1CC Original - Blue Wish Resurrection Plus (PC)
1CC Original Blue Wish Resurrection Plus (PC)
About Blue Wish Resurrection Plus
- Game title : Blue Wish Resurrection Plus
- Type of shooter : Bullethell
- Platforms : PC
- Release year : 2008 (Windows)
- Developer : x.x Gameroom
Interesting tidbits about Blue Wish Resurrection Plus
BWR is best described as a "what would happen if Dodonpachi and Mushihimesama went on a date and made out" kinda thing. Is this game as awesome as it sounds ? Why yes, yes it is. Its amazing how good this doujin game is. Every aspect oozes CAVE all over it. From the ships to the patterns. If you like CAVE or bulethells, you will love this game.
The game was re released a few times. The original game is called Bluw Wish Resurrection and is actually a bit harder and it has no slowdown on top of it. Since this is a Doujin game its only available on the PC. The only downside is that the game has no scanline filters and ReShade doesnt work with it. So i had to use a VGA Scanline generator instead.
The bulletpatterns in this game are CAVE from top to bottom and inside out. They have alot of DDP and Mushihimesama influences, like slow bullets and dense patterns to swim through from Mushi 1.5 and the shiptypes and artstyle from the Dodonpachi series we all know and love to hug. The artwork and style is full on DDP. If you like tanks and spaceships (yeah, just admit it !) order this free game asap. The 4 ships are exactly waht you want in a game like this and do their job well, they are well balanced and feel good to control.
The game has 3 difficulty modes (Heaven, Original and Hell) sort of like Mushihimesama, where Hell would be the Ultra equivalent and is similar to a 2nd loop. There are 5 stages. There is an option to turn off the slowdown. 4 ships are available, of which 2 are comparable to the (Wide)shot of DOJ B-S spec (except this one isnt as slow) and the Laser type spec (Type A-L), the other 2 ships are more unique and have a homing shot or a Mushihimesama style option formation.
An interesting aspect is that you can enable or disable Autobom and this makes for a great progression from Normal to Hell mode eg :
- Original Autobomb
- Original
- Hell Autobomb
- Hell
A critique could be made that the stage design isnt as detailed and memorable as the artwork in a typical CAVE game and that holds also true for the player and enemy sprites, this is a Doujin (Japanese indie game) ,ade by one (or a few persons) afterall. However the game plays so incredibly well its not even something that will cross your mind. Did i already mention that the game is free ? GO get it !!
My ratings for Blue Wish Reurrection Plus :
- Difficulty rating 6/10
- Learning value rating 9/10
- Gimmickyness rating 9/10
My experience with Blue Wish Resurrection Plus :
Since BWR is a doujin game, no physical release exists and i do not have a physical copy (I did burn the game onto a disc tho !)
I was looking for games that would serve as the perfect learning experience. With that i mean being able to work on the skills that are underlying the core foundations of bullethell. I downloaded the game a while back and played a single run getting to stage 4.
I noticed that the while the game was challenging, it was also forgiving due to autobomb. My interest was piqued, but i had to set it aside for the moment. I immediately knew i was going to play this game more at some point, it wasjust too good and very CAVE-y. It also has some memorable EDM music and the ability to replace soundstracks. I confess i put in the Battle Garrega boss track :)
I then forgot about the game and focussed on Espgaluda. I got close to getting the 1CC in Espgaluda but at some point i realized, yes,i could finish the game by just grinding it out and doing more runs, but then it me : im wasting my time. I am not learning anything from putting time in Espgaluda, i routed every stage out and there is little actual pattern reading or creativity in the stages, and the bosses are so gimmicky. The danger and the chalenge comes from stuff that doesnt give me anything back. I got a bit dissapointed in the promise of Espgaluda being a suited game for a begginer. Yes its an easy game, and in someway im sure it makes sense to recommend this for a first 1CC but to grow as a player Espgaluda is a terrible choice. So i started to play some Blue Wish resurrection on the side.
What makes BWR so good ?
It has got excellent CAVE style design through and through. The pace of the game is even better than CAVE games themselves. Its full on action from the first stage. What makes it so interesting is that altough its not a hard game to beat, its technically demanding in terms of actual playing, visual skills and bullet pattern handling. The difference between this one and CAVE games, is that the stages do not require as heavy routing as most CAVE games do. This makes the game easier (to beat), but still demands the same or more on the technical side of bullet management and actual dodging. And the bosses are no pushover. Without autobomb this game isnt easy at all and with autobomb the bosses are still tough while honing good danmaku fundamentals. This game allows you to focus purely on pattern reading and dodging while having a good time.
This has both pro and cons, some might find it makes the game too easy, and while that may be true (which isnt the case if you turn off autobomb and or play on Hell) its not the point. This game is excellent to actually get good at CAVE better than CAVE games themselves. In a way i would say this is the Touhou equivalent of a CAVE style game.
The game is well polished in every aspect. From the balancing of the pace and difficulty, to the bulletpatterns and bossfights. This is one of those rare games i wanted to keep playing after the 1CC. Another thing that makes this game so much fun is that there are quite some technically advanced patterns that feel more like on the random (without being random) side of things similar to Touhou. But my favorite aspect is that the stages allow you to play based on general principles of streaming, tapdodging and especially cutbacks. If you want a game to sharpen and improve your cutback skills, this game is it. (explanation : a cutback is a basic principle or technique to manage the bullets so you never get trapped and die in a stage because you ran out of space, its also usable in bossfights in certain patterns).
The difficultly of this game in terms of 1CC is irrelevant. This game is the best way to learn the essential skill of making cutbacks (a cutback is often defined as an advanced technique for expert players but i disagree it is, and should be viewed as, an essential skill for everyone) and you will need this in games like DOJ and Ketsui, however those games are MUCH less suited to actually develop these skills themselves !
In conclusion : What i like most about BWR, is that it is a perfect learning experience that lets you become a better player efficiently and effectively, while offering a very good time. I can't praise this game enough, this is the game i should have started out with instead of Espgaluda, where you have 2 very boring opening stages (0 skill needed and thus improved) and the pressure in the later stages is something that was best defeated by the power of routing, thereby leaving little to challenge and improve actual dodging and stage skills like cutbacks. Not to mention the gimmicky bosses in that game, that act more like a minigame in some ways then a proper danmaku boss. BWR offers very well paced, pure danmaku gameplay, with 0 gimmicks, and the ability to make this game seriously hard,eg Original without autobomb or Hell mode(more on this in another post).
My playthrough of Blue Wish Resurrection :
In preparation of this run i didnt play the game much at all, it actually wasnt my maingame. I wouldnt call this game easy myself, since with autobomb off its kinda brutal. But getting a 1CC with Autobomb on isnt hard at all. For me this also wasnt the point, it was more like a suitable opportunity to learn to make cutbacks and develop non routing skills.
On my second run i made it all the way to the stage 5 midboss who has some of the craziest patterns in all the games i played. They are even nastier than the ones the final boss throws at you ! I improved my score from 9.5m to 13.5m
A week or 2 later i felt like testing whether or not my general skills had been improved and i could feel, based on how i played early on that a better run was possinle. I almost made it in what was my 4th attempt but died during the last phase of the final boss. I did at least get a much better score of 16m
After not doing well at all and taking a few hits at the stage 4 boss, i just nailed the opening of stage 5, after which the midboss was ready to take me on. I hadnt done any practicing on it and to my own amazement i played a very fine stage 5 midboss fight. After looking at my bombs and lives, i realized if i kept going like i did i would be in a good position.bSuddenly i came up against the final boss with what felt like a very sturdy cushion of 1 extend and 3 bombs. I then realized i basically already had it and to my surpise i did a good job and just used up 1 or 2 bombs ! I that the reason i suddenly played better wasnt a coincidence it had to do with ocular muscles recovering from Vision Therapy exercises.
If i would have played the whole run after that point i would have done a much better job. The day after i tried to 1CC the game with the Blue Wish ship (which is alot harder for me because i play better with the Laser ship), but i game overed at the final pattern like my previous PB with Last Hope. However i did play alot better, more in line with that good condition form of stage 5 during the 1CC run.
Thats why im planning to do another run and this time play well from the start and hopefully end up with 3 lives (instead of almost 2) or more at the end and get a score of 25m this time. And at a later point im aiming to play with Autobomb OFF.
In preparation for this im currently analyzing a 25m score run in which the player end up with less resources than me (scoring is based in large part around the amount of Lives and Bombs you have after each stage).
Edit : I havent yet gotten around to analyzing the 25m score video, but i did 1CC the game again, this time playing alot better, but my score was actually a bit lower, which im still puzzled by
Personal Notes on my Playthrough of Blue Wish Resurrection Plus :
The breakthrough revelation, the lightbulb moment, came when i ordered my first arcadestick to be able to better navigate diagonally (to battle eg the gimmicky patterns in Espgaluda, that revolve around navigation rather than dodging. Up untill that point i played with a PS2 Joypad. When i got my arcade stick (a MayFlash F500, yayy !!) i came up with the idea that it would make play more naturally and allow for more fluent movement in regards to sweeps and cutbacks. See, up untill now i basically approached Espgaluda with a routing mindset, like how i learned to play Gunbird. And while it is effective, it wasnt a good idea.(more on that below). Anyways, my hypothesis was that maybe if i could make consistent cutbacks (due to the arcade stick) i could play BWR mostly on situation reading, freestyle (flailing) and understanding the AI behaviour instead of hard routing evey situation and just memorizing that. And after practicing stage 3 for like half an hour i noticed that my intuition was right ! not only did i do consistenly well (with 1 or 2 miss) i was able to no miss it after half an hour and i did it all by just playing instead of routing.
My trap is to route it out so hard that you dont need to dodge at all anymore, in most other games like Ghost Blade or BWR you get enemies flying in at more or less the same background, so that you cant easily route it, and its also less needed. The trap is that for me its easier to do and it gives more reward on Cave games. In effect im more inclinced to read bulletpatterns and this forces me to become better, there is no "easy way out". So in a way that makes "easier" games "harder" (for me), but in a good way.
If i were to route BWR it would ofc be much easier than DFK, thats why i dont feel like it is easier, so much as different. Im almost forced to read and dodge because i can't as easily route it. Both styles and games are ofcourse good, valuable and fun, its just what you need to become better that counts. Personally i just need more RNG reading to grow as a player, thats why i like this game and eg Touhou alot.
But isnt routing a good thing ? Like having the perfect route ? Whats wrong with that ?
Yeah, meticulous routing IS good. But its good for PERFORMING not such much as it is for GROWING. Routing should form a layer on top of solid pattern reading skill. This amount of specificity of routing should only be needed for 2nd loops or scoring, not for survival. If i depend on it for the 1st loop than it removes having to read patterns at all. Obviously this a trap thats also made possible by save states.
If i apply my routing process and memo it, there will be very little pattern reading and actual dodging left. Alot will become tapdodging or macro'ing, which is alot of fun and very effective but not optimal for increasing raw dodging skills. In BWR i needed to make alot of hard Touhou dodges, because if i cant rely on routing, i have to make constant sweeps and cutbacks throuh dense bullet compositions from multiple sources, aka the typical Touhou style dodge. If i would route it out like a Cave game that would all dissapear.
For example, there are 0 dodges left after routing Espgaluda, that (and for more reasons see ESP vs DOJ blog)is why Espgaluda and Cave in general is a trap (for me). All the time i spent on it playing it, i did not hone my pattern reading and dodging skills. I dont learn or improve anything except Espgaluda route. And fi dont actively improve, it is equal to getting worse. Espgaluda is a trap in so many ways (even the bosses have gimmicky non fun patterns). The more i play it, the more i keep getting stuck in a vicious cycle of not improving during spending time in the game, and then getting punished for not having improved. I just need to focus on games like Touhou and BWR, then i will come back to Espgaluda and add those improved reading skills.
But still, if i would try to play DOJ stage 3 without routing i would still reflexively route it, (to a bigger degree then eg a BWR) the more i play it. In BWR its much more convenient to just stick to general principles of herding, sweeping and making cutbacks, which force you to train your rng dodge skills. You automatically route CAVE much more because it has clever design that incentivizes this. They sort of give clues by how the backgrounds look and make the enemy spawn formation very telling. They telegraph you more what is about to come. In most other games routing is alot harder or impossible, take for example, Ghjost Blade HD or Bullet Soul where sections dont have real identities and nothing stands out that could serve as a marker and the enemy waves are much more anonymous.
The above mentioned is depending on the player ofcourse. If your base skill level is high enough, you could play DOJ stage 3 without (hardly) any routing and rely on RNG dodging. In that case you experience what i like to call the Ketsui effect. The Ketsui effect is that Ketsui is basically a Touhou games (in terms of pattern complexity) IF your baseline skill is high enough to handle it without it becoming unfun.
In closing, Yes, routing is important and good, but its good to *perform* not good to grow. Opting to perform too soon will hurt you, thats the case in any domain, and what is the case now. Because of this i need to take a step back.
Thank you for reading this post, bye !!
About me :
Hi, i'm AnimegirlSTG, i heart shooty shooty pew pew games !"
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Great read AG! There are some great moments here where your personal philosophy (shmuposiphy? lol) and life experience shine through in your perspective. You mention the vision therapy exercises at one point as well. I think that might make for an interesting article of its own somewhere down the line too.
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