Yurukill is being advertised as an "escape adventure bullet hell" game that is planned to be released for the Switch, PS4/5 and PC. From watching the trailer it's easy to tell that this means the game is a visual novel combined with a sort of point and click adventure type thing that's ALSO combined with a....bullet hell shooter...of all things. It's an interesting idea that will either be really good or be the gaming equivalent of chocolate mint ice cream on black pudding. An idea that's so out there that regardless of what I hear about it from now until release, it's basically guaranteed that I'm going to buy it
Being a cross genre game doesn't inherently make it a bad idea. Games like Persona 3 and up that combined Tokimeki Memorial style dating sims with RPGs turned out to be a fantastic idea and indie darling Undertale showed that you combine bullet hell "shooting" and RPG mechanics for something really special. However what a game like Undertale also shows is just how hard it is to make a decent bullet hell shmup.
Let's be honest here, the combat in Undertale is kind of ass. With the exception of maybe Sans and Genocide Route Undyne, most of the enemies have boring as shit, dull as dishwater attack patterns and the controls feel sort of "heavy" and the combat generally isn't all that great. The writing and characters in that game is what makes it so special and the sub-standard combat can be forgiven because it's contextualised probably as part of the story. As a "shmup" Undertale is a pile of ass but when regarded as an entire piece, it's not bad at all. The other thing that elevates Undertale is that the set pieces in that game are incredible. Like sure, the controls are kind of dog water and the patterns are basic and a bit dull for a shmup but the overall vibe of a fight like Metaton or the emotional weight behind the battle with Asgore means that it can get away with it.
But then there's Yurukill
Just from this game player trailer alone you can see that Yurukill is a boring, generic looking ass shmup that looks like it was pulled from the underside of some doujin game freeware site. Also it's hard to say for sure given what we know right now but it also looks like it doesn't benefit from having story context to help forgive boring game play. Like there's a bunch of visual novel shit and then "oop, time for a shmup break" and the impression I get is that it's poorly thought out. Some proper Triggerheart Excellia lookin-ass garbage.
But these are just my initial impressions from a trailer, who knows the later shmup levels might be crazy intense with fun game play and story context, don't judge a book by it's cover right? I have another, slightly more personal reason for being wary of this game. The first thing that this whole thing reminded me of when I first saw it wasn't Daganrompa, like it seems to in most people, but Deadman Wonderland. A fucking HORRENDOUS anime about a high school student being framed for a murder and having to serve a prison sentence in a theme park prison where people have to the death duels with their blood-based super powers. It's fucking awful and I can't look at Yurukill and not get traumatic flashbacks to watching that pile of garbage.
Yurukill is an interesting combination of genres that means that even despite all the shit I just gave it in the above paragraphs I'm going to buy it and therefore I hope to whatever God may be watching down on us all that I'm wrong and the game is actually incredible. But a dull shmup and a setting reminiscent of one of the worst pieces of fiction ever made means it has some work to do for a good write up.
Fingers crossed though, I love it when whacky ideas work
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