Megamari

[Jason_Miao]

A combination of an old classic (Megaman) and Touhou shmup characters.  How can one go wrong?


You play as Marisa/Alice, tasked to beat 8 fearsome robo^H^H^H^Hgirls and acquire their abilities before taking on boss Patchouli herself.

A fun game.  Some levels have bullets and enemies flying all over the screen, but that comes with any Touhou-related game.  HP is important against bosses, but the real risk elsewhere is getting knocked off cliffs by fuzzy balls or combat maids; you can usually find a place to scum for mushrooms, if nothing else.

Marisa fires little bolts, whereas Alice shoots a seemingly continuous laser.    But the laser is rather weak, and either collision detection is bad or it actually has a bad ROF because fast enemies will often jump through it.  That's not to say it's without it's uses (for one thing, it is slightly wider than Marisa's shots), but you'll generally find yourself using Marisa's attacks.  

I'm fairly sure that the music is ripped from Megaman games, but since I'm not familiar with the original songs, I can't claim it's 100% certainty.  Regardless, it's catchy.




Weapon spoilers:
Reimu:  (Recommended A)
M - creates a yin-yang ball, initially with downward motion, kills grey fuzzball
A - extremely weak homing shot, kills grey fuzzball

Cirano: (doesn't matter, sucks regardless)
M - rapidfire weak icicles.  Doesn't work on anyone you'd actually want to use it against.
A - slow, poor single shot

Sakuya: (M)
M - A splay of knives that kills most weak enemies; stops time for 5 seconds
A - spread shot.

Remilia: (M)
M - One person sized shot that leaves a contrail.  The contrail also does damage
A - shortrange shot.

Youmu: (doesn't matter)
M - Wave shot.
A - Very short range attack surrounds character if jumping.  Does not shield from damage.

Yuyuko (A)
M - Wave of butterflies flies to the upper corner.
A - Summons a ghost shield.  Can activate a second layer.

Reisen (A)
M - Shoots a direct line missile.
A - Shoots 4 "artillery rounds".  Useful against those flying annoyances that fly close, and you can't quite reach.

Eirin (M)
M - Ground roller
A - Purple ball falls from the sky on a steep incline.

Weapon Passwords:
Default
A1
B5
C34
D25
E124


Marisa - Reimu
Add D1
Remove C3


Marisa - Cirano
Add E3
Remove D2


Marisa - Sakuya
Add B4
Remove C4

Marisa - Reisen
Add C1
Remove E4

Marisa - Remilia
Add B2
Remove D5

Marisa - Youmu
Add D3
Remove B5

Marisa - Yuyuko
Add E5
Remove E1

Marisa - Eirin
Add C5
Remove E2

Alice - Reimu
Add D1

Alice - Cirano
Remove D2

Alice - Sakuya
Add B4

Alice - Remilia
Remove D5

Alice -Youmu
Add D3

Alice - Yuyuko
Remove E1

Alice - Reisen
Add C1

Alice - Eirin
Remove E2

[Dracos]

I played this, but didn't really enjoy it.  The whole faux 8 choices, where only one or two are really valid good start points felt pronounced with it and while I gave it a good hour/hour and a half, I didn't really feel like I was making much progress at any point, merely attritioning my way through the levels until I fell over.  Lots of pits annoyed me as I recall, but I don't recall the details of it.

Either way, this didn't strike me as a particularly interesting megaman 2 clone.  Unlike the actual Touhou series stuff, it really doesn't bring a lot to the table in the experience flow.

Dracos

[Halbarad]

Most of the music is actually remixed from Touhou songs for each stage, although you'll need a good familiarity with most of the Windows games to recognize them all. Music isn't this game's strong point in any case.

Also, the limited amount of starting stages is probably not all that different to what you'd face with MM2. There are a number of stages that make very poor starting choices in MM2 itself (Quick Man, Heat Man, Crash Man, to a lesser extent Flash Man); Megamari has a bit fewer (Reimu/Sakuya/Cirno) but you're not forced onto exactly one path there either.

That said, it does have its flaws. The stages are ridiculously hard and the item drop rate is way too low for my liking. I've beaten (and enjoyed) the game, but it's definitely harder than any of the Megaman games I've played by a good margin, and not always in a good way.

Also, a few corrections:

Weapon spoilers:
Reimu:  (Recommended A)
M - creates a yin-yang ball, initially with downward motion, kills grey fuzzball
A - extremely weak homing shot, kills grey fuzzball

Cirano: (doesn't matter, sucks regardless)
M - rapidfire weak icicles.  Doesn't work on anyone you'd actually want to use it against.
A - slow, poor single shot

Sakuya: (M)
M - A splay of knives that kills most weak enemies; stops time for 5 seconds
A - spread shot.

Remilia: (M)
M - One person sized shot that leaves a contrail.  The contrail also does damage
A - shortrange shot.

Youmu: (doesn't matter)
M - Wave shot.
A - Very short range attack surrounds character if jumping.  Does not shield from damage.

Yuyuko (A)
M - Wave of butterflies flies to the upper corner.
A - Summons a ghost shield.  Can activate a second layer.

Reisen (A)
M - Shoots a direct line missile.
A - Shoots 4 "artillery rounds".  Useful against those flying annoyances that fly close, and you can't quite reach.

Eirin (M)
M - Ground roller
A - Purple ball falls from the sky on a steep incline.

Reimu - Definitely want this with Marisa, not Alice. Reimu-A is only useful for bosses, and not all that great even there - Alice's damage with the homing amulets is even less than what it is with Shanghai laser (her default), which is already half the power of Marisa's shots.

Cirno - Recommended to take it with A; Eirin eats it to this very, very fast, and Cirno-M is basically identical to Marisa's standard shot anyway.

Sakuya-M is invaluable for timestop.

Remilia can go either way; both versions of her weapon are quite good. Personally I prefer Remi-M as I tend to give most of the other weapons to Alice anyway, and the balance factor is good for the split path in Fort Patchu.

Youmu - ABSOLUTELY GOES TO ALICE. Youmu-A is one of the most powerful weapons in the game, and makes Alice's solo boss fight in Fort Patchu a total joke. On the flip side, Youmu-M is rather weak and uses a lot of power. This is the one call that pretty much everyone I've talked with that has played will agree with unanimously - the only other one that comes close is Sakuya-M.

Yuyuko - Can go either way; tend to prefer Alice myself. Yuyuko-M is good for one of the final boss fights, although there are other weapons that can also be used there.

Reisen - Can literally go either way. I've taken it with Alice in the past, although the shot pattern is kind of 'bleh' with her.

Eirin - I tend to go with Alice myself, although there are arguments for both. While it's hard to hit things with Eirin-A, if you DO hit them they pretty much just fall over dead.