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YMMV / Espgaluda

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  • Awesome Music: Fort City, the Stage 4 OST, is very catchy.
  • Ensemble Dark Horse: Seseri keeps getting brought back (at least twice), and she is playable in Espgaluda II Black Label, because of her popularity.
  • Even Better Sequel: The first game, while a decent shoot-em-up, felt like a really cheap cash-in on the "ESP" name with an art style that took some getting used to as well as unsatisfying graphics for the shots. The second game was much more fleshed out and had much more interesting and detailed artwork.
  • Funny Moments: The Stage 4 boss of Espgaluda II — Madara, after having been thrashed by you in his Stage 2 midboss fight, returns as a head on a tank that gathers more parts as he takes damage, hamming it up with his Evil Laugh. In his third-to-last phase, he pulls up a holographic screen to showo off his laughing face. In his second-to-last phase, he gains two more screens for three times the maniacal laughter.
  • Memetic Mutation: View Mushihime-sama credits.Explanation 
  • Polished Port:
    • Espgaluda II's iPhone port is well-received, and is said by some to show that the iPhone is very capable of handling "hardcore" games.
    • The Xbox 360 port not only features a solid port of the arcade original, but also adds an HD version of the game and three different Arrange Modes, and tutorials for the rather complex mechanics of every mode except for Omake.
    • The Switch port has everything the 360 version has, with the added bonus of being on a handheld system. Unlike the mobile phone port, it does allow for the option of your own choice of controller.
  • Self-Imposed Challenge:
    • An obvious one is to play the entirety of either game in Ascension Over mode, meaning that the player must contend with fast red bullets throughout the entire game, somewhat like playing second loops on other CAVE games. This is harder in Espgaluda II as staying in Ascension Over will level it up, up to 3 times, resulting in even faster bullets. On the plus side, being in Ascension or Ascension Over mode gives the player a considerable boost in firepower, making enemies easier to destroy. This is not possible in Espgaluda II Arrange or Omake modes, however; Ascension Over in Arrange will deplete gold and end once gold runs out, and in Omake, there is no Ascension Over mode.
    • Another one is to simply play the entire game, either one, without using Ascension at any point.
    • A similar challenge is to try to score-attack Espgaluda II without using the (potentially frustrating) Absolute Ascension mode.
  • Sequel Difficulty Spike: The first game was basically designed with beginners in mind, but for the second game, the gloves come off, featuring far less beginner-friendly patterns. The scoring system has been made much harder too (beyond just "collect gems that you can use for Awakening, then kill enemies in Awakening"), often requiring extremely precise timing with the new Zetsu mode and handling the bullets that generate by activating this mode. And that's just for the original mode of the game; the Black Label and Arrange modes have their own complicated scoring tricks. So if you want to learn how to generate huge numbers, hit the books. Omake mode is perhaps the least problematic in this regard, with much simpler mechanics than the other modes and which doesn't require guide-demanding use of Zetsu mode.
  • Sequel Displacement: Espgaluda II, particularly in North America, thanks to the region-free Xbox 360 port and the iPhone port, the latter of which was officially released in in the US.
  • That One Boss: In Espgaluda II, at the end of Stage 5 if you have not lost any lives (and, if this is vanilla Espgaluda II rather than Black Label, you have also increased Ascension Over to level 3) you fight True Seseri, becoming much more powerful than her standard counterpart and gaining patterns that are comparable to other CAVE games' True Final Bosses. And no, she isn't even the Final Boss, as there's a whole additonal stage afterwards (as opposed to the CAVE convention of 5 stages). So unless you're a superplayer, and if you're not playing Novice Normal or Novice Black Label mode, make sure to take at least 1 damage before the end of Stage 5, otherwise you will die.
  • That One Rule: If you intend to play Espgaluda II for score, it becomes a very complicated beast compared to its predecessor. This game introduces Kakusei Zesshikai (also known as Absolute Ascension Dead Zone), a mechanic for cancelling bullets for massive amounts of points and which makes the game significantly more complex than its predecessor. First of all, using it requires both gems and gold, and drains both at a very fast rate, making it difficult to find a good opportunity to use it. Second, bullets cancelled with this mechanic trigger revenge bullets that can cost the player precious lives, and often the bullets spawn in ways that are counter-intuitive, but those revenge bullets can be cancelled for even more points. But without this mechanic, it can be somewhat difficult to get the two point-based extra lives (at 15 million and 35 million points) since the point gains from using regular Kakusei are quite tiny in comparison. It's rather telling that, while most CAVE games don't have instructions on how to use their scoring systems to the fullest, Espgaluda II's console ports actually has an in-depth tutorial on how its game mechanics work, including how to use Kakusei Zesshikai. It's a very satisfying technique to use when pulled off correctly, but the high execution barrier means most non-hardcore players will be content to just use regular Kakusei and settle for a relatively poor-scoring survival-oriented run with better chances of a basic 1-credit clear run instead of recklessly endangering their run.

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