Year: 2016
Platform: PlayStation 4
Genre: Running
Review Date: 1/14/17
Rating: **

Obviously, any game that features anime bunny girls is going to catch my attention. I was desperately hoping for a shooter in the vein of "Keio Flying Squadron" (1993), but it doesn't come anywhere close. In fact, it's not really a shooter at all, but rather a gravity based running game where you tap the X button to fire your booster rocket (similar to flapping in "Joust"). This gives you a loose amount of control over your vertical position on the screen, but that's the only control you have. Your goal is to avoid obstacles that get thrown at you and consume as much candy and cake as you can, which gets converted into ammunition that is automatically fired by your pets.

The whole thing reeks of a mobile game with its minimalistic control scheme and overall presentation. The graphics are super cute and the characters are delightfully absurd in an unmistakably Japanese way. For instance, one of your weapons is a flying radish named Mr. Daikon. This simply would not work in an American game. The soundtrack is fun and sounds like 1960's lounge music, but it becomes tiresome after a while. Similarly, there's not a lot of graphical variety, so the game loses its appeal very quickly. Like any scrolling shooter, the game is all about pattern recognition, so memorization and repetition are the only way to make any progress.