It was about three years ago… maybe four?

Hanging around with some friends on campus, my boy DJ Sebbyseb calls me over to our club’s computer with a game (actually a series) he wanted me to check out.  Being an old game for a Japanese computer system, he loaded up an emulator with the rom for Highly Responsive to Prayers, the first of a series of games that many of you should be familiar with.

Not very flashy title screen, but I love the red swirl!

The gameplay is simple : You’re a shrine maiden running on the floor, usually some eerily still outdoor area, and there’s a ball that you can interact with (shoot or slide into) so that it destroys cards similar to Arkanoid or damages bosses.  If anything touches your character – bullets, boss sprites or even the ball, you die.  Lose all your lives and you continue from the level you were on, which is great since there’s unlimited continues, but you get the bad ending for doing so, making an incentive to do your best.

Continue reading →