In-Game Manual
Let's all read the manual!
How to Play
Story:
Cirno the ice fairy had been going along without a care as usual. Suddenly, it seemed her house had been devastated by someone while she was out. A mysterious flag stood above its ruins. On the flag was a picture of a bunch of fairies she was sure she'd seen before ...... Driven mad with rage, Cirno set out to find the fairies depicted on the flag. Yes, this was the beginning of the great fairy war. (For more info, read "The Great Fairy Wars" from volume 2 of the Strange and Bright Nature Deity collection books.)
Rules:
You control Cirno, and attack the Three Fairies (Sunny Milk, Luna Child, Star Sapphire).
Cirno has the ability to freeze bullets. Use this to your advantage to gain the title Strongest Fairy!
Controlling Cirno
- Arrows: move Cirno
- Shot key (Z): shoot
hold - ice barrier
holding SHOT does not auto-fire in this game - Rapid key (C or Ctrl): rapid fire
- Bomb (X): Perfect Freeze
- Slow (shift): focused movement
- works even while tapping shot
- Pause (Esc): pause
Looking at the Screen
Motivation: Cirno's power gauge. If you hit a bullet, it will decrease by 100%. If you get hit when it's 99% or less, it's game over.
Ice Power: the power used in putting up an Ice Barrier. This is the same as the gauge that's displayed above Cirno.
Perfect Freeze: when this is 100% or greater, you can use Perfect Freeze
Frozen Area: calculated from the number of frozen bullets. Directly connected to shot power. The more you freeze, the stronger your shot becomes.
Level indicator: the shot level. Increases as you freeze more bullets.
You can freeze enemy bullets!
"The enemies are just fairies; don't they have too many bullets?"
They do.
- Since this is from Cirno's perspective, it looks like there are more bullets than usual.
However! This isn't enough to do Cirno in.
Cirno has a secret weapon.
Namely, the "Ice Barrier", which is activated by her normal shots.
The ice attack only affects her immediate vicinity, but somehow it can freeze any bullet it touches. You can even safely touch frozen bullets. If the ice shatters, the bullet will be completely destroyed! They will even freeze nearby bullets when they shatter.
You can continually freeze nearby bullets by aiming for areas where the barrage is thickest, and thus destroy the enemy's barrage.
If you just can't avoid the bullets, you should use your head instead of relying on Cirno's brains and find an effective freezing pattern!
Ice Power!
The Ice Barrier won't stay at full power forever.
Even idiots can get tired.
Ice Power (the % gauge above your player icon) can't be used unless it's above 30%.
When it's close to 100%, you can use it continuously.
It will run out almost immediately at 30%.
When you use the Ice Barrier, Ice Power will return to 0%.
How to renew Ice Power.
- it will refill naturally over time (slowly)
- hitting enemies with your shot (fairly quickly, important during boss fights)
- defeating stage enemies (instantly)
- grazing enemy bullets (for high-level players, very important in later stages)
- storing it (refills more quickly than usual)
Watch out for special bullets!
"Won't it be too easy if you just keep freezing bullets all the time?"
Well, now, sure your enemies are dumb, too, but they can plan ahead a little. Watch out for the following attacks!
- Burning fire bullets - these bullets cannot be frozen. They'll fly right through your ice, so take care.
- Lasers - will go straight through ice and break it! The fragments will come flying out when the ice breaks, and you can run into them like normal bullets. Make sure not to let any ice near you get broken by lasers!
Ice is all about area!
Cirno likes freezing large areas of bullets that have scattered all about more than freezing big clumps of bullets close together.
Once the game screen becomes 100%, the percentage of the screen that's frozen will turn into a bonus. You'll get a larger frozen area by waiting for the bullets to spread out before freezing them instead of just freezing them as soon as the enemy fires.
The frozen screen area is initialized at stage 1. Once it reaches certain set thresholds, the shot level increases.
If you find yourself unable to beat the bosses, try actively freezing bullets in a manner that will increase the frozen area!
Other tricks!
Conditions for increasing Cirno's motivation:
- freeze enemy bullets
- damage enemies
(ice damage is more effective than shot damage)
Increasing motivation by 100% is equivalent to getting an extra live. The maximum is 1000%.
Conditions for increasing Perfect Freeze:
- freeze enemy bullets
It only goes up to 100%, so make sure to use it a bunch!
Perfect Freeze can freeze the entire screen. It can even freeze flame bullets the Ice Barrier can't. It really is perfect!
I don't get it
This game is really hard, and the controls are really complicated, and the text is really difficult, and I just don't get it.
How should you try to clear it?
If you haven't gotten any hints yet, try watching the demo play.
If you leave the title screen alone, it will start a demo.
You can also read this explanation of the controls from the menu that appears when you pause the game.
The dialogue is hard to follow because they're fairies.
They'll probably have completely forgotten everything they said
as soon as the fight is over.
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