Yurukill: The Calumniation Games
MSRP $49.99

“Yurukill: The Calumniation Games can’t quite find the right narrative justification for its intriguing gameplay hooks.”

Pros

Fun shoot ‘em up sections

Compelling character backstories

Music is nice

Cons

Puzzles are too simple

Shoot-em-up sections don’t match narratively

Technical points

Yurukill: The Calumniation Games tries to mesh two extremely area of interest genres collectively: visible novel and shoot ‘em up (shmup). By incorporating both, developer Izanagi Games risks narrowing the game’s viewers down even additional. Half of the sport consists of studying by mounds of dialogue between characters to get by the story together with some mild puzzle fixing. The different half has gamers commandeering a battleship in traditional shmup sections and taking down grotesque enemies.
The result’s an odd combine of various gameplay kinds that really feel recent however disjointed. Yurukill: The Calumniation has participating gameplay mechanics in the course of the spur of the second, nevertheless it’s lacking a story justification that ties all of them collectively.
Let the video games start
The recreation follows two protagonists: Sengoku Shunju and Rina Azami. They’re each taking part within the Yurukill Games, the place the winner will get acquitted of their crimes. The catch right here is that each Sengoku and Rina are companions, with the previous being the Prisoner and the latter being the Executioner.
The Prisoner is accused of committing against the law, whereas the Executioner acts as a decide to resolve the Prisoner’s final destiny. Sengoku insists that he’s been falsely accused, nevertheless it’s Rina who wields the button to both pardon him for his actions or kill him by releasing poison into his neck from his collar. This setup invitations some biting and razor-sharp rigidity between the 2 all through the sport, as Sengoku consistently must affirm his innocence, lest Rina executes him.

There are a number of different duos within the recreation who’re in the identical dynamic, with every Prisoner being accused of a distinct crime. The teams are referred to as the Crafty Killers, Sly Stalkers, Death Dealing Duo, and Peeping Toms. Sengoku and Rina are often called the Mass Murderers. Fortunately, every chapter switches factors of view for each crew. That approach you spend ample time between the entire characters and also you get a holistic perspective of every of them.
All of the teams are despatched to completely different points of interest throughout Yurukill Land and have to unravel a dungeon primarily based on the crime that the actual Prisoner dedicated. In these dungeons, you’ll have to collect proof in a first-person perspective, just like a point-and-click recreation. These dungeons recall the occasions that led the Prisoner to be despatched to jail and finally be a part of the Yurukill Games. You’ll additionally study every character’s backstories and the way the Prisoners and Executioners are related. Each dungeon is properly paced and doesn’t linger previous its welcome.
Are you smarter than a fifth grader?
The major challenge with the dungeons is that the puzzles inside them are simple to the purpose of just about being insulting. To provide you with an concept of how easy they’re, one in every of them had me resolve a simple arithmetic equation utilizing the order of operations.
While I recognize that the puzzles are simple and never obtuse like these in related video games just like the Zero Escape collection, the brainteasers in Yurukill swing too onerous in the other way. The sense of urgency and dread of a personality’s life hanging within the steadiness type of dissipates when a puzzle’s answer is actually simply lining up colours of the rainbow within the ROYGBIV order.

After clearing a dungeon, you’ll be positioned in a shoot-em-up part in opposition to your Executioner — it helps combine up the gameplay expertise from being a pure visible novel. You’ll shoot down waves of incoming enemies and achieve power-ups alongside the best way, after which take down the ultimate boss on the finish of the extent.
One factor that helps set these sections other than devoted shmup video games is that when defeating a stage, you’ll typically be thrust right into a mini-game the place you must current proof to refute an executioner’s declare. Other than that, the gameplay is somewhat primary nevertheless it was enjoyable sufficient to maintain my consideration.
It looks like these sections are solely there only for the sake of getting conventional recreation parts.

However, the best way Yurukill’s story tries to justify these shmup sections is flimsy. There’s a tonal mismatch with having the characters expertise trauma by going by recreations of ugly crime scenes, after which instantly having to placed on digital actuality helmets to play a shooter. It looks like these sections are solely there only for the sake of getting conventional recreation parts. The music is nice, although. The electrical guitar riffing by the boss theme actually amps up the joy of closing out these sections.
Imitation is a type of flattery
Throughout Yurukill, I couldn’t assist however take into consideration how related it was to a different one in every of NIS America’s printed video games, Danganronpa. They each have the dying recreation premise and Yurukill additionally has anime portrait cutouts for its characters that seem throughout decisive story moments similar to the Danganronpa collection does.

The Yurukill Games even has its personal Monokuma-like spectator character, a lady in a kitsune masks named Binko. However, Yurukill’s artwork fashion is distinctive because it goes for a extra sensible anime look in comparison with Danganronpa’s cartoon aesthetic — the character designs are extra akin to Zero Time Dilemma.
Unfortunately, a minimum of within the Nintendo Switch model, Yurukill does endure from efficiency points. In visible novel video games, you possibly can usually pull up a latest dialogue historical past with none friction. However, there’s an annoying pause hitch that brings up the loading image when pulling up previous dialogue. Other visible novel video games, together with the not too long ago launched AI: The Somnium Files – Nirvana Initiative, don’t usually have this drawback and cargo immediately, so it’s a noticeable annoyance.
Yurukill has cool ideas, nevertheless it’s not practically as polished and optimized as a number of the titles it’s impressed by.

There’s additionally some slowdown in the course of the shooter sections if there are too many enemy assaults or results on-screen. During the ultimate boss combat, I ran right into a progress block the place the textual content on the display wouldn’t advance. After making an attempt a number of options akin to restarting the sport, I used to be finally capable of bypass the bug by altering my recreation’s textual content language from English to a different one after which switching again.
Yurukill has cool ideas, nevertheless it’s not practically as polished and optimized as a number of the titles it’s impressed by. The pause hitching when making an attempt to tug up previous dialogue impedes the sport’s narrative stream. The body charge dips and stutters that may happen when there’s an excessive amount of occurring within the shmup sections could cause you to unintentionally run into an enemy’s assault and lose a life.

Our take
Yurukill: The Calumniation Games is a valiant effort to merge collectively two area of interest genres nevertheless it feels a bit underwhelming. The premise of the titular Yurukill Games is fascinating and the characters have compelling backstories however there must be extra meat and narrative justifications for the shoot-em-up gameplay sections. Without spoiling something, the sport’s ending is certainly sequel bait. If this recreation’s shortcomings could be addressed in a follow-up, there’s undoubtedly potential right here.
Is there a greater various?
The Danganronpa and Zero Escape franchises are higher visible novel experiences with extra complicated tales and fascinating puzzles. Games like Ikaruga and Sine Mora are higher shoot-em-ups as they’re solely devoted to that style’s mechanics.
How lengthy will it final?
The recreation will take about 12 hours on the simplest issue however might take a bit longer when you select regular or onerous (hell) issue for the shoot-em-up sections. There’s additionally a Score Attack mode, so you possibly can compete for prime scores on-line on leaderboards.
Should you purchase it?
Yes, however possibly watch for a value drop. If you want each genres or are a fan of area of interest Japanese video games usually, then Yurukill is perhaps for you. It’s a singular recreation, however there are particular enhancements to be made.
Yurukill: The Calumniation Games was reviewed on Nintendo Switch.

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