Chuhou Joutai (video game)


 * This article is about the first game in the series. For the franchise as a whole, see Chuhou Joutai.

, also known by its extended title Chuhou Joutai: The Middle State of War and in Japan as Chuhou Joutai: The Legend of the Mysterious Real Driller (中方状態：不思議のリアルドリラーさまの伝説), is an entry-level danmaku shooter developed and published by. The game was released on Steam on May 22, 2020 (officially listed as May 21, 2020 due to time zone differences), with the beta released on itch.io on January 10, 2020. The game is heavily inspired by the golden era of arcade games in the 1980s, primarily the game design principles of and other studios, and sought to emulate the art style used in 1980s anime. The game is also meant to be a parody of buddy comedy films, with a mix of screwball elements in between. It is the first installment of an intended series of games set within a shared universe titled the Drillimation Danmaku Universe.

Chuhou Joutai has one or two players taking control of Susumu Takajima and his close friend Kagami Ochiai as they fight through eight treacherous stages that end in boss fights, in order to destroy a stronghold held by the terrorist group SPASDOT. The game's intent is to bring in newcomers and veteran fans of games such as  alike. The game is also meant to attract a younger audience, primarily for its simplified gameplay and its cartoony art style while still maintaining an anime motif. The game was positively received upon release, with praise being aimed for its visuals and soundtrack, as well as its difficulty curve, although the game did face criticism for its long cutscenes and technical issues at launch which were later fixed in later versions, while the art direction drew mixed reactions. A sequel, Chuhou Joutai 2: Paraided!, was announced on November 30, 2020.

Blurb
"Think you can end the Kozanese Civil War? Now's your chance to play this entry-level danmaku game.

One's green, one's blue, they're gonna hit you in the head! This is Chuhou Joutai, a shooter game like no other. The country of Kozan has entered a period of civil war against a left-wing extremist group called SPASDOT. Taking the role as The Real Driller or Princess Kagami, your mission is to find and defeat SPASDOT's leader in order to shut them down for good. But it's not gonna be easy - dangerous bullet patterns lie ahead of you!

Chuhou Joutai takes you through eight treacherous stages in the capital city of Kozankyo filled with opponents that will throw colorful attack patterns which you'll need lightning-fast reflexes to get through. You can focus your attacks to get through tight spaces and if you're in a tight pinch, you can throw a bomb to clear the screen! Hair-pin curves and dare-devil turns - you're gonna need to make these to survive. Think you're up to it? Now get out there and show SPASDOT what you're made of!"

- from the itch.io game page and Steam

Gameplay
Chuhou Joutai is a maniac shooter where players assume the role of Susumu Takajima or Kagami Ochiai, who are sent out by the Kozanese Royal Defense Force to destroy a base associated with the terrorist group SPASDOT. Viewed from a top-down perspective and in 1980s visuals heavily influenced by the golden era of arcade games, players traverse through eight stages that increase in difficulty and defeat the boss at the end of each stage. Unlike other maniac shooters, where characters die after one hit, Chuhou Joutai features a health system to make the game easier for newcomers to the danmaku genre. Players start with 30 HP, which go down for each hit with a bullet and results in a KO when all HP is lost. When a KO occurs, the player must pay a fee of 25 ingots to revive which increases by another 25 for each subsequent revive. If the player does not have enough ingots to revive, the game is over.

Plot
The game opens with an explanation of Kozan, its governmental structure, and its battle against the Soviet Union whose attempt with the terrorist group SPASDOT was to overthrow the monarchy and replace it with a socialist republic as a satellite state of the Soviet Union. After the assassination of King Kenjirou, his cousin Soujirou takes the role of king and leads a revolutionary war against the Soviet Union, and with aid of the United States, they successfully defeat the Soviets. It then zooms to 2004, the year Chuhou Joutai is set in, on how Kozan had entered a period of civil war thanks to SPASDOT wanting to overthrow the monarchy again. Atop of that, it also explains the death of Hikari Uchida by Jack "Hearthcliffe" Fawkes, for which Driller swears revenge against.

On a busy Saturday morning in Kozankyo, Driller goes out and encounters Kagami Ochiai standing outside. Running down to the bottom of the hill, they hear a loud explosion, only not to realize Hearthcliffe was at the scene, where he formally introduces himself to the duo and has Amy Fawkes challenge the duo to a duel. Amy is defeated and notifies Fred Fawkes about it, leading him to get angry. The duo continue down the road where they run into Alex Fawkes, whom he challenges to a duel. During the battle, Kagami is notified by text message that she and Driller meet up with the chief officer of the Kozankyo Police Department at Kozankyo University. The duo cut through a forest as a shortcut to get to Kozankyo University, running into a human with bunny ears named Damausagi and to the university.

The duo meets up with the officer at Kozankyo University's Hirano Hall, and Kagami does not realize her mother was there as well too. The Chief tells the duo how SPASDOT is becoming an even deadlier threat and orders the duo to kill Fred Fawkes, SPASDOT's leader. Right before they could begin running to the stronghold they've just been ordered to destroy, Driller's ex-girlfriend, Ayako Sugiwara, stops them for a duel. Ayako is eventually crushed and the duo devises a plan to get to the stronghold as it's located at the end of Ahoge Peninsula, and ultimately decide to run down to Kozankyo's bayfront and take a riverboat to get there. After arriving at the bayfront, they run into Tatsuro Hozoshima who politely asks the duo for a duel.

After the duel, the duo do not realize that Konata, the Crown Princess of Kozan, is there, and offers to take the duo to the edge of Ahoge Peninsula using her prized riverboat the Victorian Princess. After getting to the tip, Driller strikes the attention of a redhead at the gate of the stronghold. The redhead reveals herself to be Lee Gyu-ri, a defector from North Korea who fled to join SPASDOT. The duo challenges her to a duel and ultimately win. Konata then wishes the duo good luck trying to destroy the stronghold. The duo enters the stronghold and encounters Hearthcliffe once again, who is soon defeated by the duo. Fred Fawkes, who has been angered by all the madness he went through, is then confronted by the duo, before Fawkes reveals he is the true "Scarlet Devil" of SPASDOT, taking on the appearance of a Shinto priest. After a fierce battle, Fawkes is humiliated by the duo. Right before admitting defeat, Ryuta Shigematsu and Kumiko Uchida enter with Kumiko placing an undetachable bomb in the form of an ofuda on Fawkes, which then explodes, killing him and destroying the stronghold, which all four watch from the distance.

In a post-credits scene, Konata is shown dressed in a Victorian-style gown relaxing before Driller, Kagami, and Ayako each show up one-by-one. Konata commits the duo to search the remnants of the stronghold for anything they find. The next weekend, Driller and Kagami return to Ahoge Peninsula to the stronghold, only to find someone already present. That person appears to be Marie Willow, a girl from the country of El Kadsre and challenges the duo in a danmaku duel. Willow is eventually thumped with Driller and Kagami taking back the artifacts. That night, Driller claims that he made it to the end and is ready for summer, possibly setting up the sequel to the game.

Characters
Playable characters: Boss characters: Non-playable characters:
 * Susumu Takajima, the male protagonist, computer programmer
 * Kagami Ochiai, the female protagonist, youkai-born idol
 * Amy Fawkes, Crimsonite, stage 1 boss
 * Alex Fawkes, Crimsonite, stage 2 midboss and boss
 * Damausagi, rabbit, stage 3 boss
 * Ayako Sugiwara, researcher and Driller's ex-girlfriend, stage 4 boss
 * Tatsuro Hozoshima, water sports player, stage 5 boss and stage 6 midboss
 * Lee Gyu-ri, Crimsonite gatekeeper, stage 6 boss and extra stage midboss
 * Hearthcliffe, SPASDOT admin, stage 7 midboss and boss, and stage 8 midboss
 * Frederic Sam Fawkes, SPASDOT leader, stage 8 boss
 * Marie Willow, researcher, extra stage midboss
 * Hikari Uchida, appears in intro and mentioned in stage 1
 * Hanayo Katsuragi, appears in intro
 * Kenjirou, King of Kozan, appears in intro
 * Soujirou, King of Kozan, appears in intro, mentioned in stage 5
 * Kozankyo Police Chief, appears in stage 4
 * Kisumi Torisawa, researcher, appears in stage 4
 * Konata, Crown Princess of Kozan, appears in stages 5 and 6
 * Ryuta Shigematsu, appears in stage 8, as well as ending
 * Kumiko Uchida, appears in intro and stage 8, as well as ending
 * Yumi Ochiai, appears in ending
 * Prime Minister of Kozan, appears in ending

Development
Early traces of the game were found in late 2014, when the Prophet Driller was still in high school. Chuhou Joutai originally began as a  fan project meant to be a shojo series titled Rainbow Girl Kagami (虹色少女カガミ), with Kagami Ochiai intending to be the protagonist. The project was scrapped in the summer of 2015. It was instead going to be made into a video game titled Crystal Island (クリスタルアイランド) and was going to feature gameplay similar to , known as Doki-Doki Panic in Japan. The game also had a much simpler, Disney-styled plot about Kagami and Yumi Ochiai being shipwrecked onto an island, and that the girls don't realize they're princesses and Kagami's goal was to defeat a villain in order to become an empress.

The game had to be scrapped again, as the Prophet did not want to create a game with such a girly environment, so he took it back to the drawing board, and Chuhou Joutai becoming the genre it is actually came from frustration. Having been a huge fan of games by Namco, and a long-time player of the popular danmaku series , he ultimately decided to make Chuhou Joutai a danmaku game. Bullet hell shooter games have never been a mainstay of western gaming culture due to their complicated nature, and the Prophet sought to create a danmaku game for beginners. It took two and a half years to come up with the name Chuhou Joutai, as he could not come up with a name that he didn't agree on. Some of the failed names include Shinkoku Project and Chuhou Project. Chuhou Joutai ' s name only came when representatives from the visited his high school to perform their accreditation, and he translated the name to Japanese.

The character designs for Chuhou Joutai were kept simple, as the Prophet was not a very skilled artist at the time. Instead of taking a fantasy approach in other games, he decided to use a more modern, casual style. The works of were proven to be a major inspiration for character designs and personalities, primarily their slice of life anime such as Lucky Star and . However, halfway through development, the catastrophic terrorist attack on the Kyoto Animation studio occurred. The attack and its aftermath devastated the Prophet, as it happened two full weeks before he was due to visit Japan; he also passed by the burnt ruins of the studio while roaming around Kyoto.

In order to make the game unique from other danmaku games, he felt humor should play an integral role in the game. Inspiration for humor was taken from web series such as ', and also from film franchises such as the '. Hearthcliffe, being a villain with a sense of humor, was heavily influenced by from the  series. The civil war setting in the game took heavy inspiration from real-world events, such as the and the activities of the terrorist group the, for which SPASDOT took inspiration from. Having also studied Islam himself, the Prophet Driller wanted to respect Sharia law by not referencing the religion in any way possible.

Soundtrack
Chuhou Joutai features over 30 songs in its soundtrack. Unlike other games, the Prophet Driller wanted to give Chuhou Joutai a more "MS-DOS" like experience, by including multiple sound formats. Having to make multiple versions of the same song slowed down development by over 50%, and multiple programs were used to create the different sound formats. The 2A03 version of the soundtrack was made in Famitracker, the SoundBlaster and Roland MT-32 versions were made in SynthFont, while the YM-2608 and modtracker versions were made in. The soundtrack was released on June 5, 2020 as Victorian Boutique Vol. 1.

Marketing
The game fully began development in the summer of 2018, and took a year and a half to develop before the beta was released. Drillimation struck a deal with YouTuber SquirrelMonkey to promote the game. Drillimation originally intended to pitch the title to Whitethorn Digital for a promotional deal, another developer based in the same area where Drillimation was based but was rejected, leading to Drillimation to self-publish the game on Steam instead. The reasoning for their rejection was due to Whitethorn not being interested in hardcore titles, though Chuhou Joutai appeals to both casual and hardcore players. The game's danmaku gameplay and its civil war theme made Whitethorn decline the request for publication. The game was also promoted through the Dream Logos Wiki and its sister site Dream Fiction Wiki, which Drillimation formerly headed before having to retire following complicated circumstances where attempting to advertise a game was contrary to FANDOM standards. Several of the YouTube trailers were promoted through Sprizzy, a website that he found while searching on Google. The ad cost over $200 to run seven times on YouTube and garnered more than 10,000 views through YouTube advertising.

Chuhou Joutai is heavily promoted on social media. The first poster for the game was released on January 20, 2020. The poster was created to celebrate and was an activist poster to show off that children have limited internet freedom. From February 10 - 29, 2020, Drillimation held a sweepstakes where one lucky winner would win a free copy of Chuhou Joutai. The sweepstakes poster shows Kagami Ochiai and Lee Gyu-ri walking out of an Asian restaurant while dressed in hanbok. The Korean theme was meant to reference the 2019 South Korean film Parasite, which now holds the honor of being the first foreign film to win the. The lucky winner was Twitter user @okasion2012, who won the beta giveaway sweepstakes. A third poster featuring Kisumi Torisawa next to an old television with the game on display was released on February 20, 2020. Prior to the campaign's ending on February 22, 2020, a free copy of the game was given to Twitter user @yakwaxlips for being the 1,000th follower on Drillimation's official Twitter account. On April 24, 2020, another poster was released to inform players that they only have one week left to try the beta. The poster showed Driller outside a Japanese restaurant with a new look. On May 1, 2020, the last poster for the game was released, it showed Meira Katsumoto holding a plate with a copy of the game to tell players who played the beta they would get the full version of the game for free.

The game was promoted again in June 2020 by Squirrel Monkey in his newest video to demonstrate what Wix might have looked like if it was made in the 1990s; Chuhou Joutai was showcased for a few seconds.

Reception
Chuhou Joutai received generally positive reviews upon release. As of May 2020, the game holds a 94% on itch.io based on six reviews. Praise was aimed for the challenging difficulty primarily for the unique attack patterns, as well as its retro visuals and level of customization, though the long cutscenes and lack of an online leaderboard did face criticism. The game's musical score also received praise as well, primarily for the sound options. The game's humor has also been lauded, with one female YouTuber calling it some of "the best" allusions to popular culture in a video game. In another positive review, Jessi Moen of ChicagoNow called it one of the silliest games she had ever played, in terms of the graphics and storyline. TheOvermatt of IndieGameReviewer.com also praised its simplicity and accessibility for beginners, referring to the game as "a bullet hell for everyone." In a mixed review by Spanish gaming website Guardado Rápido, Ezequiel Potás compared the game to Touhou Project, and felt this would be a game for beginners as well and also criticized the long cutscenes as well.

Despite praise for the game's throwback to the golden era of arcade games, the art direction had mixed reactions. In a review on the Japanese gaming blog 4Gamer.net, one critic has considered the game's art style to be a "hetuma", as the creator's intention to bring it to the Japanese market has had four years of Japanese study. It is said the Japanese translation was a result of the Prophet learning Japanese. In another positive review on itch.io, one player has considered the game's art style to be "odd", but enjoyable. A review on the Retro-o-Rama praised the arcade-style graphics, but considered some of the danmaku "confusing."

Initially, sales were so slow with it selling only 100 copies within its first week, but nearly a month after release, the title gained a small cult following by fan-produced material, such as fanart and animated videos.

Possible sequel
Despite the slow initial sales, Drillimation hopes to increase the popularity of the game by producing a sequel. This was first hinted at the end of the game after Fred Fawkes is defeated by telling the duo to "just wait until Chuhou Joutai 2." In October 2020, just five months after the game released, Drillimation announced that the sequel to Chuhou Joutai had begun development with the first trailer releasing on November 30, 2020. The full name was unveiled to be Chuhou Joutai 2: Paraided! on January 1, 2021, with the demo being released on March 5, 2021.

System requirements

 * Operating System: Windows 7 SP1 or higher (64-bit only)
 * Processor: 64-bit Intel Dual Core CPU
 * Video Card: DirectX 11 or higher
 * Resolution: 800×600 or higher, 1200×900 required for hi-res mode
 * Hard Drive Space: 196 MB
 * RAM: 1GB or higher
 * Controllers: Keyboard or Bluetooth-compatible gamepad

Game support
is focused on creating the definitive guide to . But while we make an effort to be complete, which may include game bugs and fixes for them, we are not an official game support channel. Please refer to Drillimation's support page for official support.