Guwange

I would say that the games CAVE made after DoDonPachi and before DDP DOJ seem kind of experimental and uncertain, CAVE reached consistent levels of refinement with their PGM trio (DDP DOJ, Kets, Galuda) but I think some of these older and I guess weirder games are pretty underrated, especially Guwange and Dangun Feveron, with Guwange being my favorite CAVE game period. But what makes Guwange so damn good can be kind of difficult to really understand, although this is certainly the case with a lot of these more hardcore and scoring oriented shmups that CAVE has specialized in, Guwange in particular is just such a weird game for CAVE and such a weird shooter in general. Don't fret, if you're one of those who doesn't get Guwange, hopefully you can understand some of its qualities better after reading this review (can't guarentee that you'll agree that these are good qualities, though!)

The first few times I played Guwange it ended up my least favorite CAVE game, period. I really don't know what I was thinking but I can kind of understand how that happened. Firstly I was new and not smart/good enough to interpret these games very well. Other than the very tip of the iceberg being possibly quite likeable if you're really into the feudal setting and Japense folklore, I don't see Guwange's genius being anywhere near obvious unless you spend a a bit of time acquiring the taste for it or unless you are a veteran who can interpret just how fucking ridiculously good the stage design it. Now, I do think that CAVE in general have the tightest stage design in the entire genre, but a lot of their games aren't quite to my tastes. Guwange is precisely my taste both in terms of its mechanics and its stage design, which I think in both cases, is the best CAVE has ever done. The game looks and sounds really good to boot which is a very effective way of drawing in new players, although I still like ESP.Ra De the best in terms of aesthetics when it comes to CAVE's games, Guwange would be my 2nd choice. I don't actually find most of CAVE's games very pretty, but in Guwange it hard not to stare in awe at the spectacle.

Prettiness aside, that's obviously not what you play a shmup for so let's get into the nitty gritty. How the hell do you play a weird game like Guwange? I think the controls are going to take some getting used to just to play the game on any level, even ignoring how deep the scoring is. There's three characters in Guwange which aren't especially different in how they play, they have slightly different characteristics but they all share the same bomb. Shishin's main shot tilts towards the side when you're moving towards the side, like the Helicopter in DP. Kosame is really fast. Gensuke is pretty slow but his shots is penetrative. To be honest I've just stuck with Kosame because I saw SWY using her. They all have different shikigami. Guwange has a system where you can either move around freely while shooting normally, or focus to bring out your shikigami (spirit), in which you can only move slowly and horizontally, and you'll be controlling your shikigami (which moves around freely) at the same time. The shikigami is useful for a lot of things, and the there are a lot of differences between shooting normally and using the shikigami, and I'm not going to cover every little thing in this review, I'll just cover some of the basics here. Controlling the shikigami results in a kind of "painting mode". Think of it like controlling a brush where you are trying to paint the bullets. Bullets under the effect of shikigami will change color and slow down, and explode into autocollected coins around dying targets. It will also propel the skull meter upwards. Keeping the skull meter high results in better coin acquisition, and when the meter is maxed, you can leech coins just from shooting enemies normally. If the meter drops completely, you have lost your coin chain. The higher your coin chain is, the more score you will get from each coin, and the chain does not reset between stages... the chain is kept throughout the entire game. So to play Guwange for score, never dropping the chain is the first step, since doing so will instantly trash your run. The next step is to increase your methodical ability to maximize your coin count at all points, which leads to some very deep routing what with the deep skull gauge control, painting controls and bullet cancelling structure. There ends up being quite a bit of multitasking and the scoring is so fluid like it's alive, you have to think about each little part of the stage as its own little puzzle, as a series of actions executed just right segues into new possibilities. For more information about how deep Guwange's scoring is there are other more proper resources than a silly little review.

Even just playing for survival is a really unique experience since the shikigami can be used so freely, slowing down and cancelling bullets as you want. You also have to take care when not using the shikigami because you will take twice as much damage then. In Guwange, you don't just die in one hit, you have a small healthbar for each life. Getting hit by most things while not in shikigami mode will drain half the healthbar, while getting hit by most things with the shikigami out will drain 1/4th of it. Another reason why Guwange is so unique is its stage design which is as good as it gets. The stages don't have "waves" of enemies, rather each stage has brief unique portions (often with enemies that you'll only seen in that portion) that seamlessly lead to new portions unlike anything else in the game. Each stage is a good example of this and I would say in particular the last stage is really ambitious. There are all kinds of unique enemies here both in terms of their structural purpose and their appearance, and the design is without a doubt masterful. Another great thing about Guwange's stage design is that it's not just a... pure bullet hell shooter? It actually is full of stage hazards whereas bullet hell games normally just give you total freedom to move wherever you want on the screen and reduces the hazards to just bullets or an equivalent to bullets, and enemies. Guwange's stages have bridges and houses and mountains and and lakes that get in your way, and although it is a vertical shmup, the screen will sometimes be scrolling in other directions (often horizontally). This part of the game is also something that could've resulted in failure but the guys at CAVE were geniuses and somehow designed the best stages in the history of gaming.

I can't stress enough how good the stages are. The first stage is a little slow but starting from the 2nd stage there is no end to the amount of genius of Guwange. The third stage is also, from a more subjective standpoint (talking about visuals and atmosphere) just beautiful beyond words. Guwange melds its artistic triumph so well with the gameplay, too, it's almost unreal at times how they nailed it so well. I haven't even talked about the bosses yet, either! A big draw of danmaku games tends to be the boss fights and Guwange unfortunately falters just a little bit in this area. It still has my favorite bosses in a CAVE game, but the bosses aren't as good as the stages. The first boss is pretty boring, but the third boss, the catspider, is fantastic (and in a a scoring run, probably one of the hardest bosses ever lol). The final boss is also without a doubt one of the best CAVE has made. Each form transformation is so different and the final form is some scary fucking shit. The bosses in Guwange tend to have some randomness in the patterns as opposed to something more structured and memorizable. Not Touhou levels of randomness but still something quite chaotic for a CAVE game. If this isn't your thing, that might be a flaw in the game, but I actually like this a lot, which is why Catspider scoring is so fun to me. Fuck that damn house in stage 4 though, that boss is boring as shit.

Guwange has a lot going for it just from a casual standpoint with gorgeous setpieces and unique detailed stage design where each small part effortlessly transitions into something entirely new and different but while still retaining an undeniable flow. Thematically and in terms of mood it has earned its place. What really sets the game apart for me is the depth of the scoreplay and how tight the stages end up being from this standpoint, and how damn fun and fascianting it is to just play. In terms of mechanics and stage design, Guwange is a major masterpiece that every shmup fan needs to have tried out, but do beware that it is a bit of an acquired taste and a pretty experimental work from CAVE. It just ended up being an experiment that worked out so well you can only call it stunning. Guwange is a masterpiece of bullet hell that could both wow casuals and keep the score runners playing for years and years.

PS: I do not condone the existence of the coin leeching technique on bosses as it does nothing good for the game. All it does is ruin your hand. Too bad about this unfortunate mechanic.