonium Recollection, GundeadliGne and Hitogata Happa. The first 2 are side-scrolling shooters like Gradius, while Hitogata Happa is vertical-scrolling, like the Touhou series. The games can be bought individually at $6 each, or as a pack for $15 (saving you $3 if you get the bundle).

So since the 3 games come in a collection, I’ll do a quick review of each game separately, with a small section to talk about the parts that are similar.

Developer: Platine Dispositif
Publisher: Rockin’ Android
Date of Release: June 15th 2010
Platforms: Playstation 3 (PSN), PC

Genre: “Bullet Hell” Shoot ‘em up
Rated E10+ for Everyone over 10

Presentation
Gundemonium Recollection and GundeadliGne have the same graphic design. Everything is big sprites. The girls you control take a good portion of the screens, as do the enemies, and the bullets are generally pretty big as well, so everything is very easy to see. And everything looks nice and pretty detailed. It’s very anime-ish, quite colorful and fun to look at. The bomb special effects for certain attacks are pretty crazy and fast-paced. Really, I have nothing to complain about in the graphics for those 2 games.

Hitogata Happa is very different graphically compared to Gundemonium Recollection and GundeadliGne. It’s vertical scrolling, the sprites for the characters you control are a lot smaller, the bullets are a lot smaller, and the enemies are generally a bit smaller too, other than the epic bosses that take half the screen. The enemies are quite detailed, though they all look very similar, using the same color palettes. The characters you control are a bit less detailed than in the other 2 games, but still quite good. Really, I’d say Hitogata Happa has a look that’s pretty similar to some of the Touhou games. The bullets look quite similar, and the sprites are around the same size, etc.

Gameplay
First let’s go with what all the games have in common. I’ll talk about specifics for each game afterwards. Since Hitogata Happa is radically different from the other 2, I won’t talk about it here.

Gundemonium Recollection and GundeadliGne are very similar. While both have big sprites for your character, only a tiny spot on them is actually vulnerable to attacks, which is right behind the characters’ hands when they’re shooting, just under their neck (sometimes a heart is displayed there). If bullets hit anywhere else on your character’s body, you’ll be fine. Each game has 2 characters you can use. One of them has more mobility, while the other is stronger. Each character has a mana action, which is generally an attack or a way to slow down time, and a bomb attack. The bomb attack generally clears the screen of bullets and kills weak enemies, or deals big damage to bosses, though some characters do have different types of bombs. You get points for various things, like picking up gems that enemies drop when they die, killing enemies, staying close to bullets (which boosts your mana bar). Though points really only matter when you get really good at the game and you try to beat your high scores.

Each game has a fire button, which you can hold down, a rapid-fire button, which acts differently from the normal fire button, a mana action button and a bomb button. Going from one game to the other is very easy since they have the same basic controls.

A weird gameplay element here is the time limit. For each area in a level, you have a sort of time limit. As you kill enemy waves, you get more enemy waves to come out. So the faster you clear enemies before the time limit goes out, the more enemies you can kill. It’s very frequent that you’ll be fighting a boss/mini-boss, and she’ll just go away undefeated. Sometimes you might not even reach the boss at all if you’re killing enemies too slowly. This elements really forces you to practice a lot to become better at the game. Very interesting indeed. This mechanic leads to different endings depending on how well you perform… From what I’ve heard.

Gundemonium Recollection

The first game in the series, and the second hardest. Here, getting your weak spot hit means losing a life. Lose all your lives and it’s game over, no continues. There are some extra lives to be found, but they’re very rare. You can also pick up “ammo” for you bomb attacks. The most interesting feature in this game is the Earl Types character. She has a few basic builds, but you can customize those builds. You can choose what her basic weapon is (this ALSO changes her movement speed), what her mana action is (though I suggest Slow, it’s insanely useful), and what her bomb is (some attack in front of her, another powers her up, and some hit the whole screen). Eryth, on the other hand, only has one build. Her basic gun is relatively fast if you hold the shoot button. If you use the rapid fire button it shoots at an insane speed, but her guns overheat and need to cool down if you hold it too long. Her mana action shoots a wheel, which deals damage, but also slows down time while it’s hitting enemies. And her bomb hits a wide area of enemies in front of you.
You can also “Demonic Shift”, which I have no idea what it does. I think it powers up your shots for a short while but I’m really not sure.

Overall this game is very challenging and very fun. The customizing is a nice addition.

GundeadliGne

The second game in the series. It’s the easiest in the bunch. Not that it’s a very easy game of course, but compared to Gundemonium Recollection and Hitogata Happa it’s fairly easy. This one has extra lives popping up everywhere, making it hard to lose all your lives. And you have 1 continue as well if you want to. In addition to that, here, the bomb can only be used when the “bomb” meter is full. When the bomb meter is high enough (there’s a small bar in it to tell you when), if you take a hit, it protects you from that hit and changes every bullet on the screen into blue gems which fill up the Mana meter (at the cost of all your bomb meter getting depleted). So with all that, the game is fairly easier than the other 2. Another addition is that you have a button that changes which side your character faces, so you can now shoot behind you, which is crucial in certain levels. Oh, and you have to go to the option menu to set the rapid fire button, and a button to slow down your movement which can be useful for certain bullet patterns.

Here, the Earl Types character cannot be customized. Her mana action slows down, and her bomb takes out most of the screen. But here her rapid shot and normal shot are completely different. She’s super powerful, and her shield from the bomb meter charges up stupidly fast, making her the best character here. Eryth, on the other hand, is very similar to how she is in Gundemonium Recollection, but rather than just one bomb, she can choose between a variety of anime maids (called Matrix) with super powers. Each of them has a different effect, and it’s fun to experiment. Personally Diamond Matrix is my favorite. There’s an unlockable character, a shrine maiden called Nagi, but I haven’t been able to figure out how to play with her very well, she’s definitely for “experts” as the game says.

This one is quite fun, and the fact that it’s easier than the others makes it a bit more accessible.

Hitogata Happa

The third game in the series, though it is a prequel story-wise (wait, there’s a story? I didn’t bother reading those paragraphs of text throughout the other 2 games). And holy shit is it hard. The other 2 games are a cakewalk compared to this. I have trouble going through just the second level (AKA Level 1) on the beginner difficulty. It’s just insane. So here, it’s a vertical shooter. Holding the shoot button slows you down, while tapping it let’s you move at normal speeds. Instead of having 2 playable characters here, you have a variety of dolls. At first you only get the Leaf doll, but after the intro level, you can buy some more. Enemies drop gems, which you can try to pick up, and they’re used to buy dolls in-between levels. Here you don’t have a bomb button, but instead you have a special bomb attack. You have a “Flow” meter that charges up over time, and, when it’s full, you can ram into enemies to blow up and deal massive damage. This takes away one of your dolls though, so use it sparringly. Each doll has its own shot, and its own mana action.

But damn is this game HARD. Even on beginner difficulty there’s quite a lot of bullets going around (though nowhere near as many as in the impossible difficulty), the bullets move at a relatively high speed, and your hitbox is a bit bigger than in the other 2 games. And, if that wasn’t enough, you HAVE to use the kamikaze bomb attack against bosses because otherwise they can barely be defeated. If you take too much time to kill a boss, he goes BERSERK, with basically impossible  to avoid attacks. And, if you get killed during that “berserk” moment, it’s game over, no matter how many lives you have left. It’s crazy hard.

This one is fun even though it’s really damn hard, and there’s some gameplay variety since all the dolls play differently.

Overall
If you like bullet hell shooters, this is right up your alley. They offer challenge and really fun gameplay, and the various difficulty levels make them all accessible to players of various skill levels. And who doesn’t like a good challenge? It looks good, plays great and the 3 games in the collection offer different experiences. Well worth the money.

The Save Factor
The collection costs $15, while the games costs $6 separately. I feel that, at $15, if you’re into this type of crazy hard game, you’re definitely getting your money’s worth. And it’s less expensive than buying the PC version (which is $20+shipping). So I’m keeping the Save Factor at $15 for the whole collection.

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