There are times as a gamer where you don’t want triple A high octane action, eerie mysteries or blood curdling horor. You want something peaceful and simple, like building a town in a deserted island, playing arcade shooters of the past or maybe a puzzle platforming game starring two bubble blowing dinosaurs. As much fun as triple A games are, there are times where I just want to play something simple yet challenging, a throwback to the retro and arcade days of gaming. So far this year ININ Games have been providing that itch with games like The Ninja Saviors, Bubble Bobble 4 Friends, the Darius Cosmic Collection, the upcoming Space Invaders Forever and their most recent release Umihara Kawase BaZooKa!.
Story
While there isn’t much of a story in Umihara Kawase BaZooKa!, the origins of the game itself and the various characters that are in it are pretty interesting so we’ll go with that. Umihara Kawase BaZooKa! Is the latest entry in a series of platforming games called Umihara Kawase. The series stars Kawase, a young athletic woman who is a sushi chef that travels through psychedelic stages collecting bipedal fish using her fishing hook. Not really much of a story like I said and this carries over to Umihara Kawase BaZooKa!. While there isn’t a story to the game, the brief origin descriptions of the characters that are in the game are pretty interesting, with most of them actually coming from other games and one Japanese YouTuber.
Gameplay
Umihara Kawase BaZooKa! Plays like the typical platformer except with a bit of a twist: using fishing hooks players swing/fling themselves around the stage avoiding or capturing enemies as they go. There’s only two modes: challenge mode, which has single players, co-op and competitive mode and the other mode is battle mode which is basically the VS mode. In challenge mode the objective is to collect a certain amount of coins by clearing waves of enemies. Once the number of coins required is reached, players move on to the next stage and repeat the same actions till they get to the boss stage, while in battle mode its basically a Smash Bros type fight. There is an online multiplayer mode in the game, but at the time when this review is publish it’s dead at the moment.
Movement is done by using fishing lures. Players cast their lures at a surface or an enemy and reel themselves towards them. They can also choose which type of controls they can use. This ranges from beginners for those new to the series to manual for those who have played the previous games. Moving around can be a bit tricky at first but once you get the hang of it, you’ll be swing around with ease, As for characters, players have 22 characters to choose from, each with their own unique attacks and super. For example Kawase has the ability to throw mini grenades as a secondary attack and throw hamburgers that restore hp. Or like my current favorite character Sonic Cat from Ring Dream who does front flip kick and a dodge roll.
Graphics
The graphics of Umihara Kawase BaZooKa! received an upgrade from their previous 2D sprite artstyle. Umihara Kawase BaZooKa!’s graphics are now in a 2.5D style, with the game still retaining its 2D platforming style with cute 3D chibi styled character models. Backgrounds are bright and colorful and as I mentioned Kawase and her friends have a cute chibi look to them. The enemy models are weird looking yet charming in their own fish with legs kind of way.
Music/sound
As cute as the music in Umihara Kawase BaZooKa! sounds, there isn’t that many tracks to listen to in game. There’s the main menu track and four different tracks for the four different worlds. Each of them are different but get repeated within each of their levels. Personally after a while I just tend to lower the volume.
Umihara Kawase BaZooKa!, much like the main character, is short and sweet. Gameplaywise its really solid with a bit of a learning curve. In addition to being short, the game does have other issues such as a lack of a story, too few musical tracks, and empty multiplayer lobbies. As a local couch party game, there is fun to be had with the selection of characters and seeing players either trying to work together or battle each other. If you’re looking for something bring to game night that’s simple and cute, Umihara Kawase BaZooKa! might be a good pick.
