Danmaku Unlimited 2 (PC) (2013)

20141102:
Today I was thinking about which new games to play and decided to start out with a shmup. As such, I headed on over to my Humble Bundle collection and looked at the various games in the Humble Flash Bundle: Shmups. Having already played Really Big Sky (PC) (2012), I decided to download and install Danmaku Unlimited 2, because the name sounded cool.

While at first the amount of items on screen was hectic and the two power options had mysterious properties, I slowly adjusted and my second run was much, much better.

For the record, I played with my screen rotated, full screen mode, screen scale set to max, and screen rotation set to 90. In both of my runs, I played in Burst Mode on normal with the beam ship on normal and with the point into focus.

One of the strategies I formed from my first run is to focus on killing enemies before they fly off the screen, otherwise I would lose potential bonus multipliers and/or potential points. This is especially true for bosses, who have multiple forms, and each form should be defeated as quickly as possible.

In terms of your special abilities, press X to use the bar on the left-hand side and suck up all incoming bullets. Note that this won't suck up bullets to your sides, so be careful as you attempt to sweep across the screen and collect more than what's in front of you.

While I think you can press X even when the bar is partially charged, you have to have a full bar on the right in order to use C. Pressing C will set off a massive amount of fire power. Be careful though, because unlike X, bullets will still be flying at you. Thus, in order to use it strategically, make sure you're in position to use it on whoever you're trying to defeat. In particular, I think you can use it in tandem with X, but I'm not sure.

In any case, I already enjoy what I've experienced thus far, and I can't wait to experience the other game modes that Danmaku Unlimited 2 has to offer.