Guwange (1999, Arcade)

Guwange is a scrolling shoot'em up developed by Cave and published by Atlus. It was only released in the arcades and came out only in Japan.
The story is set in the Muromachi period of Japan (roughly between the 14th and 16th century). An increasing number of people gets possessed by shikigami. A human possessed by shikigami will die exactly one year after the possession took place. However, there is a legend of an evil god called Guwange. If someone who is possessed by a shikigami can gather talismans of the five Chinese elements—wood, fire, earth, metal, water—from five demons serving Guwange and then slay Guwange, the shikigami will be destroyed and the one possessed will not suffer a premature death.

There are three different characters to choose from, each possessed by a different shikigami, each duo has different properties. While the levels scroll in different directions in various directions, players can only shoot towards the upper part of the screen. When holding down fire, the shikigami will be summoned and will move in the direction the player walks. The shikigami will slow down all bullets touching it at the moment and will do damage to any enemy below it. Also any power-up it touches will be collected. Since the shikigami can go to any place on screen, it can harm enemies out of reach of the normal shots or behind obstacles which block the normal shots. Similar to other Cave shooters, the players moves slower when holding down fire.