Rare are games which present such passive beauty with such active elegance.
Espgaluda II Black Label is one of those rare shoot-em-up games that is just impossible to not love. The boss fights are finely tuned arrays of complex decision making that take on multiple levels of difficulty which the player is actually allowed to adjust. A manic shmup that allows the player to adjust the game to their playstyle might almost sound blasphemous in the consistent game experience that shmups often inhabit. To be honest though, the difficulty is actually produced by the game's scoring system. What's great about EspGaluda II then is that the game becomes accessible to anyone, because the system first allows you to take advantage of it for purpose of understanding the game and the mechanics, while more advanced players can use the system to acquire the highest score possible. The music is filled with lovely ballads that are somewhat of a mix of techno and an envisioned rhythm that, at times, take on a life of their own. They're great for getting into the groove of the game. The artwork is the hand-drawn spritework of the quality shmup fans have come to expect from Cave. The colors are vibrant blues, greens and unexpectedly, even gray (how you make gray vibrant, only Cave apparently knows).
Because there are so many colors, from the bullets to the wings of your characters and the enemies, the game can feel like a sensory overload. But in the end, that's been the goal of the game from the start. There aren't any good manic shmups that are about allowing your brain to switch off. Using attractive colors that constantly turn everything into overdrive is part of what the game does well, yet at the same time, the ability to switch into a soothing purple bullet pattern that moves slowly is something that allows you time to think (more on this later). The movement in the game is a familiar feeling, with the first few levels using noticeably varied colors that include many natural tones, including green, blue, white, and yellow. All these colors eventually become overtaken with a more technocratic color scheme in the later levels, a clear progression from the "natural" world that moves into one that is overridden with technology and the archetypical danger that such technology poses. The progression is a classical modal change that shows the dangers of impeding technology, and that comes out in the music too.
The music presents itself as slower during the levels, faster during the bosses. That's to be expected, bosses have always been chosen as the hectic pieces of any great shmup game, and EspGaluda II is no exception. What is somewhat different is that the stylistic choices for the music as progression occurs is somewhat despondent. Essentially, what that means is that the music actually settles down rather than rises up, which is an interesting distinguishing mark. Where most shmups choose to use the levels as an evolution of themselves, the music choices in EspGaluda II seem to show the devolution within the game, pointing a finger at the technocratic art choices previously mentioned. The story also takes on that image, devolution rather than evolution, though it is not physical as much as mental.
The game's story takes place straightaways after the original game, where the original characters come into contact with those who were out to destroy them in the original game. As shmup games are veritable situations of one vs. the world, the story revolves around a few major characters who have special abilities designed to combat the world. The story in essence writes itself, the good guys being characters who just want to live in peace and the bad guys having some reason for wanting to disrupt that peace. The story takes off from that cliche, as so many other games, where the character(s) will ultimately discover who has been chasing them, and in EspGaluda II it's a pair of royal siblings. The main character, using alchemy, discovered and implanted a technology that essentially grants the players and others the ability to become "armored wings." These were then named after the mythical Indian bird-like creature Garuda (misspelled as Galuda, the game's namesake, Esp likely standing for Esper or some other shorthand form of magical terminology). These armored wings are capable of doing all the shmup-like things in the game, and is the reason for all the fighting. As for why an entire army gets sent to retrieve the three Galudas (your protagonists) in particular is a bit hard to figure, but most of that is written off as the story being a means to an end. The mechanics and gameplay are what's important, the story is created for the purpose of promoting them.
The mechanics are what make the game shine. The usage of multiple variable shooting types as well as an energy based charge system are what make EspGaluda II unique. There are essentially two modes in which the player can interact with the game, one is a regular shmup-type mode, the bullets appear at their normal speed and are colored blue. There is also a mode called Kakusei or Awakening mode that allows you to do a variety of things. While in this mode, the bullets slow down and depending on your character type you can interact with them in a variety of ways, the purpose of which is to both give you control over bullet direction but also allow you to get points and increase your multiplier. The Kakusei ability is limited by an energy system that is collected from enemies while not in Kakusei mode. Those are green stones, also called Seireiseki. What makes it great is that the system becomes one where the player has to learn to weave in and out of Kakusei mode, collecting green crystals and slowing bullets down methodically to control the flow of the fight while also not getting overwhelmed. The secret here is largely a great deal of self-control. There are many multipliers that also occur via the game system itself, and the advanced player will use these to get obscenely high scores. The game is predicated on the player getting a high score, as the system itself is made to allow the player to have a great deal of control of how many bullets are on-screen and where on-screen they are. Such control over the entire gameplay area is unprecedented in a shmup, but it's what makes the system as artful as it is. There is a beauty in the simplicity of watching the experienced player weave in and out of bullet patterns that they themselves are placing on the screen. The color choices are also rather apt, as bullets have multiple available colors depending on mode. Blue is the default, non-Kakusei mode bullet color, and a light purple is the color of bullets that are slowed while in Kakusei mode, finally, red is the color of bullets while in Kakusei mode with no energy, and the bullets move much faster while they are red. The presentation of all these bullets allows the player to quickly indicate where they are in space but the colors are also different enough so as not to become lost in the background, another important aesthetic choice by the creators.
All together, what these decisions mean is that Cave has created a fantastic game for the enthusiast or the beginner. In the industry of the shmup, achieving such a perfect meld is about as rare as a new genre convention. In EspGaluda II Black Label, there are even modes beyond what the mechanics alone allow, all of which focus on different play styles, some allow you to shoot bullets, others are intended for beginners, and still others are intended for the enthusiasts and the hardcore. Such a breadth of available gameplay is what makes the game a good investment and a lot of fun, even for the import price. As the game was recently released to the iPhone, there's really no reason not to buy it, the current price on the app store is less than ten bucks. For a shmup that's sure to become a classic, that price is a steal. The version on the 360 is even better and is the focus of the above review, though the version on the iPhone is a great reproduction. Play the game the first few times and soak it in, then go for the high score afterwards. The game has a simple beauty about it that many overlook, simply because of the genre being touted actively as hardcore. Don't let that scare you away.