After being pushed back twice and ultimately not shipping from Amazon dot com, I caved and picked up Pocky & Rocky: Reshrined from Gamestop. Like an absolute lunatic, I also purchased two gigantic boxes of batteries because my addled brain would rather slap an extra 25 dollars on an order and get something rather than cough up six bucks for shipping. The real question is, was all this trouble worth it?
I think so. Like Tengo Project's other releases, Reshrined does such a great job at replicating every element that made the original games work while innovating on them in a way that feels like a natural progression, you'd almost think it was released a generation apart from the originals rather than 20+ years. If anything, the most "modern" aspect about the game is how the difficulty has been scaled back. It's still certainly challenging, but unlimited continues and mid-level checkpointing after game overs makes it a lot less frustrating when you bite it. I found myself entering into a sort of Castlevania rhythm where failure only meant another chance to approach a level armed with foreknowledge of enemy patterns and item locations, and building a new route accordingly.
Pocky and Rocky still play like how you would expect them to, but you're quickly given a new technique that allows you to set crystal balls that ricochet your attacks, and a chargeable shield that reflects most incoming projectiles. These new skills can sometimes be tricky to set up, especially in later stages, but I suppose it needs to be balanced out somehow given the absolute havoc you can unleash with them. The roster is also expanded with three new characters, all of which offer more varied movesets over Pocky and Rocky. Ikazuchi is easily my favorite among the three with her homing electrical spell and snappy dodge making her feel both nimble and overpowered. I was less a fan of Ame-no-Uzume, who attacks using two Options positioned at her sides, giving her a broader base attack while leaving her open down the middle. To make up for this, she can float over bottomless pits and bodies of water, but in more narrow passageways having her spell power at 0 feels more punishing than any other character.
My one real complaint about Reshrined is that there's NOT. ENOUGH. ROCKY. Look at that little guy! You're telling me I can only play as him for three levels!? AND one of those is just a boss fight where the whole gimmick is the boss runs left and right? Get outta here... Docking a whole star for that. Yes I know I can play the whole game as him in free mode, but I've always had a hard time doing a second run of any arcade game right after finishing the first.
The game is of course great to look at. The sprite work is incredibly detailed and colorful, and you can tell a lot of care was put into the animations. There's some weird censorship in the US release where they covered up Ame-no-Uzume's chest in cutscenes, which feels a bit unnecessary but also kinda appropriate for a game that is so closely trying to emulate its 90's predecessors. Speaking of, the translation isn't great. Some lines of dialog just sound off, but maybe that's just me. The plot is fine for what it is (see: time travel shenanigans), but also bizarrely convoluted for a Pocky & Rocky game. The cutscenes can go on a bit long too, which I don't entirely mind because they are great to look at, but the pacing of free mode feels a whole lot better.
Like other Tengo helmed Natsume games, it comes at a pretty steep price for the amount of game you're getting. I prefer to look at it as supporting quality work. Reshrined takes maybe an hour or two before you're watching the credits, but the game just plays so good that I really don't mind dropping 30 bucks on it. No doubt it'll hit 10 dollars on PSN as routinely as Wild Guns Rearmed. In any case, I'm a big stupid freak for Pocky & Rocky and I just had to have it on disc along with, like, 50 AAA batteries. My cup runneth over...
I think so. Like Tengo Project's other releases, Reshrined does such a great job at replicating every element that made the original games work while innovating on them in a way that feels like a natural progression, you'd almost think it was released a generation apart from the originals rather than 20+ years. If anything, the most "modern" aspect about the game is how the difficulty has been scaled back. It's still certainly challenging, but unlimited continues and mid-level checkpointing after game overs makes it a lot less frustrating when you bite it. I found myself entering into a sort of Castlevania rhythm where failure only meant another chance to approach a level armed with foreknowledge of enemy patterns and item locations, and building a new route accordingly.
Pocky and Rocky still play like how you would expect them to, but you're quickly given a new technique that allows you to set crystal balls that ricochet your attacks, and a chargeable shield that reflects most incoming projectiles. These new skills can sometimes be tricky to set up, especially in later stages, but I suppose it needs to be balanced out somehow given the absolute havoc you can unleash with them. The roster is also expanded with three new characters, all of which offer more varied movesets over Pocky and Rocky. Ikazuchi is easily my favorite among the three with her homing electrical spell and snappy dodge making her feel both nimble and overpowered. I was less a fan of Ame-no-Uzume, who attacks using two Options positioned at her sides, giving her a broader base attack while leaving her open down the middle. To make up for this, she can float over bottomless pits and bodies of water, but in more narrow passageways having her spell power at 0 feels more punishing than any other character.
My one real complaint about Reshrined is that there's NOT. ENOUGH. ROCKY. Look at that little guy! You're telling me I can only play as him for three levels!? AND one of those is just a boss fight where the whole gimmick is the boss runs left and right? Get outta here... Docking a whole star for that. Yes I know I can play the whole game as him in free mode, but I've always had a hard time doing a second run of any arcade game right after finishing the first.
The game is of course great to look at. The sprite work is incredibly detailed and colorful, and you can tell a lot of care was put into the animations. There's some weird censorship in the US release where they covered up Ame-no-Uzume's chest in cutscenes, which feels a bit unnecessary but also kinda appropriate for a game that is so closely trying to emulate its 90's predecessors. Speaking of, the translation isn't great. Some lines of dialog just sound off, but maybe that's just me. The plot is fine for what it is (see: time travel shenanigans), but also bizarrely convoluted for a Pocky & Rocky game. The cutscenes can go on a bit long too, which I don't entirely mind because they are great to look at, but the pacing of free mode feels a whole lot better.
Like other Tengo helmed Natsume games, it comes at a pretty steep price for the amount of game you're getting. I prefer to look at it as supporting quality work. Reshrined takes maybe an hour or two before you're watching the credits, but the game just plays so good that I really don't mind dropping 30 bucks on it. No doubt it'll hit 10 dollars on PSN as routinely as Wild Guns Rearmed. In any case, I'm a big stupid freak for Pocky & Rocky and I just had to have it on disc along with, like, 50 AAA batteries. My cup runneth over...
4 Comments
Gamestop's 50 dollar threshold for free shipping is garbage, almost as much as them charging more for pre-owned games than those same games new on other sites. They also have a habit of sending opened games that are purchased as "new." Awful company. Great batteries, though.
GameStop don't exist here in the UK. I've heard nothing but bad things from friends in the US though....
that battery story killed me lmao well done man
FallenGrace
1 year ago
I only heard of this game recently on PushSquare. I've added it on my wishlist for the future, it does look interesting but I know literally nothing about it outside of your review lol.