Suguri

Aaaaaaaand

We're back to doujin-games. Released at the "prestigious" Japanese nerd-collective, Comiket 69 in 2005, Suguri is a rather unique horizontal shooting-game, featuring clever mechanics that, while not genre-redefining, allow Suguri to stand on it's own as a solid, if not essential shooting experience.

Suguri (PC)
Developed & Published by: Orange-Juice
Localized by: Rockin' Android
Released on: Dec. 8, 2005 (JPN)/ Feb. 1, 2012 (US)
Starring a young woman with a lot of guns, intent on saving Earth from robots, or something, Suguri, like most shooters, focuses on dodging enemy fire. This is accomplished in a very unconventional manner, however, by means of air-dashing. The game features a dedicated dashing button, which not only grants you greater mobility around the screen, but also disables your hurtbox, making you invincible. While dashing you can fly directly through enemy bullets and lasers.

PROTIP - Lunge yourself directly at enemy-bullets to remain alive. It is unknown if this works in real-life

Dashing might seem overpowered, but keep in mind, it's limited to a gauge, creating an element of risk/reward - Say in a particular instance, you believe it may be possible to dodge attacks in the traditional manner, a save your meter for later, but you might choose to dash anyway, just to err on the side of caution. This is a fine example of some of the tactical depth Suguri brings to the table.

Most bosses are fellow anime-waifus, but some of them are Missile-Launching Gundams

Despite Suguri utilizing 8-way movement, dashing can be steered like a boat - with 360 degrees. You can cancel your first dash with a second one time change direction immediately, and this can be done indefinitely, until you run out of meter. Dashing has no recovery time, so you can dash directly into enemy-fire, and dash-cancel without getting hit. Keep in mind, it is possible to exhaust your meter while overlapping bullets, so watch out.

Suguri uses a bomb to defeat a sub-boss, before killing Saki with a flamethrower.

Having a core-mechanic that rapidly moves you around the screen in a shooter sounds like it would make shooting enemies difficult, but luckily the clever dogs at Orange-Juice thought things through, adding a lock-on system for hunting foes. The combination of air-dashing, and locking-on makes for a very unorthodox experience, resembling the FPS technique of "circle-strafing" moreso than a typical hori-shooter.

Every doujin shooter eventually just degrades into Touhou.

Suguri has a ridiculous amount of weapons (17 in all), unfortunatley, mosof them must be unlocked, just like in Einhander. Once you have met the conditions for unlocking a weapon - usually reaching a new stage, and/or getting an A-Rank - you can select it before you start a run, just like in Einhander. Unlike in Einhander, Suguri doesn't allow you to change weapons mid-stage via pick-ups, it does, however let you switch between stages. Other unlockables include a Boss-Rush mode, an even harder difficulty setting, and two animated cutscenes.

Enjoy the first stage of Suguri, played as poorly as possible, with a flamethrower.

Suguri was originally released in 2005, and would remain a Japanese-exclusive for seven years, until localization heroes, Rockin' Android translated the last revision of the game and released it  for the western-market under the moniker SUGURI - Perfect Edition. It's also featured as part of The Suguri Collection, which includes the spin-off, (and Senko no Ronde clone) Acceleration of Suguri.

Special thanks to the weebs over at the SuguriWiki