I’m trash at bullet hell games, but I love to try and I love to fail. Castle of Shikigami II makes me feel like a glorious disaster, and it’s so much fun in the process. It’s got the heart and excitement of something visually-novel adjacent, and it’s got the chaos and erratic heartbeat moments of a proper danmaku. Take some time and dive in, but be warned: it’s hell, and a controller is not going to be your friend. Get ready to ride the keyboard, cowboy, we gotta save Tokyo.

Castle of Shikigami
Cosmo Machia · Jun 15, 2017
About
Castle of Shikigami is a dark, supernatural vertically-scrolling shoot-’em-up classic. Summer, 2005: Tokyo's Metropolitan Police Force is investigating an occult serial killer. Specialists have been called in to investigate. The case is called “The Castle of Shikigami Incident”.
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Critic reviews
- Amid the sea of shmups available for Steam, Castle of Shikigami stands as one of the dustier games in the bunch. If Degica managed to do a bit more to modernize the title in terms of visual options or balancing, it could have been a real standout shooter for the platform. Still, if you don’t mind the lack of polish and are looking for a game with a meaty challenge, this is a game that should definitely scratch that itch.
- 6.5Castle of Shikigami is an important piece of shoot-'em-up history, but at this point it's more of a relic. Its own sequels stepped up the unique character loadouts and gave us more interesting bullet patterns and bosses, so this one is best left for the hardcore crowd to munch on.
- 7.5Castle of Shikigami is a decent port of a fun but difficult bullet hell SHMUP. With some nightmarish enemy designs and plenty of replay value it’s a solid package let down by a dated appearance and its lack of extras.
- 7.0Castle of Shikigami is a classic and inspired a whole slew of modern bullet hell games. It deserves to be recognized and praised for what it was, but not necessarily what it is now. Digica wanted to capture exactly what players felt back in the day and I suppose they succeeded, and there is something to be said for preserving a classic and not injecting it with new graphics or a fresh soundtrack.
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