This was really fun, I can’t put my finger on why (I think the model style) but the aesthetic reminded me of PS1 games, which I thought was cool. The time stop mechanic was cool to utilize, even if I completely forgot about it my first time playing. I didn’t get past Biboo, partly cause of skill issue and partly cause I wanted to move on to try other games, but I might come back to the game at some point.

I tried a run with everyone, I feel like Buffson’s tanking ability didn’t come in super handy as you were still quite frail, and while I see the use case for the bombs, they didn’t feel as good to use as the other two’s specials. I also assumed the boss would be affected by special weapons and put that down as another negative to Buffson, but it seems like it doesn’t reading comments, I do think it would be nice if they did.

Speaking of Danger and reading the comments, I had no idea what that meant or how it worked until I saw some other comments. It does explain why the pebbles kept killing me despite having bar still. I see the mention it’s getting adjusted though, which is much appreciated.

I didn’t get far yet, but at least with the first few levels, I wasn’t particular happy with the merakyat lasers. They’re fine when the merakyat has showed on screen already, but usually the first one spawns and shoots before you can see it, and even with time slow it feels rough to react to. I get that they’re frail, but I still would personally prefer a bit more preparation when they spawn, every time I see the laser first it feels like a cheap shot.

Small visual bug, whenever I load the game for the first time, the resolution is broken until I zoom into the game, not sure if this is just a me thing or an odditiy of my browser.

Overall though, I enjoyed the game, hopefully I’ll find time to play it a bit more!

WASD instead of arrow keys is actual torture. I beat subterranean animism on a keyboard no problem but this game felt like hell made not of bullets but of pain. For some reason just couldn't get used to the keybinds!

Despite that the game itself is incredible! Easy to tell that so much love and care was put into this. All that art! Every frame of animation is beautiful. The music is amazing, the sound effects are so crunchy! The occasional soundbites are funny as heck. All of it is so good!

Gameplay is also great, a classic polished shoot-em-up! It's fluid and enjoyable still, even with me struggling with the control scheme. Love the time freeze mechanic and the way everything looks when you use it! And the different character selection is a neat touch, all of them feel unique to play as. My favorite is buffson with the explosions lmao.

I think the game feels very hard to play because there are no indicators of real hitboxes for the player or bosses. Also with most bullet hells there is a substantial invulnerability period after a hit, allowing you to relocate and collect yourself. Here is kinda the opposite lol. I don't really understand how it works exactly, but it appears if you get hit twice in a row you just explode and die instantly.

My first game ever was a shmup (a pretty bad one) so I understand how hard it is to actually get it right. I think in general the game is awesome but having a forgiving easy mode would make it a lot more accessible to people who can't put in the time to get good at it. I think some games even have a setting for the player to gain infinite health or something lol. Will be looking forward to future updates if possible!

good job.

to my shame I'm shit at bullet hell. looking forward to easy mode if you continue it.

The game was pretty hard for me as my reflexes are immensely bad, but I almost managed to defeat Callie (10% left, we were so close to greatness). It took me "only" 1,5h, but as I said, my reflexes are unbelievably bad. Still, it was worth the grind.

Despite my lack of skill, the gameplay was very fun. I got hooked enough to play this 1,5h and try to reach the end (and curse my lack of skill, repeatedly). Bullet hell was pretty fun, and the time freeze mechanic fit into it very well. At first, I would often forget to use it as the early level was relatively easy in terms of enemies (aside from the Fubzilla that obliterated me at least 6 times). But in the later stages, it was mandatory to progress (and the last stage was a time freeze fiesta).

Bosses and their attack were pretty fun. The hardest was probably Biboo laser, but after figuring out the hitbox, it became doable.

The art and music were also very good and fitting the game. The music fit so well that later on I was unable to play the game without it. Also my favourite thing from entire game... is the Sunfish animation when moving up and down. I have no idea why but that little detail was so satisfying, I guess it added that 3D feeling to the 2D game and it just clicked right.

The main problem I had was a lack of some kind of “Start from stage” option in the main menu.

And this combo’ed with another problem. The longer I played, the more the audio would become crunchy and slowed down. Restarting the game solved the issue but I had to redo it all again. I suspect that it is some Godot audio issue that I heard about. I could turn down music, but tbh, without it, I would very often desynchronize while playing, and the better option would be to just start all over again.

Another slightly confusing thing was hitbox for the bosses. I think they had a very specific spot where they would take damage and all other places had no hitbox at all. If possible I would somehow mark that spot or make it more obvious thing to target, to enable better aiming while moving. 

I cannot wait for more content and this juicy, highly anticipated Easy mode that I so desire (I pray to gods that it has some little healing mechanic or a heal before boss).

Hololive touhou!!!!!!!!!!! This is such a good game. The art style is very fun looking, reminds me of the game Platypus. Only complaint i have is that there isn't a way of recovering health, which isn't a problem if it wasn't for the fact that the character doesn't seem to have any invincibility time after getting hit, so sometimes you make 1 mistake and lose all your hitpoints inmediately in some bossfights. I haven't finished it yet but i will try to do so later.

Man there's a lot to love on this one.

Great vibes between the stage design and enemies, and just general feel and design of the game as a whole.

Excellent job on all the custom assets, especially love the 3D models!

I have to agree with some of the other comments that a checkpoint before the boss would do wonders, especially in the later stages where you're constantly dealing with enemies from both sides, it can get tedious to have to play through the whole mission just to get tossed around by the boss and lose.

In a similar vein, I think a boss rush mode would be an awesome feature, to let you practice the fight themselves, then take that experience to a stage and try to shoot for a high score!

It would also let the player explore the other characters a little easier in a space where you really want to make the most of their abilities - I only played as Amelia cause I didn't want to restart from the beginning and lose my progress to try another character, mostly due to the fear of not liking them and losing my progress.

But I think the stage, enemy, and ability design are great for encouraging the player to use all of their tools - there are many scenarios where you need to combine time stop and your ability to make it out unscathed, but with them both having relatively short cooldowns, it doesn't feel overly punishing.

A couple of things I saw that might be bugs, so I want to bring them up here - I noticed the jailbirds would occasionally propel themselves off screen with their attacks, and sometimes would still keep firing when I couldn't even see them. And with the way the timestop recharges, you can just hold down the button even when it runs out, and it will immediately consume the charge when it refreshes, causing enemies and projectiles to kinda skip around. Wondering if you could try preventing timestop usage until it reaches 50% max when it fully runs out to help resolve this. Or maybe its not an issue at all. Also I think the Kronie projectiles weren't affected by timestop (I only payed enough attention to notice it once, every other time I was busy trying to avoid something else and couldn't tell), which makes sense for their character, but it is a little inconsistent, since I think they're the first enemy to do that and it's not communicated that that's something you need to look out for until it happens and you notice it.

But really that's just me trying to be as thorough as possible, overall great submission. Fantastic work!

Interesting game! But very hard! 

I couldn't get too far before running out of lives. Meanwhile I was looking longingly at "easy" on the Menu screen.
I thought that the timestop mechanic was used well there are many times where I found myself really using the timestop . It's quite a lifesaver. I do think it can be quite tricky to get players to use all the mechanics of a game but I thought this game did it quite nicely.

The scoring system was interesting since it encourages you to keep enemies on screen for as long as possible so you can kill then all at once really quickly. I feel like if I was better at the game I would have gone for high scores, since it gives you an interesting risk/reward kind of dynamic.

I thought that aesthetically the game all comes together quite well. It has a nice "Windows XP" kinda feel to the 3D models, which also fits along with the music quite nicely.

I do feel like dying is quite punishing, since some attacks, such as the Boss's Laser attacks, would kill me in one hit sometimes. I do wonder if there may possibly be a bug where some attacks deal more damage then intended, since there are a few times where I swore I had plenty of health but would still be killed by a projectile.

One thing I would recommend is shortening the runbacks to the bosses. Most of the challenges were at the bosses, but going back to the boss would take quite a while since I needed to play through the entire stage. There was also quite a long pause after finishing the stage where nothing would be going on before the boss appears. 
I may visit this again after I rate a few more games. Good job!

The timestop effect was very cool. I got pulverized by bosses till I remembered I could do that. I really enjoy this genre so I had fun figuring it out although I feel like the long wait till bosses may be a bit too punishing on replays. Almost like a walk of shame.

Nice 3D models and environment!

Music is pretty good too!

The first boss fight was tricky at first but then I remembered I had the time stop power to help me!

I managed to reach the second boss but I couldn't find the right spot to avoid the lasers and got vaporized. XD

I didn't play all the way until the end because I want to try every game in the jam, but I may return to this one if I have time. :)

Some improvement suggestions:

- Curious thing: Did you know that CTRL+W closes the browser tab? I didn't. Well, turns out if you're moving the Sunfish around in the game and try to use the special attack while moving up, oops, the tab is gone and your run is over! XD

Nice game!

It was a truly challenging game. I lost count of how many times I died, especially on the final stage. The 3D models were cute, each enemy had a lot of personality, and the boss fights were especially engaging. I had a great time playing it!

Wow, that was crazy hard! You had quite a bit of content!

Very fun little space shooter! The music and sound effects were great. I think the time freeze mechanic is quite interesting and nice, and I especially liked how it was just a gauge that refilled on its own. The enemy and projectile types were varied and fun. A few things I felt as I played:

1. You can shoot enemies that aren't even visible on the screen yet -- I felt I at least wanted to see them, even if for a split second!

2. There was no reason for me to not continue holding down space the entire time to keep shooting, as far as I could tell. 

3. I didn't see any way to recover health, but I think it would feel a lot better if there were some kind of recovery item you could pick up if you were fast enough. 

4. Time freeze on shift and special ability on control felt physically a bit difficult or awkward for my hand. I think it could use some other optional controls.

5. The tab crashed when I shot normal Ame's beam at Fubuzilla! Somethin' went wrong there.

I really enjoyed this though, great work!