Spirits in Memetic Paradise has had a long and storied history over the past two years, and this will likely be its last major release.

So what’s changed in version 5? The biggest change is the UI, which has been completely revamped, both architecturally and visually. Custom difficulty settings, replays, and game records all have much nicer menus, and you can now view game details from the replays or records menus.

The dialogue system has also been completely redone. I began working on an independent visual novel system– Suzunoya– about eight months ago, and the game now uses Suzunoya instead of its previous handling. I’ve used Suzunoya in several small projects over the months as a proof-of-concept, the most recent of which was Blessed Rain, and while it’s not fully complete as a visual novel engine, it’s more than sufficient for handling miscellaneous dialogue.

There have also been many small graphical improvements to the in-game experience, especially around bullet deletion and particle effects. It took a lot of rearchitecturing to make the bullet deletion at the end of boss cards look nice, so make sure to enjoy the sight :)

Gameplay-wise, in addition to an assortment of small balance changes, you can now use bombs instead of Bullet Time by selecting the bomb ability on the player select screen. You won’t be able to score as many points, but this was an oft-requested feature, so enjoy it if that’s your style!

Finally– the game now runs without issue on 240hz monitors! Thanks to Rak for testing this use-case. There is no longer a “Refresh Rate” option in the game, but the game should run more-or-less fine regardless of how your computer is set up.

That’s everything (that I can recall, anyways). Thanks to everyone who came along for the ride!