GRIEF SYNDROME - My favorite Beat-em up Doujinshi game

Grief Syndrome - Magical Beat-em up Magicka 

There's a show that I like, it's a show about magical girls, happiness, and the value of your everyday life... But it's wrought with tragedy, death and loss. If you didn't know what it is, it's called "Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica". It's one of my favorites, and boy did I enjoy the show... but when I saw that there was a fan-made, doujinshi game based on the series, I was absolutely overjoyed! It's called Grief Syndrome; It's a old-school, beat-em up, platformer that's about.... you guessed it. Beating things up on platforms! It's fun, exhilerating, and there's so much of it that can go around. This game was developed by a doujinshi circle named Twilight Frontier, AKA Tasofro. 

The game mechanics are solid, the artwork is cute, and it's definitely worth trying out if you can.But with that said and done, There is a large draw-back to this game. This game is no longer in distribution, meaning it's not going to found in stalls or any place really... because it was a doujinshi that was only sold at Comiket 80 in August 2011. This means to get a copy, you're either gonna have to find someone or place that has it, and is willing to sell it to you, or get it through the interwebs. It also has limited amount of stages, though thanks to it's variety of characters, endings, difficulty settings, and achievements, it makes it rather difficult to get bored and tired of this game.

About the Game

Character Selection Screen

If you want a solid game that works and you want to sink hours and hours into, this is the game for you. The goal of the game is to basically go through all the rounds and preferrably, not dying. Depending on which character die and survive you can get different endings. There are a total of 10 endings you can get, though personally I have yet to see all of them myself.
It has 7 playable characters, if you're playing the latest update, 1.10, or if you're playing 1.00 you'll have 5. There's the main five characters that we know and love, Homura, Madoka, Kyouko, Mami and Sayaka. There is also a secret character Moemura (Which is the Homura that appears in the earliest timeline) and there is also the ever so loved (as well as hated) Kyubey, who is only avaliable in the multiplayer and is a filler for when all your characters have died except the ones that other people are playing. And of course, just like in the anime, Kyubey, is absolutely useless.

Homura has the smallest Soul Limit

The way you die is not to lose all your health but to run of soul limit, which is underneath the health bar. Depending on the characters, the health and the soul limits will vary; for example; Tomoe Mami has one of the largest soul charge pool and one of the largest vitality, but if you die, you'll lose nearly 15% of her soul limit at level 1 which is twice the amount of loss compared to some of the characters. If you keep dying constantly while fighting Walpurgis Night, I can almost guarantee you that you'll run out of soul limits and lose her for the rest of the game. and whether you want that or not is up to you, but if you end up losing all your others characters, then it'll be game over and you'll have to restart all the levels from the beginning, so you better be careful!

There are in total 5 stages in Grief Syndrome, each based on the Witches from the original anime which this game was based on. There's Gertrud, Charlotte, H.N. Ellie, Elsa Maria, and Walpurgisnacht. There's also a secret boss fight when Sayaka dies at any point in the game, where you can fight Oktavia von Seckendorff. Each level has it's own familiar and it's witch (except for the level for Oktavia, who had no familiars), and every stage is as fun and exciting as each other. Each boss and familiar each have their own unique modus operandi, and if you don't work around them, you'll be sure to pay!

Oktavia von Seckendorff

I very much like the art style and the soundtrack of the Grief Syndrome, because it's cute and niche. The familiars and witch designs are from the anime, and whether in the anime or in this game, I'll always enjoy it. The designs of the main casts are also nice. I mean how can you not like the chibi designs of Moemura-chan! Each stage has it's own background music and fits right into the artsy and epic theme of each of the stages.

Conclusion
So what is my thought on this game... Well if you've read everything I've said, then you would obviously know, and if I were to give it a rating it would definitely be at least a 8/10 Moemuras. The game itself is small in various ways, but if you like solid beat-em up games, and if you like Madoka Magicka, heck, if you like cute things at all. I guarantee you that it's definitely worth trying out. Getting it is going to be a pain, but if you can try it!