Akka Arrh Review - Colorful, But Cluttered

Reviewed on: Switch
Platform: PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Switch, PC
Publisher: Atari
Developer: Llamasoft
Rating: Everyone

Akka Arrh is a reimagined version of a prototype Atari arcade machine from the ‘80s. Originally scrapped due to a lack of interest, the trailer for the re-release claims that only three cabinets have ever been seen. 40 years later, when Atari reached out to veteran designer Jeff Minter (Tempest 2000, Polybius) to remake one of its games, he chose Akka Arrh. The result is a reimagining of the original concept, fused with Minter’s signature psychedelic visuals and some modern-day improvements. While the game can be fun, its cluttered visual design heavily detracts from the experience.

Akka Arrh is a top-down shooter where you’re tasked with defending yourself from colorful, abstract enemies using bullets and bombs. Bombs destroy most basic enemies and create chain explosions, which are the main way you gain points. For every enemy you blow up with a bomb, you get a bullet, which you have to use to destroy the bigger enemies that are immune to bombs. To get the most points possible, you only want to drop one bomb and then keep the explosion chaining for as much of the level as possible. When you get a good chain going, Akka Arrh feels awesome; waves of geometric shapes destroy enemies before they even hit the ground, and the name of the chain listed at the top of the screen gets increasingly sillier.

 

This game is also very hard, even on normal mode, which is typical for a game of its era. In an arcade, it pays to have games with incredibly high skill ceilings to keep players coming back for more. In a readjustment for a modern audience, the game saves your highest-scoring attempts from each level and allows you to jump back in whenever you want instead of forcing you through the gauntlet of all the levels that came before. Still, levels that had me stumped were just as hard, even when I had full health and a good bullet count. It’s less of a matter of decreasing the difficulty and more of a matter of convenience.

While I generally respected Akka Arrh’s challenging gameplay, one element consistently annoyed me. The game’s camera follows your cursor, which gives you free rein to fly around the level. It doesn’t seem like that would be a bad thing until you realize how frequently bullets and enemies spawn off-screen when you’re aiming too far in the opposite direction. It’s even worse when you have a power-up that kills enemies from far away, and you kill one that launches bullets on death without even realizing it. One hit ends your whole chain, and in a game as intense as this, it’s frustrating to have your score messed up by a factor that feels out of your control. 

That connects to my main gripe with this game: the cluttered art direction. In a general sense, the flashing psychedelic visuals, while disorienting, were something I grew to tolerate. For anyone with sensitive eyes, there’s an option to disable them in the settings, which is a nice touch. But the visual elements that really bother me are the simultaneous lack and excess of information on the screen. As your chain increases, the game congratulates you with explosions, swirling text, and massive, expanding symbols, but the game requires such a high level of focus that this often melts into one layer of distracting noise. It’s especially frustrating when there’s information I wish the game was more upfront about, like how much health I have left or which power-ups I have active.

It’s clear a lot of care was put into the enemy design, the silly text, and the audio cues, but a lot of the game is so abstract that it’s hard to parse what’s going on. Sometimes the screen flashes red, but I couldn’t tell if it was good or bad. Sometimes I heard a pulsing sine wave, but I had no idea what caused it. The text I read was often funny, but when it’s arranged in a spinning circle and I’m frantically trying to blast killer polygons, I just don’t have time to read it. 

Eventually, I put some of the pieces together. For example, the red flashing screen happens when you kill a specific enemy, the pulsing sine wave usually means an enemy is invading, and if the center of the screen isn’t too busy, you can see how much health you have in the distance below your ship. Akka Arrh is not a game of unsolvable mysteries or indecipherable gameplay, but the adjustment curve on the road to being able to play it with full understanding is much steeper than it should be, especially for a game advertising its modernized game mechanics. 

Akka Arrh is an interesting experiment. Despite its shortcomings, Atari fans can still find some fun in this blaster from the past – the game just comes with a big asterisk. As much as I’m excited to see a lost piece of gaming history revitalized and brought to modern consoles, overwhelming visuals and confusing, abstract game mechanics bring the experience down.

Score: 6.75

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Like A Dragon: Ishin! Review - A Step Back In Time

Reviewed on: PlayStation 5
Platform: PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC
Publisher: Sega
Developer: Ryu Ga Gotoku Studios

Like a Dragon: Ishin is not a new game. It's a remake of an old game – 2014's Ryu Ga Gotoku: Ishin, released only in Japan on the PS3 and PS4. And yet, despite the age of its skeleton, in some ways, the game stands out as one of the more impressive games in developer Ryu Ga Gotoku's (RGG) portfolio – even with a few noticeable weak points. 

Ishin takes place in the 1860s, at the end of Japan's Edo period. You play as Sakamoto Ryoma – a real-life historical figure – who, amid his own revenge scheme, finds himself embroiled in the tumultuous socio-political climate of the era. Using the fake alias Saitō Hajime, Sakamoto infiltrates the Shinsengumi, a police force organized to help control Kyoto at this time, searching for the killer of his adopted father. But of course, as these things go, Ryoma ends up in the middle of a much larger plot, impressively finding time to both seek out his revenge and effect great change to the country's entire political system – as one does.  

It's a gripping drama, if an unwieldy one at times. Ishin's cast uses the faces and personalities of Yakuza mainstay characters to represent its actual historical figures. For example, Ryoma is series protagonist Kazuma Kiryu, but there's also Goro Majima, Taiga Saejima, and even a few newer characters I won't spoil here. These familiar faces helped me instantly adhere – or despise – characters, as I was already used to their personality traits; I quickly became devoted to alliances, individuals, and plot threads before they even picked up steam. Ishin is also one of the better-written RGG games, with impressively directed cutscenes – some of the best in the studio’s catalog – that always kept me engaged. Takaya Kuroda's performance as Ryoma is excellent as always, and it's great seeing Riki Takeuchi (Dead or Alive, His Motorbike, Her Island), Hitoshi Ozawa (Gozu, Boiling Point), and Hideo Nakano (the Outrage series) back in an RGG game after their fantastic roles in Yakuza 0.

On the other hand, keeping track of Ishin's ever-twisting story is, at times, like trying to balance 100 spinning plates on just two hands. There is a somewhat-helpful glossary, but even then, the game expects you to have at least a cursory knowledge of about 100 years of Japanese history on top of following RGG's trademark complex narratives. It's a lot. And I don't particularly like the ending, which, without spoilers, gets uncharacteristically meta with a curious message. 

Ishin's historical setting creates one of the best open worlds in the series. Taking place in Kyo (modern-day Kyoto), a meticulous amount of detail brings the 1860s to life. I often strolled around the world in first-person, marveling at the sprawling shopping and drinking areas, quiet suburban communities, and twisting back alleys. That said, the game's never-ending supply of substories and sidequests often make those peaceful journeys a headache. 

Like in other RGG games, substories automatically play when you're close enough to the mission-giver – whether you want them to or not. Luckily, you only have to sit through the introductory cutscenes and not play the entire quest until you want to. I understand these are most people's favorite parts of the Yakuza games, but, as I always do, I found it incredibly annoying being sometimes stopped five or more times on my way to one nearby location so every side quest in the area could play out. That's not to say the substories aren't good; they are. I especially enjoyed Ishin's slice-of-life minigames, where you share a house with Haruka, tending crops, learning cooking, raising animals, and so on. I love my little house and wish I lived there instead of in Minneapolis. 

 

Combat, of course, makes up the vast majority of Ishin's gameplay, and for the most part, it's great, reverting back to the active combat of RGG games before 2020's Yakuza: Like a Dragon's turn-based gameplay. Ryoma is a master swordsman but also proficient with guns and hand-to-hand fighting. You have four fighting styles, each with its strengths, weaknesses, and skill trees, and I like switching between the four continuously mid-combat. I'd often start with the fast-paced sword and gun stance for quick damage and crowd control. I'd then switch to the more deliberate swordsman fighting style for massive damage to singled-out enemies. And occasionally, I'd move to a gun-only stance to damage far-away targets. It's not perfect – the camera often works against you in cramped areas, too many enemies hit you from behind when you're not looking, and one late-game setpiece level is frustratingly annoying – but when it works, Ishin's combat is greatly satisfying. 

The game also has a card system allowing for special moves. These are acquired by recruiting new members – including some familiar faces – to the Shinsengumi, either through the open world or through the mostly-boring dungeon-crawling side content. Four can be attached to each fighting style, meaning 16 in total. Two personal favorites include the always practical ability to heal large portions of my HP bar and a lightning attack that targets every enemy in the immediate area. Combing the fighting styles with the series' heat moves (cinematic finishers) and the new special moves all in one encounter is fun, even if recruiting new soldiers is often tedious. 

Like a Dragon: Ishin is an awesome spin-off to an already-great series, and one I'm glad finally came to the States. Even if it tripped on the landing, the story kept me gripped, and I hope some of the new combat styles and special moves make their way to other RGG games. I also hope we'll get the other spin-offs that never made their way over. Time will tell, but for now, it's nice to be back with my favorite criminals.

Score: 8.25

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Octopath Traveler II Review - Two Is Better Than One

Reviewed on: Switch
Platform: PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Switch, PC
Publisher: Square Enix
Developer: Square Enix

In an age where remakes and retro-inspired projects try recreating what classic games of old felt like, Octopath Traveler II accomplishes something impressive. Despite being rooted in modern design with a host of conveniences, it effortlessly captures the spirit, style, and sense of adventure of the best RPGs from the SNES era, while still innovating and showing there’s life in turn-based battles yet. The feat is even more remarkable, considering Octopath II’s most significant changes are small and subtle.

On the surface, Octopath Traveler II seems like a clone of the original. You pick one of eight adventurers to start with, collect the remaining seven as you go along, and eventually see how their stories connect, albeit somewhat loosely. A series of improvements, including refined storytelling and more complex characters, make Octopath II feel deeper and more exciting, like the fulfillment of what the original game tried to achieve.

Even narrative setup that should be trite have enough nuance to keep them interesting and the characters relatable. Osvald’s is your usual tale of revenge, for example, but he’s so broken inside that he rarely speaks except in internal monologues. The evil facing Ochette, the happy hunter, is an ancient force that threatens to destroy the world – but also deep-rooted racism against her people.

 

The characters are deeper, but their actions outside battle are still at odds with the world. You can commit robbery with violence against an entire city and face no consequences, among other things, which gives the impression of an RPG playground instead of a living world.

Combat basics also remain the same, though that’s no bad thing. Enemies have weaknesses that, when exploited, reduce their shield points until they break and enter a stunned state. Allies can save boost points and spend them to increase their attack power, and you can mix and match secondary job classes to create powerful hybrid warriors.

While the structure is unchanged, Square Enix made some welcome tweaks to most job classes, including a few new abilities that alter the flow of battle and manage to make combat feel fresh. One of these new improvements is each character’s Latent Power, an ability that augments their other skills in powerful ways. Encounters feel better balanced, with a tense rhythm of smart choices timed right, and they don’t outstay their welcome.

Grinding to raise levels is easier now, thanks to a day and night system, where stronger monsters emerge at night. It’s worth wandering around in the dark anyway, just to see how the world changes.

Octopath II’s map is a significant improvement over the original. Square Enix crammed secrets large and small into almost every corner of the continent, and it’s always worth tracking them down. For every common treasure and restorative item you find, there’s a hidden dungeon, a secret job, or an abandoned village with a fascinating new questline that only appears at night.

Square Enix’s HD-2D visual style has grown as a medium, and the evidence is demonstrated through the game’s highly detailed environments and layers of interest. It’s literally on display as well, as the filter that blurred anything not immediately around you is, thankfully, gone. The result of all this is a gorgeous, rich world that’s truly a joy to explore.

Octopath Traveler II does what an excellent sequel should. Instead of breaking new ground left and right, it improves on the original in nearly every way and feels more confident about the stories it tells. There’s still room for improvement in some of its stiffer areas, but Octopath II is a sterling achievement all around.

Score: 8.5

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