izigame.me

BAKERU is thoroughly... meh.
11 hours in I am struggling to continue and I know exactly why. The main reason is that this game is extremely repetitive, flat, boring. A series of design decisions make sure that this game kind of ... meh. You know.
The main collectibles do nothing. In each level are *five little facts about japan (I am not joking) in form of a character*, *three souvenirs* that the region in Japan which the level takes place in, is "famous". Later you can find a hidden Tanuki that has transformed into some random asset, in some of the levels.
I mean that as I wrote it, these collectibles do nothing. You can look at them or read them later, but they do not play into the actual gameplay. They do not provide upgrades or enable new gameplay. The Tanuki help upgrading your ship/transforming mecha.
In 11 hours of gameplay I used said mecha ONCE.
Now spotting the Tanuki that tranformed into a random Object in a level sounds fun at first but they collide with another problem that this game suffers from.
Level design and pacing is just boring. The levels are all linear, which is not a Problem at all, but the spaces between the fun parts are often far to wide and long and constantly break the gameflow.
The amount of walking while doing nothing is FAR to high. There is no reason that many of these levels are as expansive as they are.
When the game puts in interesting elements they never are used in a fun way. At one point you can turn entire buildings. But its mostly used to make bridges. They use it once or twice so you can bash enemies with that. But there is no sort of urgency to that. You could also just let it be. They try to create Sonic level at one point but even that is completely without bite or energy. Like most of them are.
The best levels so far were when the screen was after you and the player had to push forward. Because then they couldn't just stuff wide open levels full with random shit and you actually had some pressure and push to the gameplay.
The collectibles make this even worse. Because souvenirs and factoids are boring and do nothing it becomes quite unrewarding collecting them. Especially when you have to go off the beaten path down whats basically a just as boring U turn before trekking back to the main path.
Finding the Tanuki at first sounds charming until you realize that they used a different asset in every level. They do not tell you beforehand which one it is. A bush with a tail is easy to spot. Not so with a sun chair in a holiday resort with dozends of other chairs that look mostly the same way. Or with a Umbrella on a beach FULL of umbrellas.
Traversing most of the levels gameplay wise is just not fun.
I am certain the developers thought that as well. I think this for several reasons. First off, to end a level you have to destroy some specific lanterns to unlock the endpoint of a level, a massive drum. First it were exactly three Lanterns. But in later levels, even the more linear levels, they give you more lanterns to bash then you need. And you can leave levels at any point and do not loose any collectibles or even money from doing so.
The games visuals are.. okay. Highlight here are clearly the Character and enemy designs. But no matter the visuals if the game that is made from them is boring then they do not help.
Now further on to gameplay.
By hour eleven at least you will ahve gathered four special forms that baruka can transform into. The game does nothing with them.
One makes you tiny and you can enter small spaces. Its barely used. Two are the same ability, destroying enemies from a distance. One is very fast and so its no problem that the game autoaims for you. The other characters shots are slow and the character is sliding around making it dangerous to use in most cases. Biggest problem here is though the autoaim, which likes to aim at random enemies in view direction of the character, even if the closest enemy is massive and directly in front of you. Useless. The fourth is basically a damage buff that you use whenever there is a horde of annoying enemies that you just want to delete.
Combat could be good but for some reason they decided that you need to use two buttons for attacks. Your weapons is drum themed, so the two should triggers are effecting the left and right drim stick respectively. Problem is that it doesn't really work all that well. For starters the game doesn't really attack with the speed you can put in, making it worse that the combos, when you do it successfully, are slower then the standart bash. Additionally it happens frequently that the game doesn't evade/dash or black when you clearly did. I am not sure if some combos lock you in the animations or if the game simply can't keep up with the player. Either way its annoying.
You can also charge either the right, the left or both stick, for respectively three different power attacks. They do not use eny energy or charges. So essentially this is how you will delete most enemy groups because it just works the best.
This game feels at this point very flawed, very boring and kind of soulless. Which brings us to the Goemon Mystical Ninja comparisons.
First we need to make a few things clear.
When people bring this up I am thinking of Goemon Mystical Ninja on the N64, the first game.
I bring this up because I genuinely think the second game was and is trash. For one it was far less ambitious, 2D, with terrible movement and finicky and inaccurate controls.
Secondly I do not think that this game is worse then both of these games. That is just nonsense.
But it also doesn't have what Goemon Mystical Ninja has. Incredible charm. A good atmosphere, charm and a certain bite. For example it didn't just throw you into level after level. You start in a small town (which frankly doesn't hold up), you soak in the atmosphere and talk to people about the ridiculous things that just hapened in the intro.
It also introduces some really campy villains which are GREAT with a nonsense plan for world domination.
11 hours I have gotten one really empty hub, your tea pot ship, and otherwise disconnected levels.
Goemon Mystical Ninja also had interesting little and large fun sequences troughout its story driving the plot forward. In baruka I haven't had a conversation with a proper enemy ONCE. We do neither know why the enemies are doing what they are doing nor who the enemy actually is. I have yet to actually meet the big bad or have a conversation that isn't dissapointing. The former game had clichees and stereotypes but it actually did somethig with them that approached telling a story.
Most importantly the old game painted a world that was removed enough that it felt new and interesting despite the clearly more modern sensibilities of its inhabitants and characters.
The first sequence in Goemon Mystical Ninja is you and your friend fleeing from a shop because your partner thought it was s good idea to unveil his fat body to geta discount on the shops wares.
Baruka just flat out feels like a shallow marketing ploy for Japan then an actual story and world. And that in the worst way. Its extremely sanitized and just boring. It simply does not feel like the developers had a story to tell. The developers have just taken the most recogniceable symbols and elements of japanese culture or its different präfectures, cleaned them of any edges and then made some vaguely motivated levels around them.
Its just soulless, there is no spirit behind it, no creative spark besides the main character designs.
This is not a good game. It works (technically). But this game has run out of Steam after 11 hours.
Not even a week ago I finished The Plucky Squire. That game was linear and done in 10 hours. But every minute was a joy, every five minutes was something new, refreshing and surprising. Not revolutionary but just really fun and energetic and when I was done I felt like I had gotten a complete, satisfying and fun package.