天下制覇

Auauauauauauau~

One day, Rika is sweeping the yard in front of her temple, when a box drops out of the air onto her head. Inside are two beads, and a note saying that the holder of the red bead would fall madly in love with the holder of the white. A quick experiment later confirmes the veracity of the note, and the kiddos decide to duel over which pair got to keep them. Soon though, all of Hinamizawa is soon drawn in.

It sounds weird, but Daybreak is an official parallel story to Higurashi’s universe, written by one of the original writers for Tasofro’s game. There’s even been a bonus arc adaptation of the story released on a fandisk at the last Comiket where Rena ends up swallowing the red bead, and as the white one gets passed around, various hijinks and misadventures occur.

At its core, Daybreak is a clone of the series of mecha 3rd person fighters like Virtua-On under the guise of a team based battle. Gameplay is a 3rd person fighter where the first to 100 points wins. Every time you reduce the life of an opponent to zero, you gain 20 points, and then a point or two more if you manage to keep juggling them, after which they respawn and are back into the fray. Each character also has multiple weapons selected at the start of the game which change their stats and the variable attacks they can use. You can block, dash, and jump, but all drain the stamina bar, and when it runs out, you have to wait for it to recharge. Each character has a couple standard melee combos depending on whether they’re landing from a jump or just running around around on the ground, in addition to three weapon specific attacks. The a.attack (tap the button) is generally a weak ranged attack, b.attack (hold the buton for about a second) generally mid-range/spread, and the c.attack (hold the button for a long time, varies by weapon though) is typically something large and painful.

The Kai expansion added Natsumi (a manga adaptation character) and our silly little Oyashiro-chan, Hanyu, as well as a more defensive super mode and a new weapon for all the existing characters, plus I believe some new costumes as well. All in all, a pretty comprehensive expansion, but nothing really attached to the story mode except a couple new teams made from the same old characters. There were also a number of balance fixes, but the most game-changing is how quickly blocking now drains the stamina bar. The Netplay is also supposedly improved, but I haven’t had almost any luck with it really.

As for the new characters, Natsumi is actually a pretty decent little beast with both her weapons. She’s a pretty good melee buster with her sawblades, especially since her c.attack is to make them orbit her, and she has good melee potential with her knife as well, but her range is pretty lacking with both. She plays a lot like a speedier but weaker Rena and suffers a little bit from very short arms.

Hanyu though… I’m sorry girl, but you suck. Her first mode is all support attacks, a shot that feezes the opponent for a second, a reflecting mirror, and a mass time-stop. The problem is that the freeze shot does nearly nil damage, only lasts a second, and you only get 6 of them. You can just keep an opponent frozen, but unless you’re in their face to combo them, the refraction time is too much to do anything. The mirror seems nice, but the hit detection with it is awful. I’ve tossed it up and sometimes it’ll bounce shots, sometimes you get bounced instead. Her time stop is also worthless as it takes about 30 seconds of charging, and then another 3 seconds of her chanting and after all that, only lasts about 5 seconds… and with her horrid melee damage, that’s good for maybe half a lifebar. And if you’re playing against actual people, they’ll just jump, and it’ll be good for absolutely nothing. Her second mode is a bit better because it can combo off all her melee attacks, but her terrible damage output and the way she takes damage like a little bitch makes her a sad sad little demon. I will say that her Angry Goddess super mode is probably the best in the game though. All the power of Rena with some fireballs and big arcing attacks thrown in. Too bad it’s only really usable maybe once per match.

Most of the new weapons are just variations on their previous stuff.

The Protagonists:

• Keiichi – Shovel – Better spread than his bat, but less range. He’s still best up close and personal.
• Rena – Iron Cleaver – Slow as fuck, can’t combo, massive damage. Boost to defense. Her voice samples also change into ‘possessed’ mode.

Rena and Keiichi vs Hanyu and Natsumi

The Twin Sisters:

• Sion – Riot Water Cannon – Better spread than her water guns, less damage. Otherwise, pretty much identical.
• Mion – Torture Whip – Better range than her tazers or knives, almost zero spread. Almost all of her moves make her pause if they hit, so she’s easily ganged up on.

Hanyu and Natsume vs Sion and Mion (auauau~)

The Midgets:

• Rika – Scythe – Finally a decent weapon for her. She plays a lot more like Satoko with it (traps and delay attacks), but gets a big boost to power and defense. Her voice samples change to ‘serious’ mode for this one… no more ni-paahs.
• Satoko – Homing Fireworks – Another sorely needed upgrade to a subpar weapon set. Very limited homing, but that’s usually all you need.

Irie and Takano vs Rika and Satoko

The School Teachers:

• Irie – Support Equipment – Good spread, and buffs your ally. A bit lacking in the damage though.
• Chie – Chalk – Great a/c.attacks with good spread… her b.attack is just a useless flash bomb/chalk dust cloud. 

The Lovers:

• Tomitake – SMG – He gets to keep his flash camera, which is really one of the best moves in the game, and supports it with a football charge as his c.attack and his a.attack is the SMG… very nice.
• Takano – Reinforcement Kit – Our eternal ‘corpse’ trades her poison and buffs for some traps. A little more power than Satoko or Rika’s though. Still probably the best support character out there, no matter the weapon.

Tomitake and Takano vs Irie and Chie

The Cops:

• Oishi – Confiscated Equipment – It takes dedication to play with Oishi. His new a.attack is to pull out of random weapon (taser, extinguisher, bucket, etc), and then his b.attack is to throw it. His c.attack is to pull out a piece of plywood to throw. So… back to melee with you, you tank.
• Akasaka – Setsuna Style - Another melee style for our boy detective. A little more power and coverage than his karate style though.

The Yakuza:

• Akane – Iai Sword – Trades start up time for some big energy ranged attacks.
• Kasai – Sniper Rifle – Super slow, but pretty nice for pressuring your ally’s opponent at range.

Akane and Kasai vs Oishi and Akasaka

Super Special Fanservice Alternate Angel Mort Battle Royale

Original Daybreak: Sion and Mion vs Rika and Rena (nii paa~)