Recent reviews by 4[v4[/V5!5

Very fun concept. Hoping to see more of this.

This game could have been good but decisions regarding gameplay and balancing were made that absolutely baffle me.

Many ships are barely viable as ship speed is very important when avoiding homing rockets.

Enemies get a big health boost on higher difficulties. Thanks to that, you will always feel vastly underpowered. You'll barely be able to destroy some of the stage enemies and boss fights drag on for much longer than they do on Normal difficulty.

You can collect items which let you use different ammunition. If you run out or lose a life, you will use your standard shot again. I don't mind the ammo system but the difference in power between any limited ammo and your standard shot is too great.

Most bosses have a lot of health and choose between random patterns. Some bosses will either be boring as you dodge easy patterns over and over and others will simply be infuriating as you keep getting confronted with bs scenarios that will result in a couple of deaths.

Furthermore, some boss patterns are lucrative while others aren't as you can turn all bullets on screen into gems instantly with the Pulse mechanic. Collecting these allows you to use a Special attack which is far more powerful than your regular attacks. Collecting gems while the gauge is full also allows you to get extends occasionally. Since the bosses use patterns randomly, your resources and the damage you deal essentially rely on that RNG as well.

Before going into specifics about the game, I'd like to point out something about my experience with the game which I regard as very important to point out: At this time, the game does not convey some rather important information. Trying to look for answers to questions in the Steam discussions wouldn't lead anywhere most of the time. I was becoming quite desperate until I coincidentally became aware of the existence of a Noisz Discord server and found the invite link in the Noisz news here: https://steamproxy.com/steamstore/newshub/app/681530/view/4039122238476742084. If you want to get into the game, I highly recommend joining it as it is the best source of information at this time thanks to dedicated players in it. I would also recommend the devs to invite players more aggressively to it. Had I not found out about it (by accident), I'd certainly still be desperate for a lot of basic info at this time!

Noisz is a bullet hell shmup and rhythm game hybrid, though I'd say that the former genre has a stronger presence. The game doesn't feature stages but instead it consists of bosses only with individual songs. The significance of the music is that the boss's patterns are designed after the song and you can only shoot or activate your shield to absorb light blue bullets and become immune to light blue lasers in the rhythm of the song. You can choose between different styles and the equipped core to make use of their properties or abilities. They're very powerful and the right combination can make achieving whatever goal you have much easier.

Most of your experience will revolve around this gameplay concept and Free Mode lets you play any song on any difficulty at any time. However, there's also the Story mode which is a Visual Novel where you fight said bosses very frequently. Now, I don't have much to say about the story itself as I've barely read it and will most likely not do so in the future either (you can skip through text with the shield button). However, it is a significant part of the game regardless as the bosses you encounter will depend on the choices you make throughout the VN. Playing this mode is mandatory if you want to experience the full game as certain songs and styles/cores are locked behind it.

Whatever difficulty you chose to play Story mode on: if you play for the first time, I wouldn't recommend playing on hardcore mode. On Hardcore mode you only have a limited amount of credits. Credits are used if you fail and need to restart a song or want to skip a song (you can not skip the last one). As many songs later in the story are very difficult and require memorization and preferably a good style-core combination, you'd most likely restart the entire story and play through the comparitively easy songs of the first few chapters for a while before fighting the harder bosses again. You also obtain more credits you can spend per story mode run as you play the game. Thus, hardcore mode is more suited as a challenge for those experienced with all songs you get on the route you chose.

Occasionally, I've experienced slight hiccups in the game. It doesn't occur that often on my PC, so I'm not too worried about it personally. However, keep in mind that the game is a shmup (usually a frame based game genre) and a rhythm game (with its time based on the music). Thus, hiccups can compromise the game experience not just visually: They can cause you to miss the beat and therefore your chance to shoot or activate your shield which may result in failure.

I purchased this product alongside the following DLC: NOISZ DM Ashura Level Pack, NOISZ HyuN Level Pack and NOISZ re:||VERSE. At this point, I haven't played or even seen/heard every song in the game yet, but if you enjoy the game concept, I also recommend the DLCs. They all contain more songs which are listed on their respective shop list. The re:||VERSE DLC mentioned also adds more routes (with some insanely difficult songs) to the story and more styles as well.

Summary: I find the game very fun to play, even though I don't necessarily like a lot of the music used in the game. It has much to offer in terms of challenge but fails to convey some of the basic information you wish it did, so do consider joining the Discord server if you decide to get serious with it!

Now, you'd think that with its cute art and its focus on the warp mechanic (being invincible to bullets while time stops) the game isn't too hard. Nope, warping consumes your gauge and it recharges slowly over time (faster while you don't shoot). Additionally, mistakes can be very devastating. Also, despite the cute art and silly music, the game's humor is quite morbid. However, it is widely genuinely considered funny, so do take your time to look at the intro and stage cutscenes.

Your only way to gain lives is via score extends and the most efficient way to score is by being in Maximum mode with your shield, which means you collected another shield item while already having 2. Having Maximum shield will provide you with score overtime, unless you fight bosses/mid bosses. If you get hit, you have 1 shield left, which means it will take another 2 shield items without getting hit to get back to Maximum shield.

The weapon system is another very important aspect of the game, especially on higher difficulties. Over the course of the entire game, you can collect weapon items. You can equip a weapon either on your left or your right side, based on how you collect it. If you die both weapons will be replaced by the weapon that was equipped before then on each side. You're also still left with no shields after dying, possibly leaving you in a miserable state to continue your run in. You can not set the weapons you want to start out with when practicing a stage in practice mode, even though it is a totally valid strategy to use some weapons across multiple stages instead of using the weapons the stage gives you at the start.

The two highest difficulties Hard and Insane have multiple patterns not designed to be dodged without the warp mechanic. However, since your usage of it is limited, you're better of destroying many enemies early by having good weapons. Considering all this, it's easy to end up in a nasty downward spiral after dying or even just taking a hit and not having Maximum shields (I have yet to beat Insane).

The two lower difficulties Easy and Normal are vastly easier, however. Patterns are dodgeable and you don't need to be in an ideal state all the time to still stand a chance to clear.

First off, if you are interested in this game, I recommend getting Jamestown+ instead. It has two more stages and more ships.

Jamestown is a shmup with its stages primarily designed around co-op gameplay. However, enemy HP does scale so that enemies don't become sponges if played solo. More about solo gameplay on higher difficulties later.

Jamestown doesn't provide you with a bomb mechanic. Instead it has a hyper-like mechanic called vaunt. It will greatly increase dealt damage and create a shield which absorbs bullets upon activation. The duration of the vaunt can be increased by collecting the golden items. If it runs out, you'll gain a significant amount of score, especially after a long vaunt. Cancelling the vaunt manually will provide you with brief invincibility and only provide you with a fraction of the score you'd get otherwise.

The only reason I purchased this game instead of Jamestown+ is its notoriously hard achievements, which have been unlocked illegitmately by many people and do not exist in Jamestown+. My goal was to see how many of these could be unlocked legitimately. The rest of my review will mostly address my experience regarding just that.

Now, if you purchase only the Jamestown base game, you will have no more than 4 ships available. The problem with this collection of ships is that they're not very good at taking on higher difficulties in solo. Of the four base ships, only the "Gunner" ship is widely considered somewhat viable as it allows you to shoot in any direction. The big problem with them is their very low movement speed on a wide play area. On higher difficulties where you need to take out enemies before the screen gets filled with an unreasonable amount of bullets, most of the time you simply won't stand a chance with the base ships. Not to mention that the low movement speed just doesn't feel good, especially with the game being wide.

There's DLC which contains 3 more ships with the "Treason" ship being another ship that's considered very good. It's also quite fast. Those ships and 3 more are also contained in Jamestown+ without requiring DLC. Basically, if you do not purchase that DLC your experience with the two highest difficulties will simply not be great.

The Divine difficult (second highest) is a mostly well designed difficulty. For the most part, it can be completed reasonably well with the base ships the game provides as most patterns are designed to be dodgable even if enemies can not be taken out most efficiently. If you have solid routes, only the stage 2 boss will be a great obstacle as its movement and used patterns are unpredictably random. It can be easily beaten with the "Beam" ship without much trouble as its laser does a lot of damage at point blank range. However, that ship will struggle heavily on the rest of stage 2 as it is too slow to deal with the enemies on screen and dodge huge junks of bullets being fired your way.

Next, let's discuss the Judgement difficulty. It's the highest difficulty in the game and has been somewhat nerfed in Jamestown+. It adds a unique gimmick which is green ring projectiles. Those can not be cancelled by your vaunt upon activation. You are only immune to them after dying or manually cancelling your vaunt again. I consider it a very fun and challenging difficulty with the "Treason" ship.
However, the Judgement difficulty has a section that is so far deemed impossible to survive, the stage 4 boss's final phase. All it provides is pain and suffering and I just have to assume that it's not been tested at all. Adding an achievement for not dying at all in gauntlet mode which lets you play all 5 stages in a row further implies that not much thought was put into its design.

Tl;dr: there are only two reasons I can think of why you would want to purchase Jamestown, rather than Jamestown+: Challenging these difficult achievements and challenging a harder variation of the Judgement difficulty. But if you're eager to keep at it, you may enjoy it very much!

This is a good follow up to the first Murasaki.
The targets don't hurt you anymore, which is much more comfortable for the player and also allows for wilder enemy patterns.
short stage comparison:
Stages 1-3 are more interesting in this game, however stage 4 and 5 are a bit underwhelming compared to those of the first game. The stage 6 boss is shorter, but the patterns themselves are way more fun.