I do enjoy a quick blast with a shoot ‘em up, and luckily another one has landed on the doormat needing a review.
The game in question is Shinorubi from Last Boss 88 and Red Art Games. It’s a game that is described as “a shoot ‘em up that is rooted in the Bullet Hell, Danmaku and Manic Shooter genres”. Now, I had to look up what “Danmaku” meant, but it turns out to be something that is best described by a word from the Japanese language meaning “bullet curtain” or barrage, running as a subgenre of shooter games. Every day is a school day and all that!
Anyways, Shinorubi first released on Steam back in 2022, but now that it is here on the Xbox, we need to see what all the fuss is about.
Presentation is everything in a shooter – it has to hook you in straight away and refuse to let go until you are a sweaty mass of tears and blisters on the floor. Thankfully, the presentation of Sinorubi is first rate. There are, from almost the first seconds of starting the game, approximately 1 squillion bullets everywhere, and no matter how many projectiles, stars or enemy ships are on the screen, the game never ever slows down. It is seriously impressive.
Shinorubi is presented as a top down, vertically scrolling shoot ‘em up, and in a nice touch each of the characters that you can select to play as not only has a different ship, but the pattern of their bullets also varies. Each of the levels comes with a distinct look and backdrop too; not that you can see much with the amount of bullets flying about. But it is the sheer speed of the game that is the real takeaway, even if it is somewhat daunting for an ageing gamer.
Further, the sound of the game is exactly as you would expect, all pew-pew and explosions, as well as encouraging noises as you collect medals and stars from enemies you have blown to pieces.
Do you want a bit of a story to go along with all the bullets? Well, some would say that this is not strictly necessary, as usually having a ship with more guns than the British Navy and some things to shoot at is about as far as it goes. Here, though, an attempt has been made to craft a narrative, so I think it is only fair to cover it.
It appears that Shinorubi is a planet, a planet where a singular substance called R-R can be found. It is this which can extend life expectancies and much more besides. For 1000 years, the BAAA family have ruled Shinorubi even if the king left to go to war about 150 years ago. Now, as night falls on the capital, Kaddin, eight mercenaries are left to try and defeat the five generals who were left in charge. What this leads to is no less than five levels of blasting action as we try to defeat the BAAA family. Will we manage to overthrow 1000 years of tyranny, or will the generals in their big end-of-stage boss ships blow us to smithereens? Well, that’s up to you and your thumbs!
One thing that Shinorubi isn’t short of on the gameplay front is modes of play. As well as the expected story mode where you have to go through and fight all the stages and bosses, there are many more to have a crack at. These range from the usual, such as a boss rush mode (with three different difficulty levels, no less) through to crazy mode such as “Pink Pig” mode, where you have to catch pigs, obviously. There are also such things as Caravan, which is played against the clock, and Journey mode, which challenges you to stay alive, testing your stamina through several game loops. In summary, Shinorubi has lots to do. But is it fun doing it? Well, spoiler alert, yes.
The central premise of this game is that your ship is only destroyed if a bullet hits the centre part of it, and glancing blows do no damage. What this translates into is frantic kiting left and right as you attempt to find a part of the screen where there isn’t a bullet for a split second. All before the process starts again. The levels that we have to fight through are hard enough, and the bosses are on a whole different level of bullet spread. Of course, we can choose to switch between wide fire and concentrated fire by pressing different buttons, and this adds a layer of strategy to the whole proceedings. With the obligatory smart bombs also destroying bullets on the screen, there is a lot to remember.
Playing on Normal I got destroyed very quickly, and while the lower difficulties are a lot easier, I do feel like someone should show the developers a dictionary with the word “Easy” underlined, if only so they can see what it is meant to mean! Still, once you manage to recalibrate your eyes, brain and thumbs, what is on offer in Shinorubi is a lot of fun to pick up and blast through.
There are some downsides, not least of which is the difficulty, as mentioned above. And honestly, Shinorubi is fairly short as a proposition, with only five levels to have a crack at. While it will be an awfully long time before I get the “1CC” achievement for clearing the game on a single credit, despite the brevity of the experience, the overwhelming challenge is still capable of getting its hooks into the player. Include the multitude of modes and tweaks that can be activated, as well as leaderboards to try and chase, and there is a lot to like about this game.
If you like a challenge, the difficulty found in Shinorubi is real, moving all the way up to “Super Hard”. For many, that should just be left to the gaming ninjas as anyone who can beat this must have some octopus DNA in their system.
