Forums > Submission Feedback > dementedhut's Umihara Kawase review

You do seem to like this series, and it does look like an interesting series. But your review does a fantastic job of convincing me I would probably rate the game 2.5 or 3 stars, were I to play it myself. Frustrating mechanics aren't really my cup of tea, no matter how innovative they might be. This sounds like Bionic Commando, but quirkier and more frustrating. The bit about the tedious boss battles also puts me off a bit. None of that is a critique of your review. Quite the opposite!

"Too often we enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought." - John F. Kennedy on reality

"What if everything you see is more than what you see--the person next to you is a warrior and the space that appears empty is a secret door to another world? What if something appears that shouldn't? You either dismiss it, or you accept that there is much more to the world than you think. Perhaps it really is a doorway, and if you choose to go inside, you'll find many unexpected things." - Shigeru Miyamoto on secret doors to another world2

If that's the case, Fresh! just might be the Umihara Kawase game for you if you ever try anything from the series. It's perhaps the easiest out of the bunch to play, due to its weird abundance of health and power-up items the game just throws at you. The game is still somewhat a challenge with the whole physics-based pole gameplay, but it's basically "easy mode" if you compare the game to its predecessors. And repetitive...

From my experience, the boss fights are pretty much the worst aspects of the ENTIRE series. There's just something very jarring about going from normal stages where the game allows you to go at your own pace, sometimes incredibly fast if you're good... to being stuck in a boss fight where you're forced to wait for attack patterns to finish.

Thanks for reading!

I head spaceshit noises.