Full video review: https://youtu.be/5rwvTochc5M
Okay so I just finished this game and I have to admit, I am very confused. Not as to what happened in the game - that part I got down - but rather, what exactly this game was setting out to do.
Gameplay
Yurukill is basically a hybrid of two genres: visual novel and shoot ‘em up. You’re probably thinking “wow, what a cool combination, how does it work?” and the answer is simply “it doesn’t”. Or rather, the genre combination itself is fine, it’s just that it is entirely unnecessary. I went through the entire game thinking that these shoot ‘em up segments would have some sort of deeper meaning or bigger story payoff rather than being a shoot ‘em up minigame tacked on to a visual novel, but nope, it is literally just that.
Not to say that that shoot ‘em up stuff was entirely bad though. I mean, it wasn’t good, but it at least wasn’t terrible. The movement is fine, the models are… okay I guess, and the bullet patterns are at least challenging at times. You get a handful of different ships and a bunch of different bosses to take down, so content-wise the variety isn’t that bad either given the game’s length.
Each chapter of the game has one of these shoot ‘em up sequences at the end and they all follow the same pattern: shoot down a bunch of enemies, take down a boss, answer a question regarding the case at hand, take down boss again, repeat until the end where you have to answer questions about that story chapter in a Danganronpa-style minigame. The answers are almost always obvious and oftentimes feel like an insult to my intelligence though, which, when combined with other aspects of the game, give me the impression that this was a game designed for a much younger audience - younger so than the Danganronpa series that it blatantly tries to emulate.
Story
Just like the shoot ‘em up gameplay, the story is not terrible, but it’s even further from good than that gameplay is. It started out fine: you’re thrown into this death game scenario where each character has some sort of crime they were falsely accused of and winning the game allows them the opportunity to clear their name. Each story chapter follows one of these individual mysteries, giving you time to process each as they come before becoming this larger thing towards the end of the game.
It’s methodical, but not in a good way. The game’s pacing during each of these is a bit too quick to really give the characters the development they need and I often found myself disappointed at how simple the mysteries turned out to be. Oftentimes, I would go into a case with a vague guess of what happened and the result wouldn’t even be that far off - it isn’t like Ace Attorney or Danganronpa where there’s so much more to it and you’re constantly left guessing right up to the end.
There just isn’t a lot of depth here and this is best exemplified with the ending. Yeah, I mean it does wrap things up, but it just goes straight to the point and there’s nothing really special about it to set itself apart from the rest of the genre. Maybe I was setting myself up for disappointment here by hoping that the ending would pull some massive twist or development to really elevate the whole experience beyond the mediocrity that was the rest of the story, but nope, it does not stray from the formula at all.
Choices
There is no branching plot here and usually if you pick the “wrong” choice, you get a line of dialogue saying “no, that can’t be right” before the game throws you back to the decision screen to pick the correct one. Illusion of choice is a common problem with visual novels, so this is expected to a degree, but when it is literally every decision you can make, it does become a bit annoying.
Length
The game took me around 14-ish hours to clear. Not long by VN standards for sure, but at least not insultingly short. Granted, the game could have definitely used maybe double that length to flesh out the characters a bit more and make the mysteries more than these surface level things.
Puzzles
There is some additional gameplay through point-and-click-style puzzles, like what you would expect from an escape room. Whether that be some sort of riddle, cypher, sliding puzzle, or matching puzzle - the game covers a lot of ground there and these do help in making the experience a bit more immersive in a way.
Granted, at the same time, I can’t say that any of these puzzles are particularly difficult and I only ever needed to use the hint feature for two of them across the entire experience - so again, this leads me back to my belief that this game is aimed at a much younger audience.
Options
This is a visual novel that completely lacks any sort of skip button, a text speed option, and an auto mode speed option. It is extremely light on the settings and missing some key options I would consider essential in any visual novel.
Art and Music
I almost got all the way through this review without mentioning the art and music - two areas that the game does a decent job at, the art specifically. I liked the character models and the unique art style that the game goes for outside of that anime norm - which is especially noticeable in the eyes. The music, while not quite as good, at least is not bad and escapes that VN pitfall of being overly repetitive and obnoxious.
Overall
Yurukill: The Calumniation Games is both not a good visual novel and not a good shoot ‘em up game. The combination of these two feels forced and leaves me wondering what the game was trying to be. While the art may be good and the point-and-click stuff is fine, the entirety of the story just falls flat and feels like a watered down version of Danganronpa and the like. The genre has far better options than this, so I cannot in good faith recommend it and only hope that the studio can deliver us something even cooler in the future - they clearly have a unique style, they just need to match that with a good story.
Okay so I just finished this game and I have to admit, I am very confused. Not as to what happened in the game - that part I got down - but rather, what exactly this game was setting out to do.
Gameplay
Yurukill is basically a hybrid of two genres: visual novel and shoot ‘em up. You’re probably thinking “wow, what a cool combination, how does it work?” and the answer is simply “it doesn’t”. Or rather, the genre combination itself is fine, it’s just that it is entirely unnecessary. I went through the entire game thinking that these shoot ‘em up segments would have some sort of deeper meaning or bigger story payoff rather than being a shoot ‘em up minigame tacked on to a visual novel, but nope, it is literally just that.
Not to say that that shoot ‘em up stuff was entirely bad though. I mean, it wasn’t good, but it at least wasn’t terrible. The movement is fine, the models are… okay I guess, and the bullet patterns are at least challenging at times. You get a handful of different ships and a bunch of different bosses to take down, so content-wise the variety isn’t that bad either given the game’s length.
Each chapter of the game has one of these shoot ‘em up sequences at the end and they all follow the same pattern: shoot down a bunch of enemies, take down a boss, answer a question regarding the case at hand, take down boss again, repeat until the end where you have to answer questions about that story chapter in a Danganronpa-style minigame. The answers are almost always obvious and oftentimes feel like an insult to my intelligence though, which, when combined with other aspects of the game, give me the impression that this was a game designed for a much younger audience - younger so than the Danganronpa series that it blatantly tries to emulate.
Story
Just like the shoot ‘em up gameplay, the story is not terrible, but it’s even further from good than that gameplay is. It started out fine: you’re thrown into this death game scenario where each character has some sort of crime they were falsely accused of and winning the game allows them the opportunity to clear their name. Each story chapter follows one of these individual mysteries, giving you time to process each as they come before becoming this larger thing towards the end of the game.
It’s methodical, but not in a good way. The game’s pacing during each of these is a bit too quick to really give the characters the development they need and I often found myself disappointed at how simple the mysteries turned out to be. Oftentimes, I would go into a case with a vague guess of what happened and the result wouldn’t even be that far off - it isn’t like Ace Attorney or Danganronpa where there’s so much more to it and you’re constantly left guessing right up to the end.
There just isn’t a lot of depth here and this is best exemplified with the ending. Yeah, I mean it does wrap things up, but it just goes straight to the point and there’s nothing really special about it to set itself apart from the rest of the genre. Maybe I was setting myself up for disappointment here by hoping that the ending would pull some massive twist or development to really elevate the whole experience beyond the mediocrity that was the rest of the story, but nope, it does not stray from the formula at all.
Choices
There is no branching plot here and usually if you pick the “wrong” choice, you get a line of dialogue saying “no, that can’t be right” before the game throws you back to the decision screen to pick the correct one. Illusion of choice is a common problem with visual novels, so this is expected to a degree, but when it is literally every decision you can make, it does become a bit annoying.
Length
The game took me around 14-ish hours to clear. Not long by VN standards for sure, but at least not insultingly short. Granted, the game could have definitely used maybe double that length to flesh out the characters a bit more and make the mysteries more than these surface level things.
Puzzles
There is some additional gameplay through point-and-click-style puzzles, like what you would expect from an escape room. Whether that be some sort of riddle, cypher, sliding puzzle, or matching puzzle - the game covers a lot of ground there and these do help in making the experience a bit more immersive in a way.
Granted, at the same time, I can’t say that any of these puzzles are particularly difficult and I only ever needed to use the hint feature for two of them across the entire experience - so again, this leads me back to my belief that this game is aimed at a much younger audience.
Options
This is a visual novel that completely lacks any sort of skip button, a text speed option, and an auto mode speed option. It is extremely light on the settings and missing some key options I would consider essential in any visual novel.
Art and Music
I almost got all the way through this review without mentioning the art and music - two areas that the game does a decent job at, the art specifically. I liked the character models and the unique art style that the game goes for outside of that anime norm - which is especially noticeable in the eyes. The music, while not quite as good, at least is not bad and escapes that VN pitfall of being overly repetitive and obnoxious.
Overall
Yurukill: The Calumniation Games is both not a good visual novel and not a good shoot ‘em up game. The combination of these two feels forced and leaves me wondering what the game was trying to be. While the art may be good and the point-and-click stuff is fine, the entirety of the story just falls flat and feels like a watered down version of Danganronpa and the like. The genre has far better options than this, so I cannot in good faith recommend it and only hope that the studio can deliver us something even cooler in the future - they clearly have a unique style, they just need to match that with a good story.