About a week ago, I found myself wanting to play something on my Switch but just a little too drunk for Breath of the Wild, Mario Kart, or Bomberman. I remembered that I still had about €6 on my French eShop account, so I pulled it up to see if I could find anything that looked interested and fit my six Euro budget. I saw Kamiko, and while I'm generally pretty sick of the pixelated "retro" style games, it looked interesting enough, and most importantly, it was only €4.99 - even with tax, I could afford that with what was on my account! Honestly, I have no idea what the story is in Kamiko; it didn't really interest me. Something to the effect of "I want to become a super priestess warrior and fight evil reconnect the heavens and Earth, thereby saving the world or whatever!" A for effort, D for execution as far as plot goes. As for gameplay, it feels a little bit like a mix of Link to the Past and Ys. Actually, it resembles Link to the Past WAY more than it does Ys, but for some reason, I kept thinking about Ys I when I was playing Kamiko. When you start the game, you have three characters from whom to choose. Yamato is a close ranged sword wielder who, according to the interwebz, is best suited for beginners; Uzume is an archer so naturally long ranged; and Hinome, whom I chose, is a bit of a hybrid of short and long range, throwing a mirror shield like a boomerang for a powerful ranged attack but also wielding a dagger for close quarters attacks while her shield is still in the air. The biggest problem I had with the game is the length. There are only four levels with a boss after each (the last boss has two phases). Even for a five Euro game, it's EXTREMELY short; my playthrough with Hinome took me just a little over an hour, and if and when I go back and play with the other two characters, I will probably only take me about 45 minutes for each playthrough since I now know roughly where the switches in each level are and how to beat the bosses. Don't get me wrong - the gameplay is a lot of fun, and I thoroughly enjoyed my time with the game - but it's so short with no real replay value. Even the storyline is identical across the three characters, so there's not a lot of incentive to replay it with the other two. Kamiko truly is a fun game, but it's just too short to recommend highly. If it happens to go on sale in the future - maybe $3 or less - then by all means, download it. It's a great action-adventure game. Just don't expect to get more than an hour or so out of a playthrough. The art style is lovely, and the music and sound effects fit the game well. It's just a shame that there's not that much game for them to fit. My Rating - B |
I'm a teacher.And I like to play video games. I like to collect video games. I like to talk about video games, and I like to write about video games. During the day, I teach high school history; during the night, I spend my spare time gaming. Then I write about it. Archives
March 2024
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