Developer: Sokaikan ltd, Storybird Games, Sokaikan Limited
Publisher: PixelHeart, No Gravity Games, Storybird S.A.R.L.
Platform: PC, Switch, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S
Tested on: Switch
Okinawa Rush – Review
Retro-inspired games have been booming for a long time now, and when done right, these titles often fare better than modern hyperrealistic ones. Many gamers simply want to go back to the days when you would just insert your cartridge into your console, and you would be playing in mere seconds. Now, many games require a massive install/download, a lot of patches to make things bug-free and then you’ll have to go through many loading screens to actually start playing. Okinawa Rush is a blast from the past, promising fast-paced action, fun stages to hack and slash your way through alone or with a friend, and an interesting story about revenge. We soon found ourselves slashing through enemies as if they were butter, and we quite enjoyed the experience.
Story
Okinawa Rush‘s story is a typical tale about revenge. These stories were also commonly seen on old-school consoles, as in many cases the developers had to keep things simple. Here, it’s pretty much the same, but we do get treated to good-looking (short) cinematics to press the narrative forward. Nonetheless, we imagine most gamers picking this one up for the gameplay rather than the actual story value.
Graphics
Graphically this game is extremely beautiful. The old-school pixel art meshes well with modern technology, presenting you with a game that looks retro but also modern enough to entice a slightly younger audience. The animations are extremely fluid and chopping up enemies feels extremely satisfying when they explode into big chunks of meat. The backgrounds are also very nice to look at, and the cutscenes and character portraits are the icing on the cake. We do have to mention that a lot of enemy models are recycled over and over, but with the fast-paced action you often won’t notice it before they are dead.
Sound
The sound design is also quite good. We enjoyed the background music, the sound effects, and also the limited voice acting that was present in the game. While the music is good, you’ll probably be too focused to notice most of it. The game is so action-packed during combat that it requires your full focus.
Gameplay
Okinawa Rush is a retro-inspired action-packed arcade platformer. The game has you play through five tough-as-nails stages, and you can choose to do so in an Arcade format, or via the Story Mode. The latter has a bit more window dressing and feels a bit more casual with more options to choose from. The Arcade mode is simply like games from the olden days, where you have a fixed amount of lives and after you have perished too many times, it’s game over. The Story Mode has a number of lives assigned to you per stage, and you will not lose your overall progress.
The game proved to be quite straightforward, but mastering all the different moves of the three playable characters proved to be a fair challenge. Picking your favorite character will eventually just boil down to your personal preference, but they do feel quite balanced with none of them truly sticking out. We do have to say that the Switch’s Joy-Con controllers are absolute rubbish, as the joystick was never precise enough to pick up smaller movements, while the D-Pad is absolute crap. The disconnected four buttons of the Joy-Con’s D-Pad also make it ridiculously hard to pull off many of the special moves the characters are able to utilize. The Pro Controller is slightly better for this.
Overall, the biggest issue with the game is that it only has five levels to play through. True, you’ll have a tough time beating them all from the first go, but even so, it’s not a lot of content. A good thing is then of course that the physical copy is still only half the price of an actual triple-A title. Nonetheless, we would have loved a bit more content, or perhaps the addition of a few more character-specific stages would have also done wonders.
Conclusion
Okinawa Rush is a fun arcade experience that made us think back to all of our favorite action-packed games on the SNES. This title managed to entertain us from start to finish, and it never felt particularly unfair when we had to try certain stages over and over again. The only frustration might have been due to Nintendo’s shoddy controllers, but if you own a Pro Controller you’ll fare a lot better. If you’re into games like this, and you’re looking for a fun physical copy to add to your collection, this one is very much worth looking into.
Okinawa Rush - Review,
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