KAMUI – Review
KAMUI is one of the latest shoot’em-ups that made it onto Steam. Together with the previously released RefleX and ALLTYNEX Second, these games bring together one of the most loved Japanese shooting series of all time. If you’re a fan of old-school shoot’em-ups, keep on reading!
Story
It’s been a while since the events of RefleX and mankind has once again rebuilt civilization. Now, ancient technology sets a chain of events in motion designed to destroy mankind once again. The key to salvation is KAMUI, a fighter craft based on advanced technology. With this instrument of destruction, you prove to be mankind’s only hope for salvation.
Like most shoot’em ups, KAMUI doesn’t have a great story at all. The little story there is, is usually about some aliens invading Earth and you have to defend it. But the story doesn’t really matter in these types of games so it’s not a bad thing. It’s nice that there is at least some kind of story however, even if it’s as little like this.
Graphics
Because this was originally an arcade game, you can’t really expect great graphics. It’s good that they retained the retro look of the game because that’s what makes these types of games so interesting, fun to watch and fun to play. There are loads of different enemies and the animations for attacks and explosions look really nice.
What is a bit of a pain though is that the game runs in a very low resolution, so you’ll have to keep your eyes peeled and you won’t have any room to sit back and relax while enjoying this game. There’s also a lot of flickering, so eye strain might occur pretty fast for people who aren’t used to it.
Sound
KAMUI is one of those good old games with an awesome sound track. You’ll feel right at home and pumped up with the amazing music that fits surprisingly well with this game, it’s extremely fast paced and filled with energy!
Sound effects are your typical effects, simple lasers, explosions and bullets, nothing too fancy to be found here. It’s good to not have loads of sounds in the background in an already intense shooter.
Gameplay
If you’re not familiar with shoot’em-ups, you simply have your spaceship on the bottom and shoot enemies that (usually) come from the top of the screen, while avoiding bullets and killing a few bosses in the meantime.
The game features 3 types of attacks, a shield mechanic and an energy bar (and 6 different stages!). The attacks are your good old fashioned bullets, a big ass laser and a widespread lightning attack. At first, you’ll find that the bullets are pretty boring, but as you get more pickups, they start firing diagonally as well, making it easier to kill a big amount of small enemies. Then there’s the laser, which pretty much devastates anything it touches. It’s a high power, high damage beam that damages everything in front of it and also destroys projectiles.
As a final attack there’s the lightning, which might need a little more explanation. The game is built around a layer system. You have the top layer where you can shoot enemies normally and there’s the bottom layer. In the bottom layer, you can’t damage enemies with your bullets or lasers, but enemies can still damage you with their attacks. In order to kill these enemies, you’ll have to use your lightning attack. This attack can be charged (uses your energy bar) and will then automatically lock on and attack enemies on the bottom layer.
When it comes to energy, there’s not a lot to worry about because it regenerates extremely quickly. Both your lightning attack and laser use your energy gauge, but when there’s a lot happening on the screen and you have a couple of enemies on the bottom layer, you’ll have to quickly decide what your course of action will be. Will you simply kill the top layer and destroy most of the projectiles with your laser, or will you go for the big money and try to kill everything on the screen while avoiding a bullet hell?
At last there’s your shield. Instead of simply dying after receiving a single hit, the game offers the shield to make it more manageable. In total you have 3 lives, and when your shield hits 0 and you’re hit again, you lose a life, which is pretty straightforward. You can usually take quite a few bullets before dying, and there’s also the occasional shield pickup which gives you back 1 bar of shields.
There’s also another feature that will make newbies to shoot’em-ups very happy: you have an unlimited amount of continues! After you die 3 times, you have the option to continue or stop. When you continue, you simply get 3 lives again and respawn where you left off, but your score will reset. This gives all players the satisfaction of finally reaching the final boss and killing him, no matter how many continues you needed. The game also features 3 difficulty modes, ranging from easy to hard. And if you’re ready to get more competitive, there are online leaderboards!
Conclusion
KAMUI is a great game for any fan of the genre and welcomes newcomers as it’s a very forgiving game. It has high paced gameplay, awesome music, features a nice layer mechanic and is simply good all around. The only downsides are the very small resolution, screen flickering and the story (which nobody cares about in the first place).
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