／人◕ ‿‿ ◕人＼ Make a contract with me! (Grief Syndrome)

Grief Syndrome is a side-scrolling beat-em-up made by Tasofro/Twilight Frontier, and was released at C80. Players pick from one of the five puella magi of the Madoka universe and fight their way through five (or six...) stages based on the witch's barriers from the show. The game supports 3-player multiplayer, but there is no netplay (yet). Sadlife.

Gameplay (lowest difficulty, in case you thought it looked easy):



Characters!

Madoka - Feels like the best character to me. She has the highest Soul Limit (basically HP), and all of her attacks are stupidly strong despite being ranged. Arrow Rain will cheese bosses and mobs like nothing, even on higher difficulties.

Homura - The other projectile-based character. Relies very heavily on the assumption that you won't get hit, because she has the lowest Soul Limit and the highest revival cost (and I think the lowest HP too). However, Homuhomu can put up some impressive bullet walls, and can stop time. She's a pretty spammy character, but you do have to be very careful not to get hit. Which with her explosives and timestop, is usually pretty easy to avoid.

Mami - Hybrid melee/range character with horribly high revival costs and pitiful damage. Mami is highly intensive on stunlocking to make up for both of these drawbacks, but she still takes a helluva lot of skill to play compared to the other four characters. When on lower laps where stuff doesn't one hit KO you she's fine, but on higher laps getting hit three or four times easily means game over.

Kyoko - Glass cannon melee fighter. Kyoko's melee range and damage output are both very high, but her HP is low and her revival cost is rather high as well. Very good character for those good at not getting hit, though she can take a hit better than Homura and Mami can.

Sayaka - If Madoka is the queen of range, Sayaka is the queen of melee. Her HP is high, and she loses next to no Soul Limit on death. Though Sayaka's range is short and damage is a little low, she attacks quickly to make up for it. Her special attack gives her super armor and damage reduction in addition to being an amazing room clearer.

If you wanted to organize the characters into tiers, it'd look something like this:

Top - Madoka (range), Sayaka (melee)
Mid - Homura (range), Kyoko (melee)
Mami - Mami

Anyway, fun game. Trying to get to the point where I can consistently beat lap 100 with Mami (only character I can't do it with yet, and she's my favorite ;__;), then I'll probably record a run to stick on youtube since us baka gaijins don't have any gameplay of harder laps (or harder characters).

EDIT: I could probably livestream some lap 100 runs later if anyone's interested in seeing some more gameplay. I'll leave it up to the viewers to decide who I use.

Link download here if anyone want:
http://www.mediafire.com/?7w07l308j6ndu87
http://www.mediafire.com/?t82qw7ew5a86u3y

Control:

Spoiler:

Trailer:

Spoiler:

I like what you did with Mami tier.

well let me correct you a little.. and add some stuff

All of their revival cost is the same. (or around the same). The revival cost difference is negligible. However your revival cost increases as you level and it increases faster than your soul limit.

Madoka- Range, High damage, Not very practical against mobs from all direction. Special is arrow rain

Mami- Range and Melee, Low damage but usable in most condition. Special is Tiro Finale

Sayaka-Melee. VERY SHORT RANGE. Fast. Special is a kind of dash which reduces damage by about 70 %. (useless at ridiculously high difficulties since you still die in 1 hit)

Kyoko- Mid range, Melee, crappiest special in the game. Special is.... some kind of barrier ? which stuns people..... seems useless.

Homura- Range, Time stopping, Very low soul limit. (Max soul limit is about 2-3 deaths away from Madoka at around lv 20) special is time stop.


Bosses

Gertrud
Charlotte (everyones favourite chomping boss)
w/e the TV Witch's name is . i forgot.
Elsa Maria
Oktavia (but you must kill Sayaka)
Walpurgis Night

Levels.

Increases as you kill monsters but you always end up 2 lvs below the boss (not sure if you grind. I was too lazy) Monster levels are affected by the lap.


Laps.(Difficulties)

Starts with lap 1. Every time you complete a lap you unlock more laps with the formula n power 2 + 1

1sq (square) +1 = 2.
2sq +1 = 5
5sq+1 = 26
26sq + 1 = 677 ( i played this. Takes ages to kill the monsters but since i dont have anyone to play with its soloing)

Fun fact.
In lap 1 if i remembered right Walpurgis night is about lv 30-40. maybe lower.

in lap 677 Oktavia is over lv 700. oh and small mobs 1 hit KO you.

<Suguri> Don't quote large posts, please.

Then allow me to correct you as well.

Segawa wrote:

All of their revival cost is the same. (or around the same). The revival cost difference is negligible. However your revival cost increases as you level and it increases faster than your soul limit.

Wrong. Revival costs are character based, and use a percentage of your maximum soul limit. Sayaka's revival cost is the lowest at 6.2%. Homura's is the highest at 16.5%. The percentage never changes with leveling.

Segawa wrote:

Kyoko- Mid range, Melee, crappiest special in the game. Special is.... some kind of barrier ? which stuns people..... seems useless.

It's a lifesaver. I'd take it over Sayaka's special any day.

Segawa wrote:

w/e the TV Witch's name is . i forgot.

H.N. Elly

Real name, Kirsten.

Segawa wrote:

Increases as you kill monsters but you always end up 2 lvs below the boss (not sure if you grind. I was too lazy) Monster levels are affected by the lap.

Boss levels are locked based on lap. Your level has no relation to theirs.

Segawa wrote:

in lap 677 Oktavia is over lv 700. oh and small mobs 1 hit KO you.

Oktavia's still easy though. And OHKOs start around lap 70~100 unless you're playing Sayaka or maybe Mami.

Mami master race represent

NovaZero wrote:

Mami master race represent

Fuck year.

I still get sad when I switch to Madoka or Sayaka and do considerably better for less than half the effort, though.

Quote :

Sayaka-Melee. VERY SHORT RANGE. Fast. Special is a kind of dash which reduces damage by about 70 %. (useless at ridiculously high difficulties since you still die in 1 hit)

Press X during the dash to perform a powerful dashing thrust. Consumes more Mana though.

Quote :

Kyoko- Mid range, Melee, crappiest special in the game. Special is.... some kind of barrier ? which stuns people..... seems useless.

Barrier sucks, yeah, but it totally immobilizes anything tangible caught in it. Like Oktavia's wheels.

Suguri wrote:

I still get sad when I switch to Madoka or Sayaka and do considerably better for less than half the effort, though.

I just ignore Sayaka and Kyouko, since they're so easy to use. Hell, Sayaka made my thumb numb and I find Kyouko slow, despite the large coverage she has.

Homura and Mami are my favorites, since they bring in a challenge with their faults, and because they're cool.

Madoka's just there for when I'm bored.

Agreed wholeheartedly.

Despite being even more fragile than Mami though, Homura still feels so much better. Rockets and mortars have so much damage and coverage, and machinegun stunlock is too good. Timestop also seems way too effective for its cost.

Suguri wrote:

Agreed wholeheartedly.

Despite being even more fragile than Mami though, Homura still feels so much better. Rockets and mortars have so much damage and coverage, and machinegun stunlock is too good. Timestop also seems way too effective for its cost.

Hell, Homura has the highest damage potential due to that Timestop. Especially when you know how to cancel your specials.

I don't know about highest. Even on lap 100 Mami can one-shot Charlotte with Tiro Finale, and Madoka stacking 2~4 arrow rains has DPS retarded beyond belief.

Homura gains the advantage of being able to use timestop to intercept freshly-spawning enemies, safely reposition herself anywhere on the screen, and dodging attacks at the last second though; perks that far outclass the higher damage potential of the other two characters imo.

barriers too small. Rather than a lifesaver i say it kills me !

Segawa wrote:

barriers too small. Rather than a lifesaver i say it kills me !

It'd help if you moved after placing it.

I wanna make a contract ／人◕ ‿‿ ◕人＼

anyway i just cleared lap 1 seems already hard for me .-.

with madoka too.

I played the first lap about a week ago when it was new and #pewpew had just started slowing down. Has pad support, but I wasn't able to reassign the keys (not that I looked very hard...). Tried everyone a bit (moreso Homura and Sayaka) and settled on Sayaka. I think the thought process was "Guns are kind of boring, so how about some melee combos?" Sayaka fulfilled that somewhat since everything went into everything and she had an evasive ability... er. A little spammy, but engaging enough.

Anyway, I beat it. It was easy. I hear Homura is a necessity in High Lap 3-play mode, but solo she felt too slow. I wasn't using the uhh... Rocket Step(?) trick, though. Something about cancelling animation times to get an attack out more quickly.

I might record a Lap 26 Sayaka run, or a Lap 667 Homura run, in the distant future. But for now, I'm still more interested in AoS2 and DN.

Fun game, but awfully short.

After playing a bit more, I'm starting to think Mami's better than Kyoko. Kyoko's just too goddamn slow, I don't think I can even do stage 2 on lap 100 with her without getting hit. Plus, all my fastest clear times are with Mami anyway (Tiro Finale is too damn good).

I still maintain that Madoka and Sayaka are by far the best characters though, even if they aren't the most entertaining to play.

Will probably record a lap 100 Homura run soon, now that I can consistently complete that with her. Lap 100 Mami run will get recorded after I figure out how the hell to approach stage 3 with her.

Hmm, this looks interesting. Is it just a flash game?

Sean24 wrote:

Hmm, this looks interesting. Is it just a flash game?

Nope, it's a full-fledged PC game.

Suguri wrote:

Sean24 wrote:

Hmm, this looks interesting. Is it just a flash game?

Nope, it's a full-fledged PC game.

Hmm, I see. So like any other PC Disc game you would buy at Wal-Mart or somewhere else. Alright, I think I'll download it and give it a try when I find the time. Right now I'm a little busy watching Bleach.

ffff, thought it was a flash game.

So apparently Oktavia can still hit Homura during timestop, despite her normally being invulnerable during it.



herpderp

Which particular attack is that?

NovaZero wrote:

Which particular attack is that?

The energy wave from her sword slash.

It seems to depend on when you use timestop though, because sometimes it didn't damage me, sometimes it did.

Moemura is out! Download the patch!


Related 4chan thread: http://boards.4chan.org/a/res/54475053

http://www.tasofro.net/arc/index.html#407

Grief Syndrome ver1.10 Patch
http://www.tasofro.net/arc/griefsyndrome_update_110.exe
MD5:87E447F0FFFDA96A077B8C49592FB7EB

- Bug fixes: lap 100 all clear, others?

New character: Another Akemi Homura
Different moveset, stat progression is the same(?). To use her, select Homura and press Up.
Quick attack: Golf club
Standing strong attack: Deagle (chargeable)
Forward strong: Shotgun
Up/down: Pipebomb throw. These linger for abit, can be detonated prematurely with another attack. If caught in blast radius, causes self-damage.
Special: Time stop.

New character: Kyubey
If you have more players than surviving player characters, the others can play as Kyubey. (?)


Still no online mutiplayer, though... oh well.

Also, a question: does the game save any amount of progress when you close it? I remember beating it once and having Lap 2 unlocked, but I don't seem to have it any more...

Moemura's trash sadly. Her sprites are cute though, hnnnng.

I wonder...if there's only one character left, does that give you two kyubeys, or did they put a bit more effort into it and make it kyubey+juubey?

FenixStryk wrote:

Also, a question: does the game save any amount of progress when you close it? I remember beating it once and having Lap 2 unlocked, but I don't seem to have it any more...

It should save things like best time, most hits, etc. as well as highest unlocked lap.