As of last year or two years ago, Cave was already going mobile due to the serious financial issues from making so much of arcade shmup games for the arcades and Xbox 360 with some of them on other systems like PS2, PS3, DS and even the 32-bit ones and the genre is already overwhelmed by other genres which are more popular. There are also non-shmup games developed by Cave in which not all reviewers even know of and certain reviewers put the blame on the publishers as if the reviewers are like what the publishers are thinking without even knowing that Cave is the culprit behind those games.
Two years ago, there was Donpachin for IOS and Android which was already discontinued after some time in favor of Gothic wa Mahou Otome and people already gave an initial negative impression upon seeing the game trailer on why was the game going quite opposite. It's the same for Gothic wa Mahou Otome but unlike Donpachin which goes by the endless level concept via Candy Crush, Gothic wa Mahou Otome uses the chapter by chapter concept where each chapter is divided into various stages and has the virtual card management just like other social games made in Japan. Each card has its own purpose and attack but getting those SRs and URs are more recommended for higher score and power. Of course, it will take you days to level up SRs and URs to the max like I already had the tedious time in various smartphone games I already played.
The gameplay is an improvement over Donpachin in which you can move anywhere and make use of the cards you selected for special attacks as well as to choose the cards for character switching/shot switching. That's one major difference than the one in Donpachin when it comes to your cards ready during gameplay. For boss battle, there's another major difference. Unlike Donpachin where you attack enemies to power up your cards for stronger attack on the boss for Attack Mode, the boss in Gothic wa Mahou Otome has those multi-colored stuffs where shooting the specified color causes major damage to the boss. You can also use the attacking cards to summon those special attacks. Last thing to mention in the gameplay is the Love Max feature which is kind of like Hyper feature but I think that applies to the cards that are not at the highest level or something.
As the game is popular or some sort, there's the mini website of some toothbrush simulator or something where you have to tap rapidly to fill up the Doki-Doki meter. Somehow, I see that as a weird and strange way of promoting the game and I don't think I'll ever get in to it because that's for highly spoilt nerds.
Lastly, as there's also the event stage which may be a special stage, or perhaps a score attack stage. A special stage may have its own BGM and there are some Deathsmiles cameo appearances whether it's an in-game event or not.
