Does DDC accomplish its mission of returning to basics?

I think it is difficult to say whether DDC achieved its goal of going back to basics without defining what going back to basics means. Since it is interpretative, there is no real way to objectively say anything about this, although I interpret it as a mindset of looking at all the mechanics of the game, and removing the stuff that is unintuitive. That doesn't necessarily mean removing gimmicks, because if the gimmicks are easily understood and are fun then there isn't really a good reason to remove them. Therefore, I disagree that the spell cards make it hard to view that it is back to basics, because actually the spell cards are easily understood. When you see the danmaku coming up from the bottom of the screen, it is uncomfortable, sure. It is difficult, for certain. But you understand what you're meant to be doing. When you see the screen reverse and you are given a bit of time to play around with the controls to see what has changed, you know how to deal with it - even if it takes practice. When you see your character grow bigger, you instantly realise that you've got to be more careful dodging bullets and leave lots of extra room. Even, just starting the game on a blind run, you can figure out the scoring system and method of earning heart/bomb pieces fairly easily just by trying a few things out.

When you play DDC, it is intuitive, it makes sense. And I think that is why it did achieve its goal of going back to basics, because at no point in DDC do I look at a mechanic and think "this is stupid why was it included". Unlike IN, where the time mechanic is just odd, or TD where trance is needlessly confusing (and neither of them even make the game more fun).

I don't feel like the game has to be simple to be going back to basics. It's just got to be easily understood.