Do cutesy beat-em-ups have a pithy little genre name, like "cute-'em-ups" for scrolling shooters? No? Okay ... well I'm going to coin one then: "beat cutes". Moving on ...

So, I guess this invented the famous and well-established "beat cute" subgenre. It's certainly big, bright, colorful, and engaging, and it does have a couple unique points aside from the aesthetic. You attack in eight directions, which feels really good in a brawler, and your one and only normal attack can also be charged up and released, which multiplies the damage and has a bit of a projectile effect. Put these together and your limited moveset feels quite a bit more versatile ... for a while, at least.

And that's kind of the whole issue with this game. It's initially impressive (loads of different enemies, novel bosses for a beat-'em-up, fun weapon pickups) but everything ends up getting repeated a little too much to not get burnt out with it by the end. Also, although the many projectile weapons are really fun to use at times - with exciting moments of you grabbing one, emptying it into a well-placed horde of weak enemies while moving forward, and then running out of ammo just as you come across another one to keep the party going - the difficulty ramps up in a way that kind of relies on you maintaining them, as by the midpoint, most of the enemies have them as well and you can easily get trapped in a frustrating, quarter-munching hail of gunfire.

I wish there were just a couple more twists to the gameplay or the levels or the bosses, because the ideas work here, and the combat feels pretty good for such an early game of this type.