What Valkyrie of Phantasm is
Valkyrie of Phantasm is a 3D aerial shooting action game built around Touhou Project characters, made by AREAZERO as a Touhou fan game with its own original story. A meteorite crashes into Gensokyo and scatters particles of light to the strongest residents. One reaches Reimu Hakurei and wraps her in armor called Valkyrie Arms, giving her far more speed than before. She sets off to find out who granted the power and why, and runs into another girl wearing the same kind of arms. Both were given the same gift, and a high-speed danmaku battle starts from there. Battles take place in the skies of Gensokyo, with both fighters flying and filling the air with bullet patterns.
How a group plays it together
The game supports 1 to 4 players, and multiplayer requires online play, so your group can meet up over the internet rather than on one screen. Online PvP is the listed Steam feature, which is where the competitive side sits: pick a character, take to the air, and try to outmaneuver the other player while their bullets come at you. With up to four players in a session, there is room for more than a simple one-on-one, so a group can rotate through matches or set up their own arrangements. There is also a singleplayer side for when nobody else is around.
Controls and combat before you start
Movement and positioning carry the fights. You have a close-range melee attack, a shot that fires bullets and rapid-fires on hold, a step for quick evasion, a guard barrier, and a boost dash that lets you dash mid-flight at high speed. Spell casts a powerful bullet pattern. On top of the basics there are charged melee attacks that break guards and stagger, rush attacks from mid-range, side attacks that flank after two steps at a right angle, backstep attacks, boost dash attacks that stagger, and step cancels to cut the recovery time between actions.
The Accel Drive is the main resource to watch. It powers you up temporarily, raising movement speed, motion speed, and attack power, with the size of the boost depending on the charges in the Drive Gauge: Level 1 to Level 3, plus Level MAX. It also has burst effects. While it is active you can use an Accel Drive Spell, and at Level MAX you unlock an Ultimate Spell, an extremely powerful one. Managing that gauge through a match decides how often you can push the tempo.
The game is in Early Access, so expect things to still be settling as you and your group learn it.