A wonderfully maximilist, bonkers Shmup-Rhythm-Fighting-Action game... thing. Akachiverse is absolutely, wonderfully committed to the bit - that it's so ridiculosly intense and intricate that it's hard to tell what's going on at all.
The game's core conceit is that you're playing an overpowered character in a ridiculous world. Bullet patterns might be blatantly impossible for half the game, but you're also given a character who is given the ability to spam the shit out of fighting game moves that deal high damage, cancel projectiles, and do other shit. These bars charge really quickly and there's loads of options here, and thats only like, half the kit you have at your disposal. All the while you get Lunatic level touhou patterns sent your way at speeds rivalling dragon blaze. Oh, and occasionally there's dialogue sequences going over it which the game somewhat expects you to parse? Oh, and the bullets will often stop and start in beat to the music so i hope you've got your rhythm game hat on. Oh, also you have a super that turns you into a giant mecha boss with MORE special moves.
Even in a 30 minute STG, this could burn itself out or get stale fast. You'd think there's no way the game could keep it up, and it doesn't. It gets even more ridiculous, breaking its own rules, going full yume nikki and changing up the player character's own kit. It is utterly ludicrous, and feels like it shouldnt be playable at all, but it kinda is.
Kinda goes without saying at this point the game is bloody hard, even on the novice difficulty which gives you about 5x health. Even for STG veterans you're likely to struggle with it's smorgasboard of weird systems that the game expects you to remember and incorporate whilst bullets are flying at near-unreactable speeds towards you.
And to an extent, I feel there's only so good a game so committed to the bit like this can be. It's some Asura's Wrath levels of absurdity, and that's kinda it. It blows it's main influence, Hellsinker, out of the water and is really quite fun and absurd, but makes it also a little hard to take seriously beyond that, especially when the million moves the MC has dont exactly seem well balanced.
But this is a wild ride worth experiencing at least once. It's like £7 on steam and it's well worth that for how hard it goes. In a genre full of things that turn the intensity up to 11, Akashicverse breaks the dial.
Also, why is there Hotline Miami music in the tutorial? Did they get permission for that?
The game's core conceit is that you're playing an overpowered character in a ridiculous world. Bullet patterns might be blatantly impossible for half the game, but you're also given a character who is given the ability to spam the shit out of fighting game moves that deal high damage, cancel projectiles, and do other shit. These bars charge really quickly and there's loads of options here, and thats only like, half the kit you have at your disposal. All the while you get Lunatic level touhou patterns sent your way at speeds rivalling dragon blaze. Oh, and occasionally there's dialogue sequences going over it which the game somewhat expects you to parse? Oh, and the bullets will often stop and start in beat to the music so i hope you've got your rhythm game hat on. Oh, also you have a super that turns you into a giant mecha boss with MORE special moves.
Even in a 30 minute STG, this could burn itself out or get stale fast. You'd think there's no way the game could keep it up, and it doesn't. It gets even more ridiculous, breaking its own rules, going full yume nikki and changing up the player character's own kit. It is utterly ludicrous, and feels like it shouldnt be playable at all, but it kinda is.
Kinda goes without saying at this point the game is bloody hard, even on the novice difficulty which gives you about 5x health. Even for STG veterans you're likely to struggle with it's smorgasboard of weird systems that the game expects you to remember and incorporate whilst bullets are flying at near-unreactable speeds towards you.
And to an extent, I feel there's only so good a game so committed to the bit like this can be. It's some Asura's Wrath levels of absurdity, and that's kinda it. It blows it's main influence, Hellsinker, out of the water and is really quite fun and absurd, but makes it also a little hard to take seriously beyond that, especially when the million moves the MC has dont exactly seem well balanced.
But this is a wild ride worth experiencing at least once. It's like £7 on steam and it's well worth that for how hard it goes. In a genre full of things that turn the intensity up to 11, Akashicverse breaks the dial.
Also, why is there Hotline Miami music in the tutorial? Did they get permission for that?