For less than $5 CAD, I picked up Maiden & Spell, an excessively cute sidescrolling shooter a la R-Type, except it’s a levelless boss rush with Story and Versus modes. It’s got a very Touhou aesthetic (i.e. rather than spaceships or dragons or something, everyone is cute girls).

Story mode is basically a Touhou boss rush, where your character fights 4 monster girls and 2 out of the other 3 human girls, with no level in-between, it’s just bosses. There’s a threadbare but acceptable story linking them, with each playable character giving a different perspective on the same story, and then there being an epilogue chapter and a bonus extra boss. Story mode has 4 difficulties, the easiest of which is called Cute Mode and is basically unloseable, so even if you’ve never played a game like this, you can give it a go.

Versus mode is basically a 1v1 fighting game. You and one friend each pick one of the 8 girls and do bullet hells at each other until you see who wins. It’s not complex, but it is kind of tactically deep.

The same author is currently working on a sequel, Rabbit & Steel, a very similar game except rather than a versus battler, it’s a coop roguelike inspired by MMO raid mechanics. A sneak-peek demo with online multiplayer is available, and it’s really fun!