Shikigami No Shiro
Alpha System Vertical Shooter 2 Players 2001 System: Taito G-Net Technics/Graphical: 8 Sound: 9 Details: 7 Ideas: 7 Fun/Replayvalue: 7 Playability: 6 Overall Rating: 7 (of 10)

Another G-Net shooter, this time from Alpha Systems. Grafics/enemies/Bosses are well done and remind of Esprade or Guwange. U play one of five characters which have extremely different weapons. Each character has a long range and a close range waepon (using the close range weapon u automatically collect coins - see below - but also slows u down though). Every enemy drops coins when destroyed, rising in value the longer u live.

Also u power up with the coins, reaching a given amount of coinvalue. Scratching enemy shots powers up ur long range weapon and this feature is life-saving while battling endbosses, as they get stronger the longer they live. Nice ideas. Great sound!!!

Okay... the bad side:
First the difficulty rises very fast. The last stages are painted with enemy shots...
Second the single stages are very short. U get 5 levels featuring 3 stages.
Third: Dear Alpha System! I dont complain about the first point (see above) too much, BUT...

...is it really neccessary to have so many shots on screen, that the CPU looses effectivity? The framerate drops down to  about 10 fps in the last few stages. Impossible to navigate, as frame-speed goes up and down while u try to dodge pixel-sharp. No Ma´am!!!

If u can live with the above drawbacks buy it, but as i say often there are better shooters out there.