In December 2006, a mysterious giant castle suddenly appears in the sky above Tokyo. At 40 km, the ship-shaped castle was known as Nejireta castle. The battle of mankind and gods is about to begin.
Shikigami no Shiro II (also known as Shikigami no Shiro Episode 2) is a vertical scrolling shooting game and is the second installment in the series. It was subsequently ported to multiple consoles including GameCube (2003), Dreamcast (2004), Playstation (2004), Xbox (2004) Windows (2005) and Playstation Network (2012). The American release of the Playstation 2 version, while having hilarious translation, was overall an improvement over the first game’s release. In-game vocal effects were left intact and the gameplay maintained.
The Windows version is identical to Playstation 2 with nice Gallery Mode, complete in high resolution artwork. All images can be unlocked only if player has successfully completed the game. It is also included Extreme Mode, where enemies leaves behind bullets after dying and fills the screen with even more dangers. Last but not least is additional BGM option with rearranged soundtrack of the first game, used in place of Shikigami no Shiro II.
The gameplay mechanics are generally the same with the first game. The main story is divided into five stages, each with two parts, and a boss battle at the end of each part. The gameplay is incredible though, even if player set the difficulty to very easy. Player will not going to reach the end without a lot of practice. Moreover, player got tiny little character with even tinier hit box. But fortunately, there’s a Practice Mode that let’s player try at every stage they’ve successfully fought past in the main mode.
The game consists of eight playable characters, each with different abilities, but basically same style with the first game: a basic shot, special and shikigami. The leveling up of weapons from the original game is the now eliminated. Sometimes player can hate certain characters because their weapons are not suit them. Each character can feel like playing completely different games, and it’s a very deep system. It’s also impressive that there’s unique dialogue for every two player combination of characters.
The traditional “Tension Bonus System” is back. A system that give more points if player destroy enemies when grazing bullets. It’s a truly unreal risk vs. rewards system where player must put theirself in constant danger in order to score higher.