To describe this game is to invoke that one image macro format with images of Vince McMahon getting progressively more excited with every new piece of information. It's a sprite scaling shooting game, in which you play as a flying onmyouji, and it's developed by Platine Dispositif. You see what I mean? As a list of bullet points, it's incredible! But what about as an actual game?
Well, before we get into that, I should mention that I decided to abide by the rule of threes in the opening paragraph, as there's another bullet point I could have added: it takes inspiration from and makes references to Space Harrier, Night Striker, and Afterburner! All those games are undisputed classics of the genre, this just keeps getting better, right? And of course, it's got some ideas of its own, too.
From Space Harrier, it takes the general feel of being a high-speed flying person weaving between the parts of the scenery that you can't destroy, the checkerboard pattern on a lot of the stage's floors, and there's even a tribute to that game's multi-sprite dragon boss. From Night Striker, there's the branching paths, the interstitial tunel segments, and a lot of the stage concepts seem to be taken directly from there, too. And from Afterburner, there's a heavy emphasis on locking onto multiple enemies at once with a homing shot, with escalating score rewards to match.
The game's own big idea is actually a little bit of an attempt at building upon the Afterburner lock-on system. Like in Afterburner, you lock onto enemies by aiming at them without firing, but from that point on, it gets a little more complicated. Each enemy type will be locked onto with either a red, green, or blue reticule, and each of those has its own fire button. You'll generally only have one type of enemy in each little squadron, and you only need to hold the correct button for a second to shoot all of them, but it's still a bit more concentration than you had to exert in Afterburner. (I've been playing with a Saturn controller, and mapped the three lock-on fire buttons to X, Y, and Z, which was a fine setup).
So yes, Occultist Girl Magatsuhi is a good game. I don't think it's quite as good as Space Harrier or Night Striker, and it's maybe a little better than Afterburner. The only real bad points I can come up with are presentational and definitely not deal breakers. Firstly, I don't think the enemies are particularly interesting. There's a lot of things like eyes, orbs, spinning tops, and so on that feels a bit bland and sterile. Secondly, there's the soundtrack. It's hard for me to be specific in criticising the game's music simply because I can't remember any of it. It just immediately leaves my brain as soon as I stop playing. I wouldn't normally bring this up, but all those games I listed as this game's influences all had incredible soundtracks, as did other big-name games in the genre, like Galaxy Force 2 and Super Thunderblade.
To reiterate: this is a great game, though it's not a super-original one, and I have some minor criticisms regarding its presentation. Still definitely worth your time, though, especially if you're starved for some new (to you, at least) sprite scaling action.
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