Ok, so. I just finished my first run through. For the record, I was playing on Medium, so no, it wasn't bullet-time slowdown, and after a while I stopped noticing things. The only real time when the keypress delay is noticeable is at the start, when... you know, you don't have a weapon that shoots just by holding things down?
Anyways, a few little things. Maybe it's just me, but I think the difficulty of things is a little skewed... Stage 3 was pathetically easy, and I don't know about anyone else, but I found that the only level tougher than Stage 1 was actually the Final Stage, which... ow. It'll be a long LONG time before I can hope to pull it off on any difficulty higher than medium.
I have to say though, my favorite stage overall was Stage 4. It was amazingly fun to do.
Also, the password was "Ninjas", wasn't it?
That being said, Stage 5 boss was probably my favorite. We need more Bomberman bosses! ...Seriously, about halfway through I forgot his name and just kept calling him Bomberman.
Overall difficulty levels, I would probably put things along the lines of Stages 3, 2, 4, 5, 1, 6, which is probably a little telling for me... I guess I was expecting it to play like a curtain fire, and Stage 1 really knocked me for a loop, but I still struggle with it quite a bit.
Oh, uh. The story, right? Well, my personal biggest disappointment was that
my attempts to pair Aris and Max together merely resulted in me only being able to get the Max end. I suppose I should have focussed on one of the girls more...
Otherwise, the story was about what I was expecting really. Though I have to admit that our main character's suspicion of the professor seems a bit inexplicable... I mean, sure, she doesn't like the guy, but it seems like she was trying to pin everything on him with no actual evidence to show for it... Mind you, it was in character, but it was something that bothered me a little.
Aside from that, the technical issues are the big thing. Woe be to anyone that has the misfortune of MSN Messenger active while playing this game, it locked up my computer for a good minute or two when someone I know logged on. And of course... The loading screen. Oh, the loading screen. Suggestion to anyone preparing to play this game, keep something like Sudoku on-hand, you'll be waiting a while for the thing to finish.
Overall, it was fairly fun. Everything past Stage 3 is worth playing the game for, and they're probably the most fun in the game. The real problem is that the game kind of gets off to a rather painful start, with Stage 1 and Stage 2 being surprisingly challenging.
...To be fair though, Stage 2 might have only been hard to my mind because the Stage 2 Boss used basically every ability I had trouble with in the early parts of Imperishable Night and Perfect Cherry Blossom. I swear, that boss is the lovechild of Mystia and Cirno...
...On that note, if I can make a bit of a suggestion? Maybe it's just me being out of practice, but I think that the Stage 2 boss's final attack set is just a little bit too fast... Again, it's probably just me being out of practice, though...