Skip to content
Chuhou Joutai is a top-down shoot-em-up that pays homage back to games like this from the early ’80s, where you’d be walking up the screen, firing away, while being bombarded by a zillion bullets from hard-as-nails bad guys.
I’d never heard of the term “Danmaku game”, but that’s a manic shooter, and I’ve certainly seen such games before, so if this is your bag, then you’re in for a treat.
Like most such games, I tended to completely ignore the premise, and get stuck straight into them, but if you want a plot, then you’re in a country called Kozan, deep in a Civil War, thanks to a left-wing extremist group known as SPASDOT. I played as The Real Driller, but you can also choose Princess Kagami (or even play 2-player co-op if you have a friend!), and then negotiate (and die a lot) the colourful bullet ballet that displays ahead of you.
Then again, the occasional smart bomb also helps, but these are VERY limited, so save them for the big bosses!
The sound is like brilliant, classic chiptune music from yesteryear, and with the movement of your character as you head up the environment, in this narrow-screened shooter, this brought so many memories flooding back of great times.
The Arcade mode has eight levels, all of which were fun to play. However, I do have to state that I got a bit bored with the story aspect. Plus, it was silly that could just walk through everything and with infinite lives, but the shoot em up aspect was fun.
However, the game is only UKP 7.19 on Steam right now, and with a 10% discount until Thursday May 28th, so it’s just UKP 6.47! You can’t complain about that when it gives you a fun hour or so of entertainment, so get on it!
And check out my gameplay walkthrough below:
Note the timestamps in the gameplay video below:
- 0:00 Gameplay for all 8 levels
55:10 Music Room (sample tunes)
55:31 Achievement Centre (well, I somehow only managed one, even though I completed the game!)
55:38 The opening of the game when you start it running
57:30 “Good night” section
Score: 7/10
Chuhou Joutai is released today and you can buy this on Steam.
My rig:
- Intel i7 Six Core Processor i7-5820K (3.3GHz) 15MB Cache
ASUS® X99-A: ATX, HSW-E CPU, USB 3.0, SATA 6 GB/s Motherboard
16Gb Kingston Hyper-X Fury DDR4 2133MHz (2 x 8GB)
4GB nVidia GeForce GTX 980
250Gb Samsung 850 EVO SSD, SATA 6Gb/s (upto 540Mb/sR | 520Mb/sW)
3Tb 3.5″ SATA-III 6GB/s HDD 7200rpm 64Mb cache
16x BLU-RAY WRITER DRIVE, 16x DVD ±R/±RW
CORSAIR 750W CS Series Modular 80 Plus ® Gold, Ultra Quiet
Creative Sound Blaster Z 5.1 PCI-E Soundcard – OEM
WIRELESS 802.11N 300Mbps/2.4GHz PCI-E CARD
Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit w/SP1
Zalman Z11 Plus Black Mid Tower Case
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.