Drill Milky Punch Review (PC)
In 2003 the well-known doujin game developer French-Bread released Drill Milky Punch, a doujin game based on Muv-Luv Extra. The name comes from a special attack that Sumika pulls off during the course of the Muv-Luv series. Does this title use its source material effectively and live up to the standard set by other French-Bread games?
Drill Milky Punch is a single screen game. Your only objective is to survive as long as possible while trying to rack up as many points as you can. The game supports up to 6 players playing at the same time (two on the keyboard and four with gamepads), which is unheard of for a doujin title.
Another reason why the game is perfect for playing with a ton of friends is the fact that the controls are extremely simple, as aside from the d-pad you will most likely be using a single button. You have a regular attack which sends enemies flying in the direction of the attack and a secondary attack which stuns all enemies you hit. The stun attack is almost useless since all the enemies excluding the bosses are instant killed with a single attack. There is also a button that shows the location of your character on screen, because it’s easy to lose track when the screen gets crowded.
One of the main features of the game is the ability to launch enemies like a projectile. The longer you hold down your attack button the farther you will launch your enemies when you let go. Enemies that are flying will hit other enemies, starting huge chain reactions, allowing you to easily clean the densely populated screen. This not only allows you to gain a huge amount of points if you time your attacks correctly, but it also allows you to assist other players by sending an enemy flying in their direction.
Enemy design is well thought out. Almost all the enemies can actually be found in Muv-Luv Extra. An enormous amount of detail was put into choosing such an interesting bunch of characters. The developers could have easily just taken a lot of enemy types from Muv-Luv Unlimited, but instead they focused only on the ones found in Muv-Luv Extra. Some of these characters only appeared for a single scene in the source material, so it’s really entertaining trying to remember where you exactly saw a specific enemy. Some of the enemies you can find are chefs, Henyuus, possessed dolls, aliens, potato men and killer plants which spew fireballs. After a while different colored enemies will appear which spawn more enemies so it’s imperative to kill them as quickly as possible.
After seeing hundreds of similar enemies, the bosses are a welcome change. Boss characters appear from time to time and they are usually the more important characters from Muv-Luv, such as Mikoto or Yuuko sensei driving a Lancia Stratos. They can take a lot more beating, than a single punch that takes out all other enemy types, so killing them feels like a real accomplishment.
Drill Milky Punch also features a score attack mode, which throws an insane amount of enemies at you in a limited amount of time. You get to pick 2 or 5 minutes and have to gather as many points as possible within that time period. Even though this mode is single player only, you can still compete with the amount of points you managed to gain.
As with all other French-Bread titles the characters look very cute. There is always something happening on screen, since the sheer number of enemies can reach thousands. On the other hand, there may be a variety of backgrounds to choose from, but their difference is only cosmetic. The music changes when a boss arrives, which is a nice touch and also a great addition, since it’s usually very difficult to notice them amongst all the chaos.
THE VERDICT
If you plan on playing this by yourself, it will probably get repetitive very soon. The game was made with multiplayer in mind and the more friends you play with at the same time the better the whole experience will be. You will easily be able to recall all the characters, enemies and bosses from the original visual novel. The way enemies bounce off one another really gives this game a lot of charm, making it one of my favorite doujin games.
Read the review of the official installments in the Muv-Luv series: Muv-Luv Extra, Muv-Luv Unlimited and Muv-Luv Alternative.
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