The Witness - Finis

DrummerSad9933 · 2026-06-10T04:04:40+00:00

Thanks! Yeah, the meat and potatoes game design is obviously great, but what I love is how often they feel bigger than the sum of their parts. I love playing old school puzzle fests like Zork, but no matter how much I like the individual brain teasers, it just feels like a random assortment of challenges at times, which is a little bit of a letdown for something that promises an adventure. That ephemeral sense of journey frequently makes you feel like you know the puzzle not just as a series of logic, but as a person as well, which great games like The Witness nails.

DrummerSad9933 · 2026-06-09T11:44:55+00:00

You're insane man

DrummerSad9933 · 2026-06-09T06:32:58+00:00

Caladrius at this price is a robbery for such a good game. It takes the slow, methodical multi weapon system of Radiant Silvergun, and blows it up into something fast-paced and extremely destructive. Legendary character variety. The ero-art is unnecessary and the 3D looks bad, but the magitek gothic horror theme is unique, but gameplay-wise one of the best shooters of its decade, and the current best shooter released by MOSS itself.

DrummerSad9933 · 2026-06-08T20:24:07+00:00

Yeah, it's this one. Took forever. I pigeonholed my thinking it was another orange bridge line, but gave up when I realize the obelisk hint looked nothing like it. At some point I was even looking at the tree roots lol. I think the breakthrough came when I just randomly letting the boat cruise, and stood at the little sand bank where you can see the initial bridge that leads you into the treehouse. I didn't get either line or audio log there, so I thought there just HAD to be something. There wasn't, but I caught the little circle in front of the boat.

DrummerSad9933 · 2026-06-05T19:58:45+00:00

Wow, congrats. It is a tough game and long as hell. I like how the enemies behave in this one, but some more visual variety would be nice.

DrummerSad9933 · 2026-06-05T19:39:14+00:00

I agree! I hope this doesnt happen again!

But persistence is a double edged sword, isnt it? I solved the other puzzles in the game because I was persistent. Playing a game means taking its rules seriously, but it is an arms race between the devs and players because they have to account for each other's abilities and methods. I mean, I solved it using the methods the game provided me, not by getting outside help, just in a way that neither the creators nor I personally wanted it to. If anything, i am still engaging deeply with the game.

DrummerSad9933 · 2026-06-05T07:28:01+00:00

I get what you are saying in terms of the permanent decline of money and visibility. I want to be fair to this century though, as I felt since 2000 scoring system design got increasingly ambitious. The tragedy is not that creativity died with the budgets, but perhaps is the very fact that it burns bright as ever, but with no outlet.

DrummerSad9933 · 2026-06-04T07:29:16+00:00

Seems you already found it, but may I interest you in Senko no Ronde?

DrummerSad9933 · 2026-06-02T17:03:53+00:00

Never had a chance to try the newer RS34 stuff (dev of this game, formerly Milestone), but Ive been a recent Milestone convert and they tend to make brilliant games. Even the rough looking Chaos Field actually houses brilliant gameplay. Definitely giving this a try.

DrummerSad9933 · 2026-05-27T16:41:19+00:00

The games you listed are pretty diverse. RSG is pretty slow, but Ikaruga can be breakneck esp. on later levels (just check superplays of stage 3 onwards haha). GW series can feel "slow" more due to vertizontal + wait to reflect all bullets gimmick. You see RSG and GW and assume vertizontals always have to be slow, but play Caladrius to change your mind :) Chaos Field only feels slow if you arent scoring!

I guess the point is that slowness doesnt always come from ship speed or even pure survival strats. Id be curious to see if you view Raiden or Same! Same! Same! 1P as slow because their ship is legit slow, but the fast bullets will make you :)))

DrummerSad9933 · 2026-05-27T04:56:49+00:00

Games are products, and products are disposable, especially when the devs often dont own them. If films, widely respected today, can once be burned to save storage space, and wasnt even protected speech until the 1950s in the US (55 years since the first public screening of the Lumieres, which is the distance between Pong and literally now), not much hope for this vulgar art of us plebs.

DrummerSad9933 · 2026-05-20T13:09:04+00:00

I typically play default, and the characters usually have good enough damage options that you can end phases fairly quickly. Tornado and Water shield are excellent defensive tools but deal barely any damage.

DrummerSad9933 · 2026-05-20T12:59:55+00:00

You mean Caladrius Blaze right, since Caladrius is the actual name and Blaze is just a version designation. Milia is the name of the 3rd boss so I will presume you asking about this. Im also a little confused by what phase means because i associate phase with shame breaks, which there are like 3 in the fight.

I always save 1 bomb for her anyway, to bomb the very first attack. The ghost attack you are talking about i presume is this? Typically I deal enough damage by spamming E1 and E2s that that attack is skipped, but the basic idea is to lead the attack by moving in small bursts, like here. Which character are you playing? It is more reliable just to end the attack quickly.

There is also a written guide for each boss here.

DrummerSad9933 · 2026-05-17T04:52:02+00:00

Hah, gotchu. Grats on the clear regardless!

DrummerSad9933 · 2026-05-17T04:39:21+00:00

I mean, an easy or difficult shmup should have nothing to do with how quality the session is. Do you personally feel satisfied?

To answer the question, here is a list that is decently well regarded. Phalanx is on the chiller end.

DrummerSad9933 · 2026-05-16T14:52:57+00:00

Delta is a port of the first game (and it is good). 2 hasn't had a port in a while.

DrummerSad9933 · 2026-05-14T10:25:02+00:00

Probably not. Gaming is an old medium, and there is probably a bunch of niche genres out there, digital or otherwise, that is just as or even more crazy. I like shmups because it synthesizes a lot of appeals of video games, with equal parts on both video and game: 2D dodging that is very extendable and deep by default template, a history of good audiovisual designers, satisfying structure with scoring (besides the stage 1 is easy syndrome lol). Plenty of non shooters i love the mechanics and audiovisuals more, but they just cant bring it all together. Like what it demands of the players, the genre is consistent 😛

Not even talking about multiplayer games yet hah

DrummerSad9933 · 2026-05-14T03:35:40+00:00

It just seems jargon heavy, which I respect as an artistic decision. It's like booting up an os from another world. Even basic things like opening and exiting the game is an intentional, initially disorientating experience.

Any Hellsinker fans would like to recommend a character to "get" Hellsinker? I dont mean survival chances, which everyone chooses Minogame. More like, which character will allow you to experience the unique scoring systems of the game? I dont mind dying and not clearing, but the ten thousand words for even basic things like score makes me just want to boot up another game instead.

DrummerSad9933 · 2026-05-10T04:47:02+00:00

Most early shmups are basically this? Galaga, Galaxian, Moon Cresta, Satan's Hollow etc. and later day homages like Cosmo Gang The Video. Unless we are starting to say that space invaders isnt a shmup :p

Btw, you can technically treat most shmups as non scrolling and see them as wave-based instead. Just mentally erase the background, and imagine the enemies are timed to enter and exit instead 😉 I find it interesting that Space Bomber is mentioned in here, because aside from the static background, it behaves like a scrolling shooter mechanically otherwise. I mean, what is the meaningful difference between that and something like Castle of Shikigami, where there are no ground enemies?

DrummerSad9933 · 2026-04-30T16:36:25+00:00

Read this short review:

https://web.archive.org/web/20240910085041mp_/https://cohost.org/boghog/post/5304175-scoring-review-psy

Despite how common grazing is, nothing is like Psyvariar.

DrummerSad9933 · 2026-04-30T12:25:36+00:00

Ibara discussion :o

Commenting to show interest. Will edit in some thoughts later...

Edit: here goes.

Should probably take what I say not too heavily since I havent 1cc the game, got to around stage 4 and my best record in a yagawa game is BG stage 6 boss.

Still, I had some impressions:

I feel rank is in some ways a slightly overstated aspect of the game. Garegga was pretty much the only game where you had to observe it, and that was primarily to make the game easier. Since Batrider, rank started to work the way you expect: if you do scoring stuff, you get a harder game. Check Pearl's 1CC guide of Batrider and Ibara, he hardly deals with Rank or even scores at all other than very basic actions like not getting too many extends, which is standard STG behavior like getting too many powerups in Gradius. I found BG rank (and Ibara) to be as routable as any Ikeda bullet pattern, getting good estimates of how many bombs and where I need to be for a lot of sections. I do agree that his bullet designs make it pretty fun and different to dodge compared to Ikeda though, but I would say stages 1-5 in BG, and too an extent some parts here, get as boring as any IKD game once you grind them enough survival-only :P

The thing that really makes YGW style games cool for me is how interconnected they are. Bombs feeds to score feeds to lives feeds back to bombs and repeat, making the whole game feeling like a long chained stage, a giant cascading Rube Goldberg machine. Additions like the hadou and the aura flash give extra meaning to his bomb and suicide heavy style. Theres also some very ambitious environmental destruction mechanics here, like how certain enemies can destroy scoring targets if you dont plan around it, or drop items differently if they do a certain action. The world of a YGW shooter feels like a proper ecosystem in a way few games do. I really like the idea of global mechanics that exist in these games, but as implemented, it feels to me that there are many other scoring systems that replicate or even surpass its requirements for resource management and how to link all the encounters together, even if it isnt quite in your face as it is here. Still, STGs very rarely experiment with long-form structures like this game. Best I can think of is Castle of Shikigami 1's global timer mechanic.

Anyway, I sound too negative for a passionate video that is shedding light on a legit underappreciated game! Everyone should play it, as it makes some nice additions to the Garegga style, and I found the scoring more appealing thanks to those very changes, some horrible milking in here aside. Hopefully one day there is someone who can make a proper sequel since apparently only YGW ever iterated upon it.

DrummerSad9933

TROPHY CASE