Bullet Hell Monday Black
Title screen
| Developer: | Masayuki Ito |
|---|---|
| Release date: | August 13, 2019 (Mobile), April 24th, 2023 (PC/Steam) |
| Previous game: | Bullet Hell Monday |
| Next game: | Bullet Hell Monday Finale |
"Bullet Hell Monday: Black": Dazzling Barrages, to the Ultimate Battlefield - The Fateful Monday, the Black Challenge Begins. ~Masayuki Ito
Bullet Hell Monday: Black is the sequel to the acclaimed Bullet Hell Monday, developed by [Masayuki Ito]. While Bullet Hell Monday was designed to introduce new players to the STG/danmaku genre of games with more beginner friendly gameplay, BHM: Black instead offers a much harder challenge and technical game for experts, and those who are experienced with the first game.
For replay videos, visit the Video Index.
Contents
Gameplay Overview
The game offers two distinct difficulty modes: Original, and Black. Both are structured similarly to Challenge Mode in the first game, with Original Mode being the same exact 5 stages seen there. Black Mode instead features all 5 of those stages remixed, with different bullet patterns, enemy placements, and bosses, with a much higher difficulty compared to Original Mode. Unlike the first game, There is no Chapter or Extra Modes available, with the focus being entirely on the challenging arcade style gameplay. A Tutorial is still featured however to allow players to learn the basic gameplay mechanics, and new weapons available in this installment.
New to the game, and one of its most defining features, are the six special weapons/abilities provided to the player. These specials are slightly modified versions of weapons and bomb types from the first game's selection of different ship types, but now accessible all at the same time to the player in addition to the 2 ship types they can select. The special abilities offer much more complex and technical gameplay experience, while also allowing the game to push its difficulty even higher. Additionally, this large array of weapons open the way for higher scoring potential than the last game, challenging the player to survive the increased difficulty of Black Mode while aiming for high scores.
Here is a brief list of the main features of BHM: Black compared to Bullet Hell Monday, taken from the Google Play store page:
■ Characteristics
- 2 weapons and 6 specials
- Original mode and Black mode
- 4 difficulty settings
- Replay functionality
- A leader board for all stages on all difficulties
- Cloud saving
Some of these features would later be expanded and added to other titles in the BHM series, such as cloud saving added to all of the games, 2 more weapons added to BHM: Black, and the replay system being greatly improved and expended in BHM's PC/Steam release.
Like Bullet Hell Monday, BHM:Black would later receive a PC/Steam port by the developer. A handful of promotional content has since been shared throughout early 2023 by Masayuki Ito, via the game's official Twitter and Youtube channel. Videos showcase the game running on PC, with gameplay of various stages in development, and a showcase of the full tutorial both in English and Japanese Languages. Additionally, 2 more ship types "Homing" and "Search", which did not appear in the mobile version, have also been implemented into the PC version. The comments on these videos and announcements show that many players are excited and looking forward to a PC version of the game coming soon!
The PC/Steam version released on April 24th, 2023 (Monday), with the Steam Store page going live on March 30th, 2023. Since its release on mobile storefronts, the game has amassed over 10,000 downloads on the Google Play store, and a 4.0/5.0 star review by players. Many players were critical of the game on mobile platforms, due to its high increase in difficulty and complexity, as well as not being entirely Free to Play like its predecessor. Despite its shortcomings with how the game was received by players, when compared to the first game in the series, it has still found its niche with a more hardcore audience of players. In that regard, it is still very successful. The next entry in the series as well, Bullet Hell Monday: Finale, would later aim to combine the two games into a middle ground to appeal to both kinds of players, seemingly to better bridge the gap from beginner to expert level of play, and would garner much more positive reception as a result.
Controls (Mobile)
- Touch: Move and Shoot
- Bomb/2-Finger Tap:Bomb
- Switch/Double Tap: Switch Shot Type
Special Weapon Controls (controlled with 2nd finger touch)
- Swipe Up: Spark
- Hold and Swipe Up: Time
- Swipe Down: Decoy
- Hold and Swipe Down: Barrier
- Switch to Secondary Weapon: Blade
- Switch to Primary Weapon: Homing Lasers
PC Controls info WIP. As there are many options and configurations available, as well as key remapping, only the defaults will be listed. Probably good to have screenshots just showing the menus in this case!
Characters / Ships / Styles / Weapons
The Ship Types are as follows:
- Laser: A ship with a powerful narrow shot. (Unlocked by default)
- Wide: A ship with a weaker wide-spread shot. Shoots in a unique radial formation. (Unlocked by default)
- Lock-On: A ship with a shot that will lock-on directly to nearby enemies.
- Shielding: A ship that can shield itself from damage.
PC/Steam Exclusive:
- Search: A ship with a shot that can sway form side to side, with options that will aim towards enemies.
- Homing: A ship with powerful missiles that home in on enemies.
Each Ship Type also has a unique bomb as well, themed after its shot type.
The player is able to equip 2 different Ship Types at a time, and switch between them freely at any time when in a level.
Notably Phantom, Blade, and Time types are not present, likely because their unique weapons are now available at all times via special abilities.
Special Weapons (SP, Special Abilities)
The player is equipped with 6 special weapons to assist them, indicated by the 6 meters on the sides of the playfield (and by the small hexagons that surround the player's ship). These weapons have a variety of abilities to aid the player, both offensively and defensively.
The following is a list of the special weapons and what effects they give.
- Spark: Increase damage dealt for a short time, and increases Multiplier gained from enemies by 1.5x. Items auto-collect while active.
- Time: Slowdown time for a short period.
- Barrier: Place a Barrier in front of your ship's current position that converts bullets into items
- Decoy: Place a Decoy at your ship's current position that will misdirect aimed bullets.
- Blade: Cancel bullets and deal damage in a small radius around your ship.
- Homing Lasers:Release powerful Homing Lasers that lock on to nearby enemies.
Once activated, the meter for the special weapon effect used will be drained completely. Special meters recharge slowly over time, faster when remaining still (in "auto-collect" mode) and can be recharged even faster by collecting items. Items that are auto-collected via a Bomb activation (normally orange in color) will recharge the meters more than items collected by other means (normally yellow in color, or blue when being auto-collected). The ability to mix and alternate use of specials and bombs to effectively have resources available when needed is an important skill for the player to master, especially when playing for high scores.
Some special abilities have a radius that will cancel bullets around the player. The size of the cancel radius depends on the ability used (In the case of Barrier, the Barrier itself is the cancel radius, and thus does not have another associated with it). Activating Spark has the largest radius, providing a full screen cancel, with Decoy and Time providing the smallest ones, only canceling bullets immediately next to the player. Blade also creates a longer lasting, damage dealing cancel radius around the ship while active.
Activating an Auto-Bomb also causes the effects of Spark and Blade to activate in addition to the Bomb. These effects do not consume the special meters, and will activate with an auto-bomb regardless of if they are charged. This can be additionally beneficial, as the combination of effects deals a very high amount of damage, and can be used to quickly destroy most enemies in the game, including boss parts. This is essential for optimizing high score routes as well, due to the added bonus to Multiplier gain from combination of effects.
Items
Items are geometric shapes dropped by enemies when defeated, or when converted to from cancelled bullets. Items act as the primary source of score in the game. Their value is affected by the current score Multiplier.
- Small Items are worth a small amount of score. They are pentagon shaped
- Large items are worth a larger amount of score. They are hexagon shaped
Exact values WIP
Items can be collected by moving into them with your ship, by using a bomb, or by using the Auto-Collect function by remaining still for a short period of time. Likewise, activating a special weapon also will auto-collect all items on the screen.
Bomb Items can also occasionally be rewarded by fulfilling certain conditions, such as destroying specific enemies, defeating a boss phase, or reaching a certain multiplier/item threshold in the Challenge and Extra Modes. These are indicated by a large box appearing with an audio cue. Once the box is destroyed, the player can collect it in the same manner as score items.
Scoring
WIP
Scoring in Bullet Hell Monday is relatively straightforward. Destroying enemies and collecting as many items as possible increases your score. However, score gained from these sources is affected by the Multiplier.
The Multiplier is a percentage number on the top of the screen that increases as you destroy enemies and obstacles. Destroying an enemy quickly will reward the maximum amount of Multiplier from them, with the multiplier gain decreasing the longer the enemy is on screen. Destroying enemies with a Bomb rewards double the amount of multiplier from them, however as the player has a limited supply of resources, strategic bomb use is required to maximize your scoring potential. Using the Spark special also increases multiplier gained by 1.5x, which can be combined with bombs and other special abilities (such as Blade and Homing Lasers) for maximizing multiplier gained. All of these special abilities are activated at once when an auto-bomb is activated as well, and does not cost any meter from special weapons to be activated (but will still use all bombs remaining in stock).
While scoring is the same as the previous game, the scoring potential is much higher due to the addition of the special weapons, as well as their ability to be used multiple times by recharging their meters. Special weapons also recharge faster when auto-collecting items while a bomb is active, as well as by remaining still for a period of time. As a result, strategic use of all resources to chain these together throughout the entirety of a stage to maximize your score, while still surviving the higher difficulty, is the ultimate challenge the game provides.
Score Grades/Ranking
Like the first game, achieving certain scores will also award a letter and star grades. The letter rankings increase in the order C, B, A, and S, with S++ being seemingly the highest grade attainable.(unlike the first game, where a grade of "U" and higher was possible)
Letter grades are in sets of 3. For example, there are score requirements for A, A+, and A++ scores, which are relatively close together, whereas it takes a relatively larger improvement in score to go from A++ to S, and so on.
Grade Requirements
WIP. Grade Requirements can now be more accurately checked due to the info provided in the PC/Steam version
Strategy
See (Template Page)/Strategy for stage maps, enemy and boss descriptions, walkthroughs, and advanced play strategies.
Advanced Strategy page WIP. Comprehensive basic strategies listed below.
Extends
The extends from scoring in BHM:Black are now dependent on which difficulty was selected. Higher difficulties have higher score requirements to reach before awarding an extend. This is likely due to the higher scoring potential and more intense bullet patterns, leading to extends being easier to reach when implementing high scoring strategies and techniques.
| Extend Requirements | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Easy | Normal | Hard | Heaven |
| Every 20mil | Every 30mil | Every 40mil | |
Basic Strategy
General strategy for the game is simply increasing your Multiplier as high as possible through defeating enemies quickly, using all resources available to double multiplier gain from defeated enemies, and collecting as many score Items as one is able to before the end of a stage. This is easier said than done, and discovering optimal bomb usage is necessary to reach the highest scores. Besides that, survival is generally the best way to increase your score, as surviving longer means more multiplier and items gained from defeated enemies, which means more score regardless of play. On some stages, specific enemies will drop Bomb Items for the player to pick up and replenish their bomb supply. Knowing when these occur and under what conditions is key to both scoring and survival play. In many cases, defeating a phase of the orb boss will commonly drop a spare bomb item in many stages of the game. Some other large ships and obstacles will also drop bomb items when destroyed.
Survival
For survival play, a good general strategy would be to utilize your bombs for scoring, typically reserving them towards the end of the stage for quickly defeating boss parts and converting large bullet patterns into lots of score items. Holding onto 1 bomb in stock for use as an auto-bomb is a good idea as well, as auto-bomb will consume all remaining bombs in stock. Manually bombing down to one as needed can mitigate this resource cost, and open up scoring potential in the stages.
Scoring
For score play, careful routing of when to use your Special Weapons in sequence, and in combination with your bombs, is crucial for raising the score multiplier to its highest each stage. Bombs give a 2x Multiplier bonus, Spark gives 1.5x, and both combined give a 3x bonus. Similarly, using Homing Lasers or Blade also gives a 1.5x multiplier bonus if they are what destroy an enemy, and similarly can be combined with Bombs and Spark in various ways to help maximize scoring.
Because ideally you want to defeat every enemy with Spark + Bombs, while also cancelling as many bullets as possible, it is important to plan a route that allows you to recharge your Spark meter from auto-collected items from Bombs. Knowing which enemies drop the most, either on destruction or via large bullet cancels, can assist with improving upon high scoring routes.
Other than these changes, general scoring strategies for Bullet Hell Monday apply. Defeating enemies quickly and with Bombs or Special Weapons to built multiplier as high as possible, and then farming the end of stage boss patterns for as many score items as possible via large bullet cancels, using as many resources as possible to do so. Ensuring each phase is defeated with some combination to achieve a 3x multiplier bonus as well is important, as bosses and boss parts often give the largest multiplier increases from a single entity. (It can sometimes be useful to do even if the multiplier has already reached the 9999.9% counterstop, as additional multiplier gained still counts towards an extra bomb resource that could be used to score even more.)
Notably, the Auto-Bomb function, as mentioned previously, will activate a Bomb, Spark, and Blade effect all at once for its duration, even if SP Gauge for those specials is empty. This is particularly useful as using it to defeat a boss phase or part while at one bomb stock will greatly increase your overall damage, and can help guarantee the 3x multiplier bonus earlier than if you were to wait for weapons to recharge naturally (or in some cases, can make it possible at all when out of special meter, and the boss is nearing a timeout for the phase).
Unlockable Secrets
Stage Progression
While not a secret, individual stages can only be unlocked once the previous stage is cleared. Despite Stage ALL being available from the beginning in all modes, it appears as though this is intended to ensure the player is prepared for the next stage, before attempting to achieve an All Clear. This progression is also seen in the original mobile versions, as well as Bullet Hell Monday's Challenge Mode in the PC/Steam version.
True Last Boss
A True Last Boss exists at the end of each ALL stage, and is challenged after defeating the final boss in that mode (even if continues are used). A short cutscene will play upon defeating the final boss before the TLB battle begins. The True Last Boss is considerably more difficult, having a large health pool, extremely fast and dense bullet patterns. Additionally, the player's Special Weapons are all disabled briefly at the start of the fight, and changed in function considerably, lasting a much shorter time, but recharging extremely quickly as well, resulting in a very frantic final battle at the end of the game. Defeating the TLB in any mode will trigger a cutscene for the ending before the credits play.
Black IF Mode
Black IF is a hidden mode, unlocked only after achieving a Black ALL Clear. In this mode, only two difficulties are available, Normal and Heaven. Like the other modes it consists of 5 stages, which are taken from Bullet Hell Monday Finale, specifically its True Chapter boss stages (110, 210, 310, 410, and 510). The difficulty of the mode overall is comparable to Black, however the drastic changes made to the stage and enemy layouts compared to the other modes leads to even more content for expert players to enjoy.
Story
While Bullet Hell Monday on its own did not contain much of a narrative, as of the release of Bullet Hell Monday Black, and Bullet Hell Monday Finale, the story of the game has been expanded upon slightly, but left vague and open to interpretation.
The stages hint at some sort of story or theme, now given thematic titles during the intro of each. The titles given are the following:
- Stage 1: RESTART YOURSELF INTO SAFE MODE
- Stage 2: REMEMBER YOURSELF
- Stage 3: REALITY GOES ON...
- Stage 4: REDUNDANT THEORY
- Stage 5: RE: BULLET HELL MONDAY
Additionally, the PC/Steam release of the game introduced a new mode, Black IF. While not much is added explicitly, Stage 5 in this mode is given a new title:
- Stage 5: ANOTHER BLACK
Story Ending
The following sub-section contains spoilers for the ending of the game below.
| Black Mode, All Clear Ending |
|---|
| At the end of Stage 5, after defeating the boss, the boss does not explode as usual. Instead, it hovers over to the player, extracting a plethora of score Items, before hovering back to the top of the screen and absorbing them for itself. This leads into the True Last Boss, a doppelganger fight against a copy of the player's ship, the boss imitating all of its weapons and special abilities.
However, the player is not helpless, and its own special weapons are upgraded, indicated by the meters changing from blue and orange, to black and white. During the TLB fight, special weapons are active for a shorter time, but also recharge near instantly. During the fight, a remixed version of the main theme of Bullet Hell Monday plays on piano, eventually scaling up to have all instruments join in again. Once the boss is defeated again, the boss begins to fall apart, losing its score items again to the player, but releasing one final burst of pure black bullets. In a dramatic ending, accompanied by gentle piano music, the player's ship ends up being destroyed first, a burst of black energy splitting from its core. A split moment later, the boss is finally, completely destroyed, exploding as the entire screen fades to white. Afterwards, the player's results for Stage 5, and results for their entire run thereafter are displayed, the gentle ending piano theme continuing to play until returning to the main menu. |
| Black IF Mode, All Clear Ending |
|---|
| The ending of the game plays out similarly, with an identical True Last Boss fight as Black Mode. The most notable difference is that the title theme of Bullet Hell Monday Finale plays during the fight, and upon defeating the TLB, there is no music until the credits, where the True Chapter 510 Finale theme plays again as victory fanfare.
However, there is one change to the ending that ends on a more potentially more optimistic note. After the boss is defeated, and the cutscene plays of it releasing the final burst of black bullets, the player's ship core is destroyed first as usual before the boss explodes and is completely destroyed. As the screen fades to white however, the player's ship fades off the bottom of the screen seemingly also destroyed, but at the last moment, flies onward again past the top just before the screen fades completely, implying that this time the player survived. The player is awarded the Iridescent Finale achievement upon clearing the game, which both references that the stages played through were the True Chapter boss stages of Bullet Hell Monday Finale, as well as hinting to the overall story reaching a finality and conclusion of sorts. This is interesting, as Bullet Hell Monday Finale did not originally have a Challenge Mode like the other two games, and additionally did not have a TLB either. In Finale, The True Chapter 510 stage title was ADVANCE TO THE BLACK, so this now including the highlights of the game in the Black IF mode, and offering a more conclusive ending for both titles, appears as though it is the true ending to the series (at least at the time of writing, as BHM Black has only just released on PC/Steam.) |
Story Subjective Interpretation
The meaning behind the titles and the events in the game are left to the interpretation of the player. However one interpretation is that the game is reflecting the the player's personal journey through the game, and with the shmups genre in general.
If the player had played Bullet Hell Monday previously, their ship effectively has been improved alongside their growing skills. Clearing Bullet Hell Monday: Black can be representative of the player having now improved their skills from a beginner, handling relatively easier patterns with simple game mechanics, to that of an experienced STG player, now capable of handling difficult danmaku patterns and advanced gameplay mechanics.
Likewise, the third game in the series, Bullet Hell Monday: Finale, makes a subtle reference to BHM: Black at the end of its True Chapter mode, giving the title of Chapter 5: ADVANCE TO THE BLACK. As BHM: Finale is a mix of both the original BHM and Black gameplay styles, the chronological progression of the games' story can be interpreted as: BHM, Finale, then Black, despite the game titles suggesting otherwise. The ending to the unlockable BLACK IF mode, its mode sub-title and achievement, as well as its unique Stage 5 title heavily imply that this is the case.
The new altered ending for Black IF mode also fits well with this interpretation of the player's ship in game being a representation of themselves, and of their progress and journey along the STG genre continuing beyond the Bullet Hell Monday series.
In any case, as the story overall is left mostly vague and not fully or directly explained, so it is ultimately up to the player's interpretation what the full story is meant to be.
Development History
If available, you can include information here about the hardware, the development of the game, and its general reception. Try to have as much information in this section cited as possible.
WIP
Version Differences
- Include information here about differences in a game between various versions. This includes regional differences, patch updates/bugfixes, and the like.
WIP
- The PC/Steam release of the game included more ship types and all Extra Modes from the series, as well as a new secret mode that can be unlocked after achieving a Black All Clear!
Other/Trivia
WIP
References & Contributors
- Remember to include everyone that you can in your credits if they contributed information! | Having links handy is even better, when available.
- If you are a primary source of information for a game, be sure to link to your Shmup Wiki user account by including a link to your profile, such as: [[User:(You)|(Your Name)]]
- And while you're at it, make yourself a little profile page (if you want, of course)! As a contributor, you deserve to be recognized for your efforts.
Masayuki Ito's (Developer's) Twitter:
https://twitter.com/dot_decluster
Masayuki Ito's (Developer's) Youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/masayukiito
US Google Android Play Store Page:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.msykit.Stg1x1g&pli=1
Steam Page:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2373850/Bullet_Hell_Monday_Black/
Initial PC/Steam port announcement:
https://twitter.com/dot_decluster/status/1641306999211311107
PC/Steam Release Date announcement:
https://twitter.com/dot_decluster/status/1647894823842762752
| Video Reference Credits | |
|---|---|
| lolomolo | https://www.youtube.com/@lolomolo |
| inakilbss | https://www.youtube.com/@inakilbss |
| esuwai | https://www.youtube.com/@esuwai1987 |
Contributors:
Xeirla
Also special thanks to the players who have posted gameplay footage and guides on Youtube, as well as Masayuki Ito as the developer of the game, as well as publicly uploading the OST to be listened to freely as well!
~Xeirla
