Uncut
Curated by taste and lineage

Don't dodge the enemy. Hug it, and the score erupts.

A vertical-scrolling bullet-hell shooter, hand-drawn in pixel art yet pushed into a pseudo-3D rush with multi-layered scrolling and zooms. Two shots and a bomb, and the signature Berserk System: the closer you destroy enemies at point-blank range, the higher the difficulty and the score climb. A solo doujin work by the Vanillaware artist Shigatake, six and a half years in the making, a full remake of his own 1996 Dezaemon Plus shooter. It already plays in English, but to the wider world it is still a near-unknown original.

Published 2026-06-24

01First, the one feeling

02Who this is for (and who it is not)

For you

  • You love arcade vertical shooters where the score lives in the danger zone, and you want a system, Berserk, that pays you for hugging the enemy at point-blank
  • You want a pixel-art shooter pushed into a pseudo-3D rush, with a Retro Mode that reproduces a 1996 doujin original, four difficulties, and Steam leaderboards to chase
  • You want a Japanese solo-made gem the wider world has barely noticed, Overwhelmingly Positive at 98 percent, made by a Vanillaware artist over six and a half years

Not for you

  • You want a slow, safe shooter where keeping your distance is the right play, not one built to reward flying into point-blank range
  • You expect a big-studio, big-budget production rather than a one-person doujin remake of a 1996 amateur shooter

03The roots of this taste

98% positiveonly 822 reviews — yet almost no one has found it

DEVIL BLADE REBOOT Buried gem

A vertical-scrolling bullet-hell shooter, hand-drawn in pixel art yet pushed into a pseudo-3D rush with multi-layered scrolling and zooms. Two shot types plus a bomb, and the signature Berserk System: the closer you destroy enemies at point-blank range, the higher the difficulty and the score climb, a risk-and-reward design that rewards aggression with an arcade score-chase you cannot stop running back into. Six story stages with stage select, four difficulty levels, a Retro Mode that reproduces the 1996 original, Steam leaderboards and achievements, and unlocks. Made by the Japanese solo creator Shigatake (Takehiro Shiga), a founding member and illustrator of Vanillaware, who spent six and a half years finishing it alongside his day job as a personal doujin project under the SHIGATAKE GAMES label. It is the full remake of his own 1996 doujin shooter, originally built with the PlayStation tool Dezaemon Plus and distributed only in Japan. Overwhelmingly Positive at 822 reviews and 98 percent. It already plays in English (461 of those reviews are English) and the Western shmup scene has begun to notice it, but to the wider world it is still a near-unknown original.

Give it your first pass

Devil Blade The origin

The origin of this taste: in 1996, Shigatake built a vertical-scrolling shooter with Dezaemon Plus, the PlayStation game-creation tool for making one's own shooters, and it was distributed only in Japan as a doujin work. Born from the Dezaemon movement in which players shared self-made shooters on memory cards, it carried the Japanese arcade-and-doujin shooter's core thrill of hugging your ship as close to the enemy as you dare to drive the score. The 1996 original has no surviving distribution, so its only available form today is REBOOT itself, the creator's own full remake, which reproduces it in a Retro Mode. This gem is a direct heir to that taste, and its Berserk System sharpens the close-range score-chase into the whole point.

Give it your first pass

04Make this gem shine

If it speaks to you, check it on Steam and give it your first pass. Your push is what makes a buried gem shine.

See it on Steam

05The bloodline of this taste