I’m left thinking that Parry Nightmare is meant to be a starter bullet hell title for players unfamiliar with the genre – only because of its brevity and simplicity. While it lacks traditional bullet hell variance and depth to ensure replayability, it contains enough nuance to tell an interesting story while the eyes and ears are treated to a stunning art style and jazzy soundtrack.
Bullet hell games are notoriously niche. If you’ve read any of my prior review of bullet hell titles, like Mushihimesama or ONE BTN BOSSES or even Duck Paradox, you’re probably already familiar with my thoughts on their punishing nature. Bullet hell games rarely pay off in a way that is appealing for the average gamer because of their ridiculously steep difficulty curves and very little wiggle room in making them curves less steep. For genre superfans, though, the question of a “fun” bullet hell game emerges in the creativity of bullet patterns, the construction of the gameplay loop which ramps up in difficulty and variety, alongside any innovation instilled within the game itself.
For Parry Nightmare, it sure as hell contains innovation, but it falls short in depth, variety, and its storytelling. Wait…storytelling? I’ll get there in a minute.
Parry Nightmare was originally released in March of 2024 and is KAKUKAKU GAMES’ premiere title. Two of its figureheads, Charehito and Yuki Aiba, are notable manga artists and have received awards for their work in the art space. As such, this focus on a prominent art style is illustrated in the first few moments of the game as we’re introduced to Parry Nightmare’s dual protagonists, Honnou and Honnou-chan. I controlled Honnou, a floating blue flame, while Honnou-chan followed me around and blew up enemies with her lasers. Honnou-chan was my demonic guardian in my own nightmares, capable of destroying wave after wave after wave of enemy that is laser-focused on Honnou.
Each of Parry Nightmare’s four levels follow the same pattern with very little variance. The start of a level is dark with a close-up of Honnou. When an enemy gets close to me and enters a blue circle that surrounds my character, I simply left-click and “parry” an enemy into a blue stunned state. Honnou-chan follows me around the level and destroys every stunned enemy. If I collide with an enemy, I lose health; if I try to parry an already-stunned enemy, I become stunned and unable to parry for a few seconds. After Honnou-chan destroys an enemy, I collect the small little flames left behind. After enough successful parrys, I can right-click and utilize a Tension-fueled burst attack that parries everything in sight. Once I have collected enough flames, the level becomes brighter and the camera zooms out…only to fill my screen with more enemies. The only way to complete a level is to parry away and collect flames until I have collected 100 flames. Thankfully, parrying is intuitive and doesn’t require much thought.
Like most bullet hells, Parry Nightmare is simple for all of a few seconds before it gets chaotically difficult. Bombs will randomly enter the screen and target Honnou-chan to stun her, preventing her from destroying a parried enemy. It turns out that the bar that tracks the number of fragments I collect doesn’t necessarily translate to the specific number, but instead tracks the percent of level completion. This means that I have to survive as long as possible and keep collecting flames…or else I have to start the level over when I die. There are no checkpoints or ways to regain progress, so expect to restart levels from the very beginning if your first attempts are unsuccessful.
While it doesn’t refer to the mechanic as such, Parry Nightmare teaches the player about how to graze enemies. Grazing is a mechanic often found in the Touhou games, in which the player’s character is rewarded when it literally grazes bullets. In Touhou, grazing is a high-risk and high-reward mechanic that grants a massive boost in points the more bullets the player grazes. In Parry Nightmare, enemies can only be parried when they are grazing Honnou’s blue circle.
I don’t have a problem with grazing being the de facto means of defeating enemies in Parry Nightmare, but it’s strange to see it implemented here. In my prior experience, grazing is a mechanic that’s utilized by higher-tier players as a means of boosting their score so long as they can keep themselves alive while brushing by bullet after bullet. Grazing enemies in Parry Nightmare lacks the risk-reward tension that makes being millimeters away from danger paying off. On the other hand, a player who can master Parry Nightmare’s focus on grazing enemies will assuredly become a better bullet hell player, so perhaps this is a blessing in disguise.
There are three upgrades that change Honnou-chan’s appearance and attack styles, varying up the otherwise straightforward gameplay. The sushi powerup makes it so that Honnou-chan fires more lasers, while the ham powerup sets her on a rampage requiring me to follow her instead of vice versa. The upgrades themselves are great in that they meaningfully shift Honnou-chan’s behavior and how I am to complete a level, but there aren’t enough of them to make it seem like there’s ample variance for replayability.
Speaking of variance, there are only four levels. I appreciate that Parry Nightmare is bite sized and doesn’t overstay its welcome through repetitious patterns, but I would have liked to see additional shifts in level design and enemy behaviors to make it seem like I was taking meaningful steps on the path of progression. The final level features a boss fight of sorts and is the only level with a “big demon boss” that’s the supposed source of tension in Honnou’s life. I kept expecting there to be a boss at the end of every level to signify that I’ve reached the end. Narratively speaking, a boss could have been an excellent way to wrap each of the level’s aesthetics and accomplish the feat of Honnou overcoming the individual demons that plague her. Instead, there’s one boss, and you see it in the final level.
Honnou is effectively trapped in a series of nightmares that occur throughout the night. In between levels, I’m taken back to Honnou’s bedroom where I can point-and-click at the room’s many objects to shed light on Honnou’s past, her current struggles, and the few sources of joy that are overshadowed by the persistent demons that inhabit Honnou’s dreams. The levels serve as extensions of these nightmares, offering glimpses into Honnou’s life and the ways in which demons have twisted these stages of life into pits of torment. The first time I was taken to Honnou’s room, I appreciated having her narrate her thoughts when I clicked around, but it was rare for these thoughts to offer substantial worldbuilding.
The final moments of Parry Nightmare feel watered down, especially after surviving several seemingly-endless waves of demons. Battling personal demons is a feat often resulting in a change of heart, lifestyle, or a promise to make a substantial change going forward. Honnou’s conclusion is that of “keep on keepin’ on,” which is a generic response to experiencing and overcoming trauma. Honnou’s sources of trauma are not unique, mind you; it wouldn’t surprise me if you face these same sources of stress on a daily basis. I was hoping that there would be a powerful message that Honnou shares with the player when the sun finally rises, but instead…there wasn’t.
It feels weird for me to critique Parry Nightmare’s story as I am, but I have to given that the game is fueled by an overarching narrative that guides the player forward. Even though I’m dissatisfied with the morning after reliving trauma after trauma in four back-to-back nightmares, I must recognize that Parry Nightmare innovates on storytelling and aesthetics over all else. There are no high scores, variable patterns, or seemingly impossible levels; instead, there are meaningful designs that illustrate various sources of pain accompanied by a human’s response to that pain.
At the start of this review, I referred to Charehito and Aiba’s past as award-winning manga artists. Their character designs and overall aesthetic makes Parry Nightmare look nothing like any bullet hell I’ve played before. The 2D-cutout characters are eccentric, bordering on Paper Mario meets Hazbin Hotel. The point-and-click segment of Honnou’s room feels reminiscent of the urban Studio Ghiblu art style that is commonly associated with Lofi Girl. Parry Nightmare’s jazzy OST further enhances the game’s unique aesthetic, preventing it from succumbing to darkness and negativity. Oddly enough, the combination of the soundtrack’s grooviness and the silly art design gave me a source of hope to persist through to the end of the game and counteracted the darkness of Honnou’s demons.
I’m left thinking that Parry Nightmare is meant to be a starter bullet hell title for players unfamiliar with the genre – only because of its brevity and simplicity. While it lacks traditional bullet hell variance and depth to ensure replayability, it contains enough nuance to tell an interesting story while the eyes and ears are treated to a stunning art style and jazzy soundtrack.
