BIG NOTE: This is only an informative blog. There are no download links here. The links here are only to the C88 game trailers video released from the official Comiket site. Please support the developers if you can (and god help you if you want to.) Some of these might get you disparaging/worrying looks from your friends, families and peers, but none of them seem to be ADULT ONLY. In fact, consider my blog to be a total M rating and include a "**** you, mother******!"
I understand that I've missed many days. Too much stuff to do already. Still got some songs lined up and no requests.
Anyway, to the subject. Indies! Japan based indies. Not all of them are Touhou based surprisingly, but no circle wants to compete with ZUN's own Touhou title being released this year.
The convention in mind is Comiket or Comic Market, a convention where people sell self published original and fan content. These things include music (mainly Touhou remixes), artwork, novels, magazines (sometimes naughty), manga (mostly naughty) and video games. Think like AVCon's artist alley but so much bigger. And crowded and sweaty and all those other things I associate with summer in Japan.
What we're interested here is the video games, so lets get to it.
This one being the 88th event that has happened is C88 and two days ago, a trailer was released of all their indie games. I try to summarise the best/fastest I can while I'm watching on the second monitor because I have very little free time. These are merely first impressions or some things I know from translating their titles/playing some other version and are by no means the final say in product quality. If you like the blurb, check the links to the game trailer and see if it piques your interest.
If you want to try some of these, I can help you find it. Or I may ask you to help me.
Touhou Games
幻走スカイドリフト
Phantom Race Sky Drift - Touhou Kart Double Dash minus the Kart. One character literally rides the other. There appear to be speed boosting gates and items. Backgrounds are 3d rendered. Waiting to see whether it has netplay. Will try, probably recommendation.
幻想戦略譚～Age of Ethanols III
Age of Ethanols III - Literally age of empires where there is much less unit diversity (basic fighting units are ranged/melee/spellcasters) but includes heroes who have very strong powers. Kaguya remains the slowest character but literally throws a castle at you.Noted that this is now on a rendered terrain and it will dent according to the damage done on it.
Will try, but would rather figure out how to SupGuys.
『東方カードモンスターズ2 -TAG DUELIST-』
Touhou Card Monsters 2 - Tag Duelist - RPG with card elements. Will give it a shot but cannot recommend due to JP language barrier.
幻想夢
Phantom Dream - Literally rips off the black silhouette design of LIMBO but you're a little girl instead. Unsure what spooks there will be. I didn't enjoy LIMBO anyway. No signs of spider leg pulling here.
すぷりんぐふぃ～るど
Spring Field - 3D isometric Tactics game where you break/create trees? Trailer is not good at telling me what it does. Again, wouldn't recommend due to language barrier.
東方PANG！
Touhou Pang - PANG but you're a Touhou and you also get boss fights and different characters. Boss fights might be fun, I'll get back to you on that if you want.
射命丸文の事件簿
TRAILER IS A SPIRALING MESS. Doesn't really tell you what it's about but the cover art has a nice look at Aya's legs so its probably about her. Might be an Adventure Visual novel of some kind. I don't think this will ever get an ENG patch so I don't recommend. Plus it is hard to recommend these sorts of character driven based games from an established franchise if you are unfamiliar with the series which comes as an array of shoot em ups, fighting games, much more unique shoot em ups and weird novels. /rant
INDIES
ありすのマカロン
Alice's Macarons - A puzzle game where you try to write MA-KA-RO-N in katakana, bonus points for same colours. Looks like a DS game but its actually for OS X/ Windows. It's cute I guess but looks more suited for a phone game.
国立オタク学院
National Otaku Academy- A quiz game. Bosses are based on their japanese culture (otaku) knowledge (anime, arcade games, history, etc) Entirely in japanese so wouldn't recommend.
白桜ガールズファイト！
White Cherry Blossom Girls Fight! - Not as misogynistic as you thought. You're a coach in a girls fight club. Its a simulation game so expect it to be like an RPG. If you can brute force learn the mechanics, I guess you could play it without english? Same could be applied for all the rest of the games though.
WWII英雄列伝 最強の虎 クルト・クニスペル
WWII Heroic Biography of the Final Panzer Kurt Kunisperu - A grid based tactics game with tanks that have range. Not much else I can see from the trailer here but you lead a batallion of tanks for Germany. God help you with the Japanese though. Seems to be an airstrike mechanic and terrifying 3d rendering on attack animations.
宝石皇女-EMBRYO-粋
Gem Princess chic Embryo - A tower defense game with cute girls and plot. Take it as you will. I don't play tower defense games.
ガーデンテイル
Garden Tale - Sort of Disgaea. If you can get past the Japanese pineapple, it could be fun.
四季の狂剣・神無絶景・後編
Four Seasons of Enlightened Blades - Kannazuki (October) View - Sequel
A sword fighting game based on distance. You and your opponent are measured by distance from each other and he who strikes first deals damage. Its a constant sea saw of advantage and disadvantage. I've been meaning to try the other versions of this game. If you can find me a copy, tell me please. LOOKS COOL/FUN.
Wow, its only 21 minutes into trailer (RIP Sleep)
もえくり２～イルセの魔法書～
Moecurie 2 ~ Iruse's Sorcery Book - Cute girls doing cure things? Grid based puzzle/strategy/rpg.
I don't think I'd have the time to learn this game myself, but if you find it fun, tell me.
ダンジョンズ＆ダークネス
Dungeons and Darkness - HERE THERE BE DRAGONS - A real time 3d dungeon crawling game. Reminds me a bit of King's Field. I hope there's the same kind of engine/plot fidelity in this game.
ZANGEKI WARP
A shoot em up where the gimmick is that some patterns are unavoidable unless you choose the right timing to warp past enemies. Made by Astro Port who are the same guys who did Satazius, Vulkaiser and Armed Seven (available on steam).
重竜騎兵ドラグアームズ
Armed Dragoons - A 3d mecha shooting mecha game where you glide around bases shooting tanks and stuff. Has a shoot em up feel to it. Very high paced. Gonna try it out myself, you?
虚夢の乙女 (NSFW)
Maidens of Heavenly Dreams -Past stills of scantily clad maidens, we see a shoot em up with them, with waves of other female enemies. Theres a duo tag in mechanic and a vocaloid sound track. I've already got a back list of shmups (is there a better word for this?) to play so I might give it a pass. The bosses seem rather unique so have a go if you want. The girls also kiss each other for bombs.
A collection of games. Vague. Hard to tell what games are in it.
Biblinthus
Dungeon/puzzle exploring game. Cool BGM I guess.
ころころぼっくす
Korokoro (Rolling) Box - Those FX sound familiar. A puzzle game where you move your box according to painted colours on the floor and can only move on same colour/blank tiles.
Try it if you have the time.
ゆりかごのそら
Cradle of the Sky - Action RPG with cute girls, sword fighting, combos, magic and team tactics.
I liken it to Fortune Summoners. Might give it a go once I beat FS first.
箱庭の彼女
Her Small Garden - Done on Unreal Engine 4 of all things. A Virtual reality action game. THere seem to be multiple cameras. Requires Oculus Rift. While I like that Oculus Rift is getting development from indie developers, I dont actually own one.
アスタブリード
Astebreed OST - Just the sound track being released with artwork. Also a note that the PS4 version of Astebreed is getting patched. Ignore the artwork of scantily clad little girls I guess, it's just side stuff.
Would recommend playing this game, it's on steam and its as Mecha as you can get in a shoot em up.
On a side note, I regret starting this to finish it being 3 hours so far of writing, but it surely makes up for the days of content that I haven't done
少女戦記パンツァーガール
Panzer Girl - 3d mecha girl vs game. looks kinda bland.
Flyers - side scrolling shmup where you're a chick on a hover board and the world is abnormally large. Looks generic despite being on Unreal 4 and using Direct X11.
『BLACK MARIA OVERDRIVE』
Gives me a feel of Mega Man Zero if he were a Lancer on steroids. Looks fun. Gonna try this out myself.
Hekatoncheir
Pixel 3D world, 2D sprite action RPG. Think of paper mario with a gun and 90 degree world rotation. Seems unremarkable but the main girl is cute I guess and rendered a 3d model from time to time.
YohjoSimulator
A young girl walks around and interacts with the world by head butting it. Seems to be a demonstration of the engine and/or a copy of Goat Simulator.
MAGICAL×SPIRAL
You run up a spiral, platform, fight bosses and fire spells. Magical. Looks okay.
Ace Of Seafood
This is where I stop putting in effort. You are a fish that fires lasers at boats other fish in a 3d underwater environment. Or a Lobster. Or a Crab, Or a Boat I guess.
SkyLens
3D Girl with a Sword, hits stuff including bosses. Nice rock music. Might try.
東方英雄夢想
Touhou Heroic Vision - I thought we were past all these Touhou things*, Staged arena gauntlets filled with enemies and bullets. You try to avoid them all and clear them out. I might try it.
HAS PATCHOULI. TEN OUT OF TEN.
* This is actually sold during the Indie games day not on the Touhou games day.*
りばりば
Reverse X Reverse - a plaformer where you control two characters navigating an asymmetrical level. Seems hard but I'm a filthy casual so take that as you will.
巫女学校物語～楓編
Shrine Maiden School Story- Maple Chapter- A mystery adventure RPG with 3d models. Entirely in Japanese so god help you.
CAVYHOUSE再録集 夜あそそび
CAVYHOUSE Compilation - Evening Play
Collection of Adventure stories, puzzle games (+ tetris), Japanese game but has some fairly interesting puzzle games.
月華月閃
Moon Flower, Moon Flash - A visual novel game about the moon, cute girls with 3d models, slice of life and romance. All in Jap, don't even bother.
新入社員ってこんなにゲキテキッ!!? 第二部
Too long, not even gonna bother to translate that name. They translate it themselves as "What a wonderful life of the guy is it!!? Second Division" Romance Visual/Adventure novel in Japanese.
ノナプルナイン被験体：999999999
Test Subject Nonuple Nine -Nine hundred ninety nine million Nine hundred ninety nine thousand Nine hundred ninety nine.
The world is in ruin with murder, emergencies, a disaster zone and no tea. I'm not sure what you do in this game but it says Scrolling Adventure.
Forgive the wordiness, it's two in the morning. Its also all in Japanese so it's moot point.
ファタモルガーナの館 -Another Episodes
SMALL TRAILERS - These games might be big or small, who knows. All we get is a screenshot and a word synopsis.
Patchouli's Atelier (typo as NonetSympathia) - Action RPG with CG, Isometrical view and lots of maids. Also Patchouli. I know I'm playing it,
マリ★サナ 共闘劇 - Mari Sana Battle Royale - Action game where you dodge bullets and hit things.
IKUSAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN! Rocking BGM. A shoot em up where you are Iku from Touhou's Scarlet Weather Rhapsody. I'd just stick to the fighting games if anyone wants to play those with me.
NonetSympathia.: Action RPG in a medival fantasy setting with skill trees.
うらくさい 織田長益物語 - Urakusai (Smelly bottom?) Oda Katsu Story - An RPG maker game set in Feudal Japan.
L.U.X. A vertical shoot em up. Sci-Fi techno aesthetic,
ガンナーオブドラグーン - Gunner of Dragon - 3D scrolling shooting game where you're a dragon. Requires Oculus Rift.
TorqueL for Windows (Steam Key)- What it says on the box. Also works on windows 10. Torquel is a Unity based game with an interesting box you're stuck in. Won the Nico Unity award. Check it on steam if its your thing.
And so ends my long tl;dr/w of Comiket Games so far. Only a few interesting titles that catch my interest but if you have an hour 20 minutes, you could check the trailer, starting from Touhou Sky Drift at the top if you want. This also took 4 hours when I need to finish work, so there's also that.
Signing off,
AristoWan
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