The defensive aspect of the mechanic recalls a similar gimmick from Perfect Cherry Blossom, and adds more skill to your countless confrontations with hellish barrages of kaleidoscopic death. Furthermore, charges of seasonal energy can be released as a momentary barrier that nullifies bullets and converts them into more seasonal energy – generally this is diminishing returns, but as a secondary shield it’s nice to have. Collecting seasonal energy powers up the abilities associated with your secondary season (effectively four subweapons common to all four characters), providing more offensive capability. Instead, the gimmick is “seasonal energy,” produced as drops from enemies as well as spawned for grazing bullets. Gone are the distracting UFOs, perplexing and ugly spirits, and that bloody-minded Pointdevice Mode – no infinite continues this time. Let’s start with gameplay: it’s the classic top-down danmaku shooter, and HSiFS is polite enough to keep its small novelties out of the player’s way.
![hidden star in four seasons hidden star in four seasons](https://static.zerochan.net/Cirno.full.2090078.jpg)
Now that that’s out of the way, feel free to stick around so I can get into the hows and whys. What I got…Īlright, look, I could bury the lede, but I may as well get this out of the way: Hidden Star in Four Seasons is an acceptable but fairly flavorless entry that sets no goals for itself and arguably lowballs some of the important bits. I eagerly procured a copy through means best not discussed and settled in for some proper bullet hell action.
![hidden star in four seasons hidden star in four seasons](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/0V0M9kAwNwk/maxresdefault.jpg)
When I received the news yesterday that it had been released, I hoped that streak had come to an end. Considering I was also put off by Ten Desires, that Double-Dealing Character felt lukewarm at its best, and that I don’t play any of the side games, I’ve been on something of a cold streak with the franchise since 2011. I’ve never made it any kind of secret that I disliked almost everything about Legacy of Lunatic Kingdom, which I found to have a lazy back end and a frankly detestable core gimmick that devoured the rest of the gameplay.
#Hidden star in four seasons series#
It’s been exactly two years (as of the writing of this review) since the last main entry in the Touhou series was released.