Grab your chopsticks and have a good ramen ready. With this thriller from Izanagi Games, we’re heading to the Land of the Rising Sun. Yurukill: The Calumniation Games launches July 8 on PlayStation, PC and Nintendo Switch, mixing pure graphical adventure mechanics with the most classic shooter action.
The story is based on an uncertain land and world. There, a young man named Sengoku Shunju was charged with some murders he did not commit. The protagonist and five other criminals will be transferred to a land built as an amusement park, and if he wins, he will have the opportunity to clear his name and have his sentence removed. The criminals will team up with the executioner, who will accompany them in exchange for all their wishes that come true if they win. In Yurugill Amusement Park, Sengoku will have to complete every challenge while defending his innocence and competing with other teams.
cartoons in motion
The main Yurukill feature we can deal with is its anime vibe. We can’t deny that the game is made by a Japanese creator, and its tropes and aesthetics overwhelm the story. Not only should it not be hidden, but it becomes its greatest strength and symbol. The story is just like any other common suspense comic, from cover to dialog. The dialogue between characters jumps between flashbacks of their past lives, and the decisions and responses we have to make on the fly.
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For Yurukill, we’re talking about “anime in motion” because that’s what it is. Not only the character design, the narrative structure, the themes, but of course the scene aesthetics and design are all closely related to the Japanese manga genre. The main story is produced by manga artist Homura Kawamoto, who is also known for his anime and manga Kakegurui. We recommend it if you like Japanese thriller genre. Yurukir explores the feeling of humanity, forgiveness and recovery. The character story arcs are all about their traumatic and unsettling situations that they’ve been through throughout their lives, up to where they are now.
This means that the game will be a prize jewel for Japanese culture, anime and manga consumers who love visual novels. For those not used to the format, this could be a real find. Before anything else, Yurugill is a graphic adventure, a mysterious story Detective Conan style, with medium difficulty puzzles and confrontations with our executioner. We must constantly show the game that we are paying attention to the story and using the knowledge we gain to solve puzzles and stand up for our innocence.
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Another very important fact that we have to take into account is that the game is not yet well supported in local languages. The dialogue is written in Japanese (quite immersive with the aesthetics), but the text is in English. Because in Yurugill, you’re going to have to read, a lot, which can be a hindrance if you’re not used to the language.
Shot in the purest Japanese style
Still, we can’t slack off in the dialogue and puzzles, because in the story, even with the truth behind our case, we find ourselves having to confront our own demons and worries. Then, every concept and information uncovered in the investigation is used in a system of problems against time, and every failure will be punished, with the removal of bonus time and life in the filming phase. Its format is similar to what we saw in the Phoenix Wright series of experiments.
Regarding shooter levels, we can divide the experience into two distinct parts. On the one hand, the story mode in which we can choose the difficulty depends on whether we want to focus on the main plot. I played in “Normal” and it was easy to access, even for me. Difficulty is very important considering that the better we do in the investigation phase, the more lives and bonuses we have to use in the action scenes, as there are no manual or automatic saves for these phases. This means that if we lose, we’ll have to repeat the entire shooting and questioning phase, which adds up to an extra 25 minutes of gameplay, which can be very tiring.
On the other hand, the game comes with a specific game focused on “bullet hell”, where we can choose the pilot and the level (between the six available levels). The choice of pilot is very important because everyone has slightly different shooting abilities. Our game results will be uploaded to an online server where we can see our global position in the player rankings.
Jurugil trial
I got a chance to play Yurukill on Nintendo Switch. I have to admit, it’s very well implemented. The dialogue format is quick, the hunt for clues and the arcade stage are perfect for a portable platform. While I did suffer some frame drops during those stages, there was more movement on the screen during the bullet hell moment and the ship’s flight animation.
In terms of appearance, the anime aesthetic is well implemented, and the dialogs that change depending on the tone used by the protagonist and their design are spectacular. Specifically, the charisma and refined design of our game guide Binko characters, and perhaps the new Japanese lady Dimitrescu, stand out. The soundtrack is stunning, incredibly immersive and worthy of any avant-garde anime series.
Even though the aesthetics and notes are spectacular, the game has its negative parts. After the first few hours it became very repetitive. While we move between different puzzles and five unique stories, in the end we have to do the same with each puzzle and story. The fact that the level of the puzzles isn’t difficult doesn’t help reduce this sense of lack of variety, plus we don’t feel the real danger of dying or not overcoming this stage. The shooting system looks good, but it feels like they’re trying to combine two different games into one. While its spaceship and shooter settings make sense in all of these comic book worlds, we’re not quite sure if it fits into the depressing and dense environments of the puzzle and thriller stages.