First up is
The Last Comer!The Last Comer's shot-type balance is very skewed by lunatic, which is the only difficulty I play of it. The differences in shot-types is much smaller on, say, normal, though definitely present.
Homing Reimu: 3/10
This shot is all around very bad. The damage is pathetically low, on the tier of PCB ReimuA, or even lower (though thankfully it has a better bomb), only The Last Comer has harder bosses (early game in particular) and much, much harder stages than PCB. The damage just isn't high enough for the stages. Stages 1, 2 and 3 in particular get much harder. Though any shot that isn't Sakuya feels that.
The bomb is decent, but that's no consolation. Still the worst bomb in the game.
Needles Reimu: 5.5/10
High focused damage. It also has slightly higher range than Marisa. Shot-wise, she's effectively equal to Marisa. The main difference between the two is the bombs.
The bomb covers the entire screen and does high damage, especially right in front of the boss. But it also lasts for about 1.5 - 2 seconds, which is not good in this game where long bombs can be used to gather grudge points.
Marisa: 5/10
Like Needles Reimu - high damage, low range.
Master Spark does high damage, and lasts a long time. But the bomb slows you down, which makes gathering grudge a pain - at least using Duplex Barrier you can gather some grudge afterwards during stages.
Sakuya: 9.5/10
Oh boy. The master of this game's system right here, folks. She does literally everything right in the context of this game.
A huge spread which does fairly high damage, which makes the stages so much easier is the biggest factor. And her focused damage is still on about the same level as Needles Reimu/Marisa, too!
Her bomb lasts a long time, does high damage and allows you to move around to get grudge items. This it great for stages and bosses alike and means you can stall a little using your bomb to get grudge items if necessary.
Moreover, Sakuya has a ridiculously strong unfocused shotgun on top of bosses. In a game where you get invincibility periods with a decent frequency, this is ridiculously powerful. Bombing or grudge + unfocused shotgun will kill pretty much every non survival/bomb immune spell in the game immediately.
An all around great shot-type.
The Last Comer will end 6th of April.
Throwing in suggestions for games:
* Re:Phantasmagoria of Imagine Breaker
* Fairies of Sorcery
* Youkai Kori Kassen
* Frantically Forbidden Fruit (technically not out yet, but there'll be more than enough time for people to play it)
* Magical Singular Day
* Fantastic Danmaku Festival
* Marine Benefit
Cheers.