Castle of Shikigami 3

Ohayo bonjour, resident Shikigami fanatic reporting in. Full disclosure: this is possibility my least favorite of the trilogy, [b]story wise[/b]. Much of Shikigami 3's story is mostly callbacks and references to super obscure lore details. For instance, the final boss is Kohtaro's childhood friend from a [i]JP only visual novel spinoff[/i], one of them is Fumiko's stepmother(which you only learn on her route), one of the characters is a cousin of Kim from 1/2(revealed in her route), and my personal favorite, one is Taito's own Time Gal herself: Reika Kirishima, whose route is pure, unadulterated comedy gold. That said, it does manage to have some great story moments, both dramatically and hilariously. Kohtaro's is mostly serious, while Reika's is priceless hilarity, and sometimes you get a bit of both(Fumiko's campaign), along with lots of fourth wall breaking(if you're crazy enough to pair Roger with Munchausen, Fumiko's butler). So here's where it gets dicey: the localization. As some may know, Shikigami 3 already came out for the Wii in the US almost, good lord, 20 years ago. The script was done by Aksys, who knocked it out of the park. All the jokes were faithful or localize…

The grind for completionists is real, but for most players, the adrenaline rush of surviving each insane stage and pure bullet-hell will be more than enough to keep them hooked. If you’re in the mood for relentless action and precision dodging, this bullet-hell shooter delivers an exhilarating experience that demands your full attention. With both Practice Mode and two primary difficulty settings—Normal and Extreme—the game offers something for both casual players and hardcore bullet-dodging enthusiasts. The Normal Mode caters well to fans of the shoot’em up genre who prefer a straightforward challenge. But if you’re hungry for punishment, Extreme Mode turns the intensity up to eleven. Expect more bullets, because enemies explode in a shower of deadly projectiles, and three sub-modes that offer varying rewards, tempting you to push your skills to the limit. The storyline is hardly the focus here, but there are some touches. Each of the nine characters offers unique dialogue snippets after beating stages or during boss encounters, which culminates in a static end image. Opting to play with two characters does shake things up with different dialogue exchanges, but don’t expect a m…

Brilliant game. Thanks to Cosmo Machia and the crowdfunders who made this release possible, preserving it for future gamers.

very awesome shoot em up from start to finish. The game has huge replay value, quite a few characters to choose from. Big thumbs up from me! Cheers. https://youtu.be/aG11LAKgFL4?si=ys5-UDPxL36U2J2f

Castle of Shikigami III on the Wii is my favorite shmup of all time. It's what really boosted me into loving shmups and especially bullet hell games. When I saw that it came to Steam, I was SUPER excited. I only played through it once so far, but I'm really happy to finally play it again. Objectively, it seems to be a decent port. But subjectively, I was a little disappointed with how barebones it seems. It's not exactly fair to judge it on these merits, but I remember the Wii version having English voice acting, and a fun unlockable mode where you could like change the size and maybe even shape of the bullets on screen. This version doesn't seem to have any of that, instead opting for a direct port of the arcade game. That's not a bad thing, though. I'll just say I was a liiiiittle disappointed by the lack of that stuff As far as criticisms of the port go, the brightness of the green bullets seemed too high. It was hard sometimes to discern them with the bright backgrounds and stuff. I wish there were an ability to adjust their brightness for accessibility reasons. Another thing I felt was a fair amount of input lag. I had just gotten off of a double-beating of Trig…

This is a good basic shmup. Lots of characters with very different kinds of weapons and bombs. Great graphics. Fun to play. Castle of Shikigami 3 is a class act. Pick it up during a sale and you won't be disappointed!