Game Review - originally written by Spinner 8

I can clearly say, without any doubt, that this is the greatest game ever. To hell with MGS, move over SotN, Umihara Kawase is the game of choice for me, thank you very much. And why, you ask? Because you’re a girl with a fishing line for a weapon, that’s why! All the enemies are fish, and you have to hook on to them and reel them in! Pretty cool eh? Well the coolest part is that your fishing line is also used as a grappling hook. So you can swing around and do all kinds of fun crazy things. Of course, this makes for some pretty endless replay value. It’s even fun to die, for reasons that just can not be explained. I always laugh maniacally when she dies, because it’s just so much FUN, and it makes this hilarious “sploosh” sound when she falls in the water! Of course it kind of sucks when you’ve wasted all your lives goofing around. So, for the benefit of our loyal visitors, here is a ZSNES CHT file I made, which allows for infinite lives. Now you can screw around all you want! (editor's note: lol)

i adore absolutely EVERYTHING about this game's aesthetics and surreal world with weird fishes that'd be fucking terrifying without the jolly music AND the whole fishing rod mechanic is sick as hell and an incredibly interesting way to move and platform. this could have very well been my favorite snes game ever but dear scott is it demanding. the further you go, the things the game expects you to manouver through get more and more absurd and the fact all this is under a time and lives limit makes it so much crazier. give me the will to train speedrunning this daily and it'd be an easy 9/10.

the whole randomly appearing enemies thing is not as big of a deal to me as it is to others. it's pretty easy to tell where they'll show up and the game prevents them from spawning right where you are, so i've had few moments of running into them right as they spawn. the one big issue i have with it is that the game will spawn like 3 or 4 enemies at the same spot while you're trying to get past them and they're spitting stun-fish at you and it is Not Very Fun. the bosses are kinda lame too. really cool and/or funny looking (i love the idea of a giant tadpole birthing frogs) but too many of them are essentially just "wait 5 cycles until you can proceed".

i'd still recommend trying this one. maybe not beating it, but the core gameplay idea mixed with the sweet and dreamy art is plenty of fun for a little while

Random spawns absolutely ruin this game.

But it is adorable, and the fishing rod is pretty addictive for each 4 minute burst that you're allowed to play with it (praying that an eel isn't going to snipe you all the while) so I'm sure I'm going to come back to this in the future, get back up to field 40, watch the big tadpole drop his babies down the tube, and then I'll die violently in a frothing sea of frogs.

Why is the hud all so close to the center of the screen?

Yeah, so the enemies kind of ruin this, huh. You've got this absolutely divine physics platforming action that I desperately want to engage with and learn and get incredible at, but then there's endlessly spawning fish monsters crowding every single square inch of the stage by, like, the fifth level. I just want a few seconds to learn this shit, man. It's a real shame - some all-timer 16-bit vibes going on. I want to hang out in this world! But I'm not looking to rage there. You could make a compelling argument that this game doesn't really need enemies at all, let alone being some kind of platformer equivalent of bullet hell.

(Completed on both the original SNES version through field 55 and the version of the DS compilation of the first and second game through field 57)

It's nice to mess around with the physics mechanics of the fishing line and all that even if the enemy positioning and swinging challenges are often akward and infiurating, but this account is for videogames as an art form and not how it fares as an electronic toy to have fun with (as a toy based on how it's designed, I rated this a 6/10 in MygameDB)

And so, apart from only being focused on gameplay, the presentation is lackluster with anticlimatic endings of just credits, and the visual design is like one of those flash games that look weird for no reason (think Samorost) excusing themselves as surrealistic, while doing nothing with the capabilities of surrealism other than just making purposeless noise

É sobre ser uma garota e ir pescar! ⸜(｡˃ ᵕ ˂ )⸝♡

Sempre que alguém diz que uma mecânica é "avançada para o seu tempo" dá-se a entender que a mecânica deixa de ser avançada em certo ponto, que ela é um mero vislumbre do que será, uma espiada no inevitável futuro. Umihara Kawase possui uma vara de pesca tão matematicamente bastarda que não consigo pensar em um único comparativo ou exemplo de jogo que chegue perto dos cálculos sangrentos que a compõe. Esse é um daqueles experimentos matemáticos que estão fechados, jamais indo além dele mesmo pelo simples motivo de que seu corpo anda na entrelinha entre a aplicabilidade apenas para o próprio e a aplicabilidade para todo o mundo. É um videogame que é real para si, e é por isso que, apesar dos pormenores, eu o amo incondicionalmente.

O level desing das fases trabalha a mecânica no limite tanto do que se pode como videogame (e no que ele se propõe como videogame), como também o que não poderia ser, mas é. Soa quase como um pinicante lembrete ao fato de que você está segurando um controle com circuitos, chips e pequenas pecinhas girando, subindo e descendo.

É difícil de cruzar a linha de quando a esquizofrenia começa, e acho que tentar decifrar isso está além de mim. Se Umihara Kawase fosse um livro, seria sobre tocar na superfície áspera do papel. Tem quem entenda, tem quem não. E pouco importa.

Chega um ponto em que você sente medo. Não sei explicar.
Amei e odiei. Um dos jogos mais frustrantes e recompensadores já feitos. Meu dedão tá sangrando. Não vou conseguir dormir hoje.

The Umihara Kawase series is to me the most genius example of how it is possible to merge cerebral puzzles with very active, somatic and intense gameplay.

This is a game that actually requires you to practice each level - the sheer amount of physical dexterity needed to make difficult maneuvers is outstanding. Yet it will develop in you just from playing this game, over and over, persevering through the countless frustrations. This is what I mean by practice.

At the same time, there are numerous pathways in each level, which is where strategically figuring out the most optimized pathway to the exit comes in handy. It's no wonder this game has a following among speedrunners. Since this is a game you can either complete it in say, about 4 minutes (for the best speedrunners, or less: https://www.speedrun.com/umi), or a year.

It brings me back to my time learning (and I'm still always learning) a musical instrument, or perhaps even learning a new language. The pure joy of practicing, pushing through the frustrations and pure joy and triumph at those small hurdles you manage to pass. That, I think, encapsulates the joy of Umihara Kawase. As anecdotal evidence, I will say that when I was playing "Sayonara, Umihara Kawase!", I literally yelled for joy (the same way a dad yells at the sports game on TV when his team scores) when I managed to reach a difficult platform.

In fact, I played this game last year, when I was picking up a musical instrument again after a few months - and I can say I saw significant parallels in the process of learning this game, that I did in the process of learning my instrument again.

Yeah sure very solid movement and rope physics for the time but what I kept getting impressed by was this game having such creatively evil level design more than a decade before the "rage game" genre got popular. Like, Umihara Kawase was never a household name or anything, but it has to have laid the groundwork for SOME form of kaizo nonsense in the future, right?

But despite the game clearly reveling in these sadistic setups, it rarely feels like actual bullshit. In fact, you can beat most of the later stages on your first try if you're observant and have sufficiently mastered the movement system, which feels super satisfying despite occasional jank like the Small Protruding Ledges From Hell. Nothing beats running into a section that seems borderline impossible and then turning it into a joke within the hour, despite the experience of getting there occasionally feeling like pulling teeth.

Most of the actual criticism I can target squarely at random enemy spawns (which ARE bad but never enough to ruin the game for me), boss fights (lol) and the presentation. I get that it's an old low-budget indie game made out of scattered assets with the excuse of being "set inside of a dream" but the color palette and enemy designs make it look more like a nightmare. The dreary monochrome photo backgrounds are the worst part, this shit is sometimes one degree removed from looking like Umihara's obituary. The cutesy soundtrack does a lot of heavy lifting for this not coming off as a horror game

(Played via "Sayonara Umihara Kawase+" on Vita)

Umihara Kawase is a game about a young girl with a heavy backpack and her trusty elastic fishing line. Together, they will brave perilous feats of platforming wonder, through a surreal coastal landscape, featuring what appears to be mutant fish with legs, school supplies, and vegetables. Mix in some unrelentingly cheerful background music, and you've got a surprisingly relieving atmosphere for a game where you'll die again and again. I feel as though games like these gain a reputation as "streamer games", like the ones where you go to see your favorite internet personality's soul get crushed as they lose all their progress to a single mistake. Umihara Kawase isn't like that though. It requires precision, no doubt, and it can be very punishing, but the stage-based progression means that you only have to overcome challenges one at a time. Failure rarely sets you back very far unless you lose all your lives, of which you get 10 per run.

You can fire your fishhook in 8 different directions, and can latch onto almost any surface/object. From there, you can extend/retract your line at will. If it's a fish you've latched onto, you can fish it up to eliminate the threat. If it's a wall, then momentum and physics manipulation is the name of the game. Most of your time will be spent grappling, swinging, and slingshotting yourself through stages. It eases you into the mechanics early on, despite ramping up in difficulty quickly. There's also alternate exits that lead to entirely different stages, giving nice replay value. You can do some real wacky maneuvers with your fishing line, the kind of stuff that you'd want to show your friends back in '94. Fortunately, this is the only Super Famicom game I'm aware of that lets you save several replays of stages directly to the cartridge.

One of the game's more annoying quirks are the random, frequently spawning enemies. They're an inconvenience, plain and simple. Sometimes you'll have the perfect swing down, and a fish will suddenly spawn right where you intend to land. This game also has boss stages that last an unreasonably long amount of time. Not only do they last way longer than they need to, it's usually just a matter of survival and waiting out the clock, which is difficult, but not very fun. The other big flaw this game has is one that you won't even realize at first. If you arrive at "Field 28", just know that the game has deemed you unworthy. It's a head-scratcher of a design choice; There's a hidden 30-minute time limit being tracked as you play, and if you're too slow, you're whisked away to one of several "end fields", and greeted with an early ending for finishing it, credits and all.

Interviews with Toshinobu Kondo, the game's main developer, reveal interesting tidbits, like how the game doesn't actually have levels 9, 13, and 19. They were explicitly left out to keep players coming back and trying new strategies, in search of these elusive missing levels. That's a a really funny way of making your game have lasting appeal, and it's something that could never be possible in our current age of information. I also recommend this archived interview from VG/247. It's a small peek into the world of being an independent Japanese developer in the 90s, and it's the sort of thing that I find endlessly fascinating.

Umihara Kawase is so naturally fun to play that I keep coming back to experiment and try new techniques. Even with its flaws, I'd call this a true hidden gem of the Super Famicom, and it's worth giving it a shot for at least a few runs. You can try it if you have Nintendo Switch Online (make a JP eShop account and download their SFC app), but I recommend the PC version for ease of access, a practice mode for any stage you've reached, and a map that shows you what order the stages are actually laid out in. Play it long enough, and you may very well get hooked just like I did.

The satisfying grapple physics, infuriating enemy spawns, and strange-but-fitting art make Umihara Kawase a very interesting game. Having different continuous routes is also a great idea that I somehow haven't seen present in any other platformer. But I do think the difficulty is a little overkill when there are zero checkpoints. If not for save states, I would be at this game for another 10 hours . . .


. . . or whenever my resolve gave in.


I'm glad to have enjoyed Umihara Kawase's unique identity. Cruel bosses, difficulty spikes, random spawns and all.

[Credits rolled on Field 55]

Definitely the best and worst video game at the same time. It's got some issues with the randomly spawning enemies, annoying bosses, and such, but ooooh the movement I love the movement. Getting to grips with the grappling hook is just so rewarding, and makes you think how much more fun the earlier levels would be. Despite my first playthrough being a bit bumpy (Field 42 is certainly something), I ended up coming out of this with a pretty positive opinion.

This game lets you overcome that challenge in not just platforming, but controlling the platforming itself, in a way that feels pretty special (maybe like Getting Over It? Haven't tried that one). For as much as I think Field 42 says a lot about our society, forcing you to really try messing around with reeling in your line while swinging shows you a whole new world of complexity. It just feels like I've scratched the surface, and that the game could get even better on repeat playthroughs.

The aesthetics are nice too, with a soft look similar to Dream Land 3, and plenty of nice locations and music. I like how the bass almost has a bit of a Genesis twang to it.

This is on the Japanese Switch Online app, which is how I tried it. It's a lot more palatable at first with rewinds (don't tell anyone I said this 🤫). Don't play it with joycons though. That was a mistake. oof ow ouch my thumbs

Umihara Kawase is a platforming game about a girl on the lookout for sushi ingredients through almost 50 different (and quite abstract) stages with the help of her elastic fishing line. Level progression is not linear and many stages have more than a single exit, giving the game an exploration aspect to it. The levels are quite varied too, there are different "worlds", so to speak, which introduce new mechanics such as moving platforms, new enemies, conveyor belts, spikes, ice, etc.
Despite the cutesy graphics, the difficulty is psychotic and a lot of practice and advanced techniques are required to consistently beat most levels. There are also no continues so a game over means you are back to square one. This is definitely a niche game for people who are really into platformers. However, since I generally suck at platformers, I was only able to get one of the ending exits.
Ultimately, I'm a bit conflicted about Umihara Kawase, it's definitely a good game with a lot going for it, but it's also aimed at a very specific market. You either love it or hate it.