A really nice piece to own

User Rating: 8 | Shikigami no Shiro II XBOX
All the Xbox-guys buy the same games. Like the Tom Clancy, EA and Star Wars monologues. But what about the quiet voices? Games that make others say “what the … is THAT?” Ok, I admit that Shikigami no Shiro 2 is not an insider-only game, since it was released on Playstation 2, GameCube, Dreamcast and even on PC. But a Japan-Exclusive Xbox game is always something special. Except you ARE Japanese, I guess.

Thank God we do not just have to buy this green piece of Video Game, because it has strange letters that we don’t understand. It is also a very enjoyable game.
I have to say, that I haven’t played many shoot ‘em ups before. So I can’t say that Shikigami is better or worse than the average shooter. But I can say, that a person who has never played shooters before can get really addicted to the gameplay. The different characters and weapons create a nice rotation option. But the game doesn’t change when played with another character. Unfortunately there are no secret items, weapons or characters available after a play-through so the story is your only reward. In contrast with my predecessor I haven’t understand one word of the story. This is very sad, because the many colorful pictures look very interesting and seem to offer a nice storyline.

The best about Shikigami no Shiro 2 is its speedy gameplay. No matter if you want a quick rush between the sheets or you play co-op with a friend. Just turn it on and have fun. The graphics, sound and controls do their job very well.

The only negative aspect is the small screen. If you don’t have a real large TV you are often getting trouble with differ the projectiles from your shield. Dozens of flying coins, enemies and two characters often lead to total chaos. I guess these are the roots from an arcade-optimized game.

So all in all I think that this game is really worth the money. The tracking for a collectible copy shouldn’t be that hard if you ever tried getting a Japanese Board game for the Xbox.