Descpription:
Espgaluda is a manic shooter by Cave, released in 2003.
It is the spiritual prequel to the company's renowned ESP Ra.De.
After the twin bullet hells of Dai-Ou-Jou and Ketsui, CAVE returned in 2003 with
their most accessible shooter yet. With its slow-down mode and guard barrier, Espgaluda
is certainly a beginners game for most of its length, though it's true that the difficulty does
jack up significantly near the end, providing a decent challenge to manic shooter veterans.
Espgaluda is ostensibly a prequel to 1998's Esprade, but the two games have very
little in common, both in terms of setting and gameplay mechanics. Storywise, we are
told that characters in both games have innate ESP (Extra Sensory Perception) abilities.
But Rade takes place in 2018 Tokyo and Galuda in a fantasy land of medieval castles, so
there doesn't seem to be any continuity between the characters and events in the two titles.
The game's system revolves around the so-called Kakusei mode, and is one of CAVE's most complex.
In Espgaluda, apart from the standard power-up and life items, there are two kinds of items
to collect: green gems (which are officially called Seireiseki), and Gold Ingots. Green gems
can only be acquired when you are in normal mode. When destroying an enemy in normal
mode these gems appear and are automatically collected by your character.
By hitting the second button you switch to Kakusei. While in that mode, the enemies, their bullets,
as well as the scrolling speed of the game itself, slow down to a crawl, while the player's speed
remains unaffected. This effectively allows you to dance around thick bullet patterns with ease,
and is the main reason for the game's accessibility.
Now the second kind of collectable items, the Gold Ingots, are mainly acquired in Kakusei mode.
If you destroy an enemy in that mode, all their bullets turn into Gold Ingots and are automatically
collected. So what you must do is let the enemies spread a lot of bullets while you whittle down
their strength, and then, just when they are about to explode, switch to Kakusei mode, blow them up,
and collect the Gold Ingots. The more bullets on-screen when you destroy enemies in Kakusei, the
higher your score multiplier, up to a maximum of 100 -- hence the game's scoring gimmick.
