Not a bad puzzle game at all. Dealing with real-time elements at the same time as turn-based ones makes for a really engaging experience. The levels definitely drag on for way longer than they should, though. I probably wouldn't have finished this game if not for playing it on my Vita, a portable system where I can pause the game to go do something else if I get tired of it. I got this game for free on PS+ all the way back in 2016, and I didn't give it a fair shot until now. I was probably enamored with playing Metal Gear Solid 2 for the first time, which is a fair excuse, I think.

I feel like I frequently tout that I hate roguelikes, but very rarely, there comes along a title that catches my eye. In this case, it was a "laid-back, casual roguelike" with character art that I immediately detected as being done by Akihiko Yoshida (of Bravely Default fame), and published by Cygames (multimedia enterprise with experience in creating high fantasy settings). That checked off enough boxes for me, so I took a chance, and y'know what? I think I found my favorite roguelike.

Noah Little, descendant of a long line of master alchemists, ends up crashing her airship into some ruins while searching for her missing father. Instead, she finds an amnesiac cat (whom she names "Zipper") and a brooding, cloaked villain who's clearly up to no good. Noah and Zipper butt heads, but they have one goal in mind: reach the center of the ruins and stop this evildoer. Noah has all the spunk and energy of a sassy lost child, and is more than capable of getting shit done (by giving orders to others). She doesn't fight using weapons. An alchemist only gets their hands dirty in the name of science after all, not to fight ruffians. No, she summons creatures called Lilliputs to attack in her stead. Each one has an entirely different type of attack, and they can be reordered at any time into a 5-hit combo of your making. The ruins consist of randomized rooms in a randomized order with randomized contents within. You defeat enemies in a platform-fighter fashion, reap the rewards, and move on. Most accessories collected will increase your stats, but a handful of them give more interesting effects, like causing enemies to explode after they die. The screen can become a chaotic flurry of particle effects, which is extremely fun and cathartic, but there's also no real distinction between enemy attacks and your own, so you can get completely blindsided in the midst of all the chaos.

This game forgoes a lot of the trappings that make the roguelike genre so difficult to approach. When you inevitably fail, all the junk you collected is converted into mana, and you're taken back to your airship base. That mana ges fed back into repairing your airship's facilities, unlocking new abilities, features, and permanent buffs for future runs. Essentially, each subsequent run will likely see you making more progress than last time, due to a combination of your new upgrades and your own experience kicking in. There's even a few shakeups on repeat trips though the ruins, like the area boss having an entirely different weapon or element, so you'll still get some surprises. The game does cut itself a bit short, but I prefer to use the phrase "well-paced". It's a $15 title. I beat the game in only 11 runs.

It's cool to see Cygames put resources towards something that isn't just a fucking gacha game. I can count all of their non-gacha titles on one hand. They still have a dedicated team working on the game. It was recently updated the game to let you toggle items/upgrades on or off, and they let you play as Zipper the cat too. There's a "to be continued" right before the credits, so I assume they wanna make another one of these. I'd be down for another adventure with Little Noah, roguelike or otherwise.

It always amuses me when small-scale/portable 2D games get a console counterpart. It's like the opposite of downscaling console games for portabe systems, the more common practice. Nintendo definitely tried it more during the GameCube era, with titles like WarioWare: Mega Party Games and Four Swords Adventures. But Kururin? I'll admit I had my doubts, but it's still more Kururin at the end of the day. What could go wrong?

The moment the intro started playing, I was completely smitten. It warped me back to a time when games were just allowed to look like this; I mean, they still can nowadays, but almost never from the big AAA titles that get all the spotlight. This intro is like Katamari, Yoshi's Story, and Parappa all rolled into one. It's cute, colorful, quirky, and stylized. In this title, Kururin wins a lottery and his whole family goes to visit a series of islands. By the time they return home however, it seems as though Kururin and his parents are the only ones who made it back. Engage the Helirin (the copter has had a name that I've been ignoring this whole time), and rescue your family once more!

I feel like I'm going to eat my own words in this regard, but I now think analog controls may be a bit of a detriment to the gameplay of Kururin. It may just be my inability to grip the precision they actually provide, but the three defined speeds in the GBA Kururin titles were constants that you could learn and adjust to. Holding the B button still speeds you up in Kururin Squash, but you've got an entire analog stick's worth of speed choices now as well. Another thing that contributes to this feeling is the camera angle. As opposed to the GBA titles, it's not quite top-down, because they want to emphasize the fact that we've upgraded to 3D models. I feel at least 95% of the walls I hit were justified, but the lingering 5% always wondered, "Did I really?"

The stages are also now littered with coins along your path (and tucked out of the way) for you to collect, which figure into your end-of-stage rank. They do a good job at hiding coin stashes in precarious areas off the beaten path, so it never gets boring collecting them or anything. You mostly spend them on cosmetic items, which is fine. They're actually pretty out-there cosmetics, taking advantage of the third dimension and all that. You can also buy expendable items, like extra hearts, or a "continue from checkpoint" option. I kinda ignored the timer in this game in favor of collecting all the money I could muster.

Kururin Squash's real draw comes with the different forms the Helirin is equipped with for many stages. I feel like I made a genuine mistake by choosing the "full size" Helirin for my file. The level design feels much more focused on making use of these new forms, to the point that my size felt like a detriment. It's unfocused, and it strays a bit too far from the foundation that Kururin is built on. While it's definitely a lot of gimmicks, I bet these were conscious choices made to keep things fresh after the basic gameplay peaked in Kururin Paradise. Plus, these changes also allow for a series first: actual boss fights! Moreover, they're all actually really fun, each one testing your ability to use a form of the Helirin.

I feel kinda bad for saying it, but after playing Kuririn Paradise, I had a feeling that Kururin Squash wouldn't hit the same highs. I do feel like Squash succeeds in having its own unique gameplay strengths, gimmicky as they may be. Also, I have no idea why this game is named "Squash." Nothing gets squashed in this game, except maybe my brain. With all the Kururin games successfully binged, I'm requesting that someone please stop the world from spinning, I'd like to get off now.