Castle of Shikigami 2, a rain of hellish bullets in the skies of Switch!: the verdict of The Games Market editorial team is 8/10.
Once Upon a Time
Castle of Shikigami 2, a rain of hellish bullets in the skies of Switch!
by Simon Larocca·July 12, 2025
Dai tempi di The Legend of Zelda, which is not just a role-playing game as anyone who has traveled far and wide across Hyrule knows well, up to the layered and intense Persona 5, a dungeon crawler for refined tastes, locking a video game into the cage of genres is often limiting.
For those who, like me, grew up on a diet of shooters, spending entire afternoons dodging the deadly trails of the missiles launched by Ikaruga’s enemies and wondering for what masochistic reason anyone would play the brutally difficult DoDonPachi, to pigeonhole the Nintendo Switch version of Castle of Shikigami 2 as a mere port of yet another “bullet hell shoot’em up” would be a crime.
Originally developed by Alfa System back in 2003, when it invaded Japanese arcades, establishing a new kingdom of fun for the most skilled gamers and innovative heights of terror for joystick and button manufacturers, stormed by the fervor and competitive rage of enthusiasts, Castle of Shikigami 2 lands on Nintendo's hybrid console exactly twenty years later, bringing with it a remarkable amount of special content, game modes, and juicy extras, daily bread for collectors and fans of the series.
Shooters are divided, from my personal experience, into standard shooters where spaceships, helicopters, or aircraft of any kind must complete various levels while avoiding enemy fire and bosses with carefully designed patterns, and then… then there are those whose name, “Bullet Hell,” catapults the player into screens literally flooded with shots fired from every direction, relentless barrage fire, lasers with impossible trajectories (all of them aimed at slicing you in two), and enemies that constantly crowd the game screen.
Castle of Shikigami 2 belongs to this category and, like all masterpieces of the genre, stands out from the crowd thanks to the solid construction of a backstory that has its own narrative development, albeit a simple one, where reaching the intense boss fights all in one piece will be an unparalleled challenge.
Ultima but not least, the presence of a series of selectable characters that greatly expand replayability, another fundamental factor in a shooter, especially those where the difficulty is, from the very first moments, tremendous.
The evocative title refers to the mothership that appears above the skies of Tokyo in the retrofuturistic year 2006, the setting for the ultimate war between brave human pilots and the gods, never so fearsome, ready to unleash hell (of bullets) upon our Earth.
Each character has their own peculiarities in terms of shooting type (a primary weapon and a secondary one, as per tradition), maneuvering speed, and a segment of the main story that belongs exclusively to him/her.
The game backgrounds are detailed and convey the sense of destruction caused by the ongoing war: it can therefore be said that the graphics department does its job, even if in this case Nintendo did not really go to much trouble to polish the game in line with the times.
Fortunately, the management of hit boxes (the area that defines the effectiveness of impacts against our aircraft and that of the enemies, to simplify the concept) is perfect and therefore, although punishing by definition, CoS 2 respects the players' skill.
Altra interesting characteristic is the combo factor when it comes to scoring: avoiding the hail of shots from enemies scattered across the screen, while staying very, and I mean very, close to them as you try to take them down, will significantly boost your score: in short, if you have style and a good dose of recklessness (that is: pure madness) à la Maverick from Top Gun, Castle of Shikigami 2 is certainly the game for you.
8
Pro
Playing a shoot ’em up of this caliber on Switch is an act of love toward Japanese gaming
Bullet Hell sublimated to maximum power, genre purists will love finding such an important game in their collection, an undisputed milestone
You can choose easy mode, if you really don’t want to be thrown into the game over pit every twenty seconds
Contro
If you don't like shooters, if the sight of enemies shooting at you from every direction makes you tear your hair out and brings on anxiety, you’d probably be better off looking for something else
Simon Larocca
Mi chiamo Simon Larocca, e sono un videogiocatore, collezionista e amante della cultura pop in tutte le sue forme. Vado al cinema ogni volta che posso, leggo da quando porto gli occhiali, quindi da sempre, e ho la passione per lo storytelling in tutte le sue forme, così dirompente da farla diventare una professione. Ma come direbbe Doc di Ritorno al Futuro, non ci sarebbe presente se non si guardasse al passato con rispetto e ammirazione, ed è il Simon bambino di più di trent’anni fa, anno più anno meno.
Simon Larocca
Mi chiamo Simon Larocca, e sono un videogiocatore, collezionista e amante della cultura pop in tutte le sue forme. Vado al cinema ogni volta che posso, leggo da quando porto gli occhiali, quindi da sempre, e ho la passione per lo storytelling in tutte le sue forme, così dirompente da farla diventare una professione. Ma come direbbe Doc di Ritorno al Futuro, non ci sarebbe presente se non si guardasse al passato con rispetto e ammirazione, ed è il Simon bambino di più di trent’anni fa, anno più anno meno.
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