Yurukill Pre-Purchase Impressions: Worryingly Interesting

 

Yurukill is a game that doesn't come out until July this year but after seeing the trailer it's such a weird idea that I have to say a few things about it.

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

Undertale Marathon Incoming

This will be a nice short post today because I'm basically just announcing another event!

On September 15th me and my good friend Pithoui will be streaming an Undertale marathon.  This however will not be a 24 hour marathon like usual, instead we will be playing the games 3 endings (Neutral, Genocide, Pacifist) back to back and we won't be stopping until they are done.

That's all there is to it, so save the date and come join us for a bad time!

Megaman Marathon Roundup

So I took my time to recover and now I'm back in business with our usual stuff.  I've noticed actually that thanks to things being a little hectic recently there's huge gaps between me posting any kind of content so hopefully, in the second half of the year, I'll be a bit more consistent.  

Anyway, the 24 hour Megaman Mega-Marathon was completed.  I haven't added up all the donations properly (I just have them listed individually, don't worry) and I suck at math but I'm pretty sure around 400 GPB, including the initial donation incentive, was raised over the course of the marathon.  As always, BIG thanks to anyone who donated to the cause, it's always nice to see the support for me and the charity that these marathons tend to generate.  

The games that were finished during the marathon were classic 1-4 and Megaman X 1-4.  I had memories of the X games being a lot easier but they absolutely kicked my ass sideways and took me way longer to finish that I imagined.  X4 especially has a particularly horrible final boss fight but I'm going to make my excuses and say that it was fatigue from playing for so long and not just that I'm shit (spoilers: I'm shit).

I do have a little confession though for anyone who missed the marathon live which is I didn't actually finish and entire 24 hours.  It was only off by about an hour and a half but I still feel pretty bad.  By the end of the marathon I had a killer headache and I felt really quite ill, I think brought on by a combination of an extremely busy work event that involved 3 days of straight drinking and Nagoya now having the muggiest, most horrible humid weather ever.  

This however is not an excuse, so to make up for the lost time I will be adding a "Megaman day" to the stream rotation.  This will involve playing every single Megaman game that exists that I didn't play during the marathon, so this will be a feature that will stick around for a while.  Some people donated for me to play Megaman Battle Network over my choice of Megaman Command Mission for the RPG in the marathons final few hours so that will be the first game to get streamed and then we'll go from there.

There's another event in the works so stay tuned for more extended gaming goodness in the near future! 

Undertale

Apologies for lack of content recently, I had a birthday.  But just because I'm not updating much doesn't mean I'm not gaming and one of the games I beat quite recently was Undertale, a strange little indie RPG for PC.

The story of Undertale starts with a war between monsters and humans that ends with a human victory.  In the aftermath the humans sealed away the monsters under the earth except they left an opening to the underground in the top of a mountain.  A small child who was wandering around falls into this gap in the seal and this is where the game begins, it is then up to you as the player to help this child find a way out.

The game is very linear but it makes up for it's lack of exploration with some really strong writing and characterization.  While it's not perfect and sometimes relies on memes and other internet stupidity you will probably find yourself getting quite engrossed in the Underground and the game provides an interesting cast who you can actually become quite attached to.

Game play is a rather strange mix of RPG and bullet hell shooter.  When you get into combat choosing the attack command will bring up a Mario RPG style timing thingy that dictates how much damage you do.  When you get attacked the text box turns into a field where the enemy shoots bullets at you and you have to use the arrow keys to move a little heart around and not get hit.  There are boss battles which mix up the combat a bit by locking your movement in certain ways and combat is actually quite infrequent so it never really has a chance to get stale.  You can also win fights by talking your enemy down but in the one play through that I did I never bothered to try that method of winning a fight

The game isn't very long but this is probably due to the nature of the endings.  There are a number of routes and ways you can play this game and doing each one yields a different ending.  The ending that you get changes certain things about your next play through which gives the game some degree of replay value however at time of writing I've not gone past a single full play through.  Other strong points for this title include a really strong soundtrack and some really well thought out set pieces that either punch you in the soul or make you laugh out loud.

If I had anything to complain about it would be the aforementioned internet meme references and the overly easy nature of all the puzzles.  Every puzzle is obvious and unchallenging which in some moments is because the story calls for it but other times where I feel like I'm just being treated like a fucking moron. I've heard people complain about the graphics because it's all retro but there's nothing inherently bad with that.  If I was to make a game I'd probably use pixel graphics because I can't draw anything else for shit and I think the game would have lost some of its charm if it looked any other way.

I've heard some people compare it to Earthbound but I'm not seeing it.  There's a couple of nods to it here and there so you can tell the developer got some degree of inspiration but there's nods to other games in there like Final Fantasy 6 but I don't see anyone going crazy for that reference.  To be brutally honest I was getting more of a Yumi Nikki vibe from the game, obviously totally different but something about the art style and atmosphere of the game gave me that feeling.

Either way, Undertale is a pretty good game that's worth checking out.  Love it or hate it, it's hard to deny that that it's an interesting title that's worth at least a little bit of time and attention.  It's inexpensive on Steam so if the idea of this game does interest you then it wont kill you to at least give it a go.  I could easily see this game not being for everyone but for those willing to take a chance you're in for a good time.