Kotaku-san just published a story on Imperishable Night, a vertical windows shooter that completely redefines the term Bullet Hell and makes Raiden and the more recent Geometry wards look like MappyLand. The game is actually very interesting - it has countless episodes and an anime-esque overtone with gameplay elements such as casting special yu-gi-oh style cards that do certain things, and there are many secrets to unlock. The game has a huge cult following and looks well done at a glance - downloading the 20mb demo as I write this to post my review later in the week. Yesterday I played through U.N. Squadron with a few friends on the SNES and I struggled with it a bit due to extreme rustyness... this game is going to totally kick my ass into shape. WANT MORE? There's TWO MORE games just like this - Perfect Cherry Blossom and Embodiment of the Scarlet Devil. After I post this I will never, ever remember what those two games are called. Gradius, Raiden, LifeForce, Gairies, amen. If you want to see more videos that will make you cry, Dracil's blog has a ton. There, that should keep everybody busy for the weekend!!! The "Tohou" series of games. more shmups, these ones with mesmorizing and beautiful bullet patterns. Incredibly difficult, fun, and they also tend to entertain crowds. http://www16.big.or.jp/~zun/html/th07.html PERFECT CHERRY BLOSSOM: The most famous out of all of this series, essentially, you choose one of 3 characters (note: each character has two firing modes, select up or down on the character selection menu) and you dodge thousands of pretty bullet patterns till you defeat the 3 levels and win the game. There are a bunch of numbers on the side of the screen, but they are rather easy to figure out through experimentation. It sounds simple, but its refreshingly fun and amazing to watch. http://www16.big.or.jp/~zun/data/soft/youmu_tr011.lzh ^Direct link to the download. http://www.megagames.com/news/show.cgi?...egames&database=296§ion=downloads& EMBODIMENT OF THE SCARLET DEVIL The game that spawned Perfect Cherry Blossom, it's not as pretty, doesn't have as many options, but its slightly more difficult and still very worth the play. http://www16.big.or.jp/~zun/html/th08top.html IMPERISHABLE NIGHT The sequel to Perfect Cherry Blossom, featuring faster gameplay, improved graphics, and an entirely different two character setup. Its better in some ways, worse in other ways, but definately worth your time. Direct links to the download(mirrors) http://mirror3.fuzzy2.com/zun/eiya_tr003.lzh http://mirror2.fuzzy2.com/zun/eiya_tr003.lzh http://mirror0.fuzzy2.com/zun/eiya_tr003.lzh