Posted: 15 March, 2018Graze Counter is a blast to play, in every sense of the word; it plays different than any other bullet hells I've played all because of its unique gameplay mechanic, the titular Graze Counter. This game has an emphasis on grazing (i.e. Narrowly avoiding) enemy projectiles, but the game is built around it and - most importantly - actively rewards the player for doing so.In most bullet hell games, you only have a limited supply of what I refer to as 'bombs', which are defensive, clear the screen and deal damage to any enemies present; as such, the player is usually encouraged to save them for when they really need them, causing some players (like myself) to end up not using them at all since they only come in limited supply. Graze Counter completely averts this; the 'bombs' in this game are actually the titular Graze Counters. Grazing bullets quickly replenishes the Graze Counter bar, and once it's halfway full, you can unleash a powerful laser attack, destroying any bullets in front of you and scoring more points in the process. Completely filling the graze counter bar to 100% (which takes about 1 whole second, if that) performs the same powerful laser attack, but you're given an invincibility shield for the duration of the laser attack. The player is encouraged to utilize this Graze Counter very often both offensively and defensively, and the Graze Counter meter is very easily replenished once used.The game has 3 difficulties which suit any bullet hell skill level (even a togglable Pacificst Mode, where your only attack is the Graze Counter), and there doesn't seem to be any penalties for playing a lower difficulty; however, on Normal and Expert, there is a 'Dynamic Difficulty' that adjusts the difficulty depending on how well you're doing.

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Bullet patterns on one playthrough may be slightly faster and/or more dense on a different playthrough, but it's never impossible, nor is the change ever game-breaking. For new players, there's a Casual mode, as well as 'Mission Mode' which is practically a tutorial for both the game's mechanics as well as simple practice in scenarios that appear in the main story mode. There's also a dedicated practice mode for each stage as well.This game does have one huge, significant flaw; there is no instant retry feature as seen in every other bullet hell ever. If you want to start over, you have to exit the game completely and restart it again; that's the fastest way. The alternative is just lose all your lives and get a game-over, but this is time consuming due to the respawn invulnerability period after losing a life. There is a pause button, but there isn't even a pause menu. The pause button can't be bound to Escape either since that's the button to exit the game.In conclusion, I recommend Graze Counter because of its dynamic gameplay that rewards the player for narrowly avoiding enemy bullets in more ways than just 'you score more points'; it integrates it into the gameplay itself.

There's plenty of replay value because of unlockable characters that all play differently (e.g. Spread Shots and slower movement vs Narrower Shots and fast movement), and the main game itself - like most bullet hell games - is relatively short with only 5 (increasingly difficult) stages. Also the girls are super cute and there's a lot of them. Posted: 29 July, 2017A fun little indie shooter with a 16bit aesthetic.The basic concept of the game is that you build up a meter by grazing (being near) enemy bullets. When the meter is high enough, you can activate a laser counter attack that destroys enemy bullets. The ability to frequently cancel enemy bullets combined with fairly generous slow down makes this game more relaxed than most shooters.

I was able to clear expert mode with Type-1 after about 2 hours using no continues and with 2 deaths. If you want a bigger challenge, you have the option to turn off the slowdown which does make the game significantly harder.There are a good amount of options available. You can select from 3 difficulties, and pick 1 of 3 different bonuses for your ship. You can also choose an alternate mode that disables your main shot in exchange for making your counter laser much stronger. For the ships, you have 8 to choose from, though 2 of the ships are just overpowered versions of the first 2 ships.A mission mode containing 20 missions serves as the tutorial. Each mission is very short, and teaches you about different mechanics in the game. They're generally pretty easy and you should do them first to get a feel for the controls.There is an unlockable boss rush mode, bonus stage and extra difficulty setting.

Slowdown is absent in the latter two modes, and the bullet speed is turned up on top of that. Unfortunately, you can't save replays in the extra difficulty.Of course, like all games, there are some flaws as well. The english translation isn't great (which is kinda weird considering there are 6 people listed under 'proofreading' in the credits), though the cutscenes can be disabled so it doesn't really matter after your first time through.The stage design is fine for the most part, though there are some problem spots.

In one section in stage 3, a swarm of enemies comes up from the bottom left side of the screen without warning, which will probably kill you the first time you see it. Another issue is that a couple enemies fire from further down on the screen than they're normally allowed to, which can kill you if you weren't expecting it.

A similar problem exists in expert mode where the enemies can shoot suicide bullets. If you kill enemies that are offscreen, they still spawn suicide bullets, which sometimes leads to bullets coming out of nowhere from the side of the screen.The last main issue is the lackluster scoreboard. It's unclear it even exists; if you select the scoreboard option on the main menu, it takes you to a mini scoreboard that only shows the top score for each mode. Posted: 9 August, 2017This is an incredibly charming doujin shmup that takes Psyvariar's 'grazing' mechanic and pairs it with a meter-building system: indirect contact with bullets (i.e. Using your sprite but not your hitbox) causes you to build up the meter of a 'Counter' laser, which rips through bullets and enemies to produce lots of yellow stars, which in turn build a 'Break' gauge.

Entering Break Mode allows you to deal significantly more damage to enemies, who will now drop lots of red stars, which are subject to various score multipliers at the end of each stage.There's a really gratifying flow of tension and release to this dynamic, as you try to avoid expending your Break too early on minor enemies, in spite of the onslaught of their bullets, and save it for more lucrative targets such as big tanks and bosses. Stages are short and tightly designed, every placement of every enemy screaming for you to squeeze more and more scoring potential out of it.The game's absolutely chock full of stuff to unlock, too. There are eight playable ships in total, each one (beyond the first two) unlocked by clearing the game with a different character. Apart from two which are souped-up versions of the starting ships, they all present vastly different ways of playing the game.

One, for example, has no Break gauge but two 'options' which deal vicious damage when you're grazing, while another can only fire at short range but comes equipped with the lethal laser-sword from the developer's earlier Kirisame Blade series. There are so many play styles covered that you're bound to find something that gels with you.Aside from the main game and its three difficulty settings (Novice, Arcade and Expert), there's a robust Practice Mode which allows you to set not just your stage but all sorts of starting parameters (gauge percentage, score multiplier, rank, etc), and a Mission Mode which presents you with various tasks to complete, each one teaching you something about how to play the game well. (This is so useful that I'd recommend playing through at least half of them before really getting stuck into the core game.) In addition to these, there are three Omake modes, two of which are unlockable by clearing the main game once and one by clearing Mission Mode. These are Boss Rush, Unlimited Mode and Extra Stage.

From what little of it I have seen, Unlimited Mode appears to be simply the main game played at Expert difficulty and set to the highest rank from the beginning ('rank' in the context of shoot-'em-ups is a clumsy term for adjustments to difficulty made on-the-fly according to performance). Extra Stage is a unique and extremely difficult level which also begins at max rank.The main game isn't forbiddingly hard, though. In fact, it's an easy one to recommend to newcomers to the genre, since it's a reasonably easy single-credit clear on Arcade difficulty (my last run was a single-life clear and I finished with nine lives in stock, because it hands them out like sweeties), and strongly encourages the habit of playing to maximise your score.It's also full of nifty references to other shmups, though it doesn't lean on any of them for inspiration. The two ships playable from the start recall the Vic Viper and Lord British from Gradius. Stage two is named Crystal Labylinth (sic) after one of arcade Gradius III's most notorious levels, and features the same projectile ice blocks (though with much more predictable behaviour).

This stage also features in its background a grid pattern laid over what appears to be a city bathed in blue light, which is very redolent of Image Fight's aesthetic (the first half of Image Fight taking place in a training simulation). Many bosses have a Raiden-style red jewel at their centre, and the 'Counter' laser itself is modelled on Donpachi's trademark infinite streams of energy. There are loads more.Graze Counter's a lot of fun and I think you'd have a blast with it. The core mechanics are so satisfying to use that the game manages to feel thrilling even throughout Novice mode (where there's no harm in starting), and its tightness and brevity make it a manageable one to learn and go a long way to ensuring you'll want to return to it repeatedly to tidy up aspects of your run.

It appeals to newcomers and old hands by being both easily accessible and hugely rewarding of efforts to dig deeper into its systems.

Graze CounterGraze the enemy’s bullets, Charge them head-on, and Wreak Havoc!!An exhilarating and dangerous shoot-em-up! This is a game for those with courage and survival instinct!

Developer: Publisher:Genre:,Languages:,Tags: (38), (35), (33), (31), (31), (23), (21), (20), (18), (17), (17), (16), (16), (13), (11), (11), (11), (11), (11), (11)Category: Single-player, Steam Trading Cards, Partial Controller Support, Steam CloudRelease date: Jul 28, 2017Price: $9.99Old userscore: 97% Owners: 0. 20,000Followers: 1,744Peak concurrent players yesterday: 5YouTube stats: 3 views and 0 comments for top 50 videos uploaded last week, 1 new videos uploaded yesterday.Playtime total: 04:32 (average) 04:32 (median).