Kotama and Academy Citadel - PC Review

Kotama and Academy Citadel by developer Atomstring Games and publisher 2P Games—PC(Steam) review written by Richard with a copy provided by the publisher.

 
Estimated reading time: 9 minutes

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Are you interested in a new metroidvania title that actually has some interesting rare aspects? Played too many and now they all seem the same? Well then, perhaps I can interest you in a cool title called Kotama and Academy Citadel.

Kotama and Academy Citadel stars Kotama, who is an exchange student at Carmel Academy. Upon arriving, you’re notified that the Academy is currently undergoing a student election for the position of Carmel star. Since it seems fun, Kotama decides to participate. As such, it is now your goal as Kotama to help out the other students to get their votes, as well as visit the four department heads to try and get some of their votes as well. That’s all the plot you’re outright given. Don’t get me wrong, there’s a lot more going on and it’s super interesting, but it’s all hidden in sidequests and notes you can pick up that are strewn about the Academy. Do your best to help people out and find those notes to figure out what’s really going on.

As far as gameplay is concerned, Kotama follows the general metroidvania format, but builds upon it in it’s own unique way. A 2.5D adventure through a school with various themed zones, you will be engaged in side-scrolling type combat and platforming. Both combat and exploration have their own unique twists to them, so let’s start with the action packed combat.

Fighting enemies is pretty neat with Kotama. You will start with your first weapon the Umbrella Lance, but are able to unlock more as you progress through the game. Each weapon as enhancement levels which increase damage, but also allow you access to unlocking skills for those weapons as well. Each weapon has it’s own unique playstyle, and once unlocked you always have access to them, both for combat and exploration. Each weapon has a light combo and a heavy attack. The interesting aspect here is that light hits splash chrono fluid on enemies. Once enough has built up, enemies get a purple outline and hitting them with a heavy attack detonates the chrono fluid, dealing damage to both the enemy health and guard gauge. Enough hits to the guard gauge and the enemy is stunned for a while.

Each weapon can also parry attacks, but has a different range that you can parry in, and deals different chrono fluid build-up as well as different damage values. Each weapon is also really unique in how they feel in combat, but none of them are worse than any other. It’s entirely what you feel most comfortable with. I actually swapped between all three fairly often depending on what I was fighting. This is pretty important if you’re trying to parry, as some attacks cover a wide area.

So, let’s say you’re getting hit often in combat, how do you heal? Well, the game handles health and healing in a pretty rare way. Basically, you have very few hit points, but you do have a shield/armour system. Your shield can be recovered by spending the in-game currency to fully recover the shield, or by detonating the chrono fluid on an enemy when you get access to the ability. Since upgrades get rather costly the later in the game you are, it provides a very interesting balance between keeping money for healing, or spending it on upgrades or purchases at the shop. I personally don’t recall playing a metroidvania where the currency is directly used to heal, so I found it a really cool idea.

So, let’s talk about the exploration and some of the unique tools and mechanics used. In terms of metroidvanias, the standard progression gated behind abilities and upgrades are there, as well as some bound by certain weapon aspects. For example, the umbrella lance can be opened to float slightly, slowing your descent and allowing you to get to further platforms. Your other abilities are mostly common to metroidvanias: a dash, a grapple/slingshot, and abilities to get through specific door types. What isn’t common is how the Kotama handles some of the character abilities. First of all, the dash is also a slide while moving forward to get into small tunnels. Normal enough by itself, but if you slide/dash forward off a ledge, you conserve direction/crouched posture. This means if there is a small tunnel in a wall opposite a ledge, you can dash off the ledge  and straight into the tunnel/hole. Not all that often done I find, so when I discovered that, I was pretty happy. My favourite ability though is the one you get to go through metal grating. I did not see it coming, and it was the most unique way of handling metal grated blockers in a metroidvania I have ever seen: you turn into a slime creature and sort of amorphously blorp through. On it’s own it’s not a truly unique ability for games in general, although exceedingly rare in metroidvanias. Couple this with how you can slingshot and turn into a slime to yeet yourself through far away grating or through ceiling grating? Oh man, did I ever enjoy that. There is something oddly satisfying about seeing you fling yourself across a map and through a metal grating.

Now, let’s talk about another pretty unique exploration mechanic: time. Yes, I know timed quests and such are nothing new, but in Kotama and Academy Citadel time only progresses every time you enter a new room you haven’t been in since your last visit to the rewind station. Every new room you explore increases the time by one hour, and returning to the rewind point will turn back time. Some interactions can only be done before certain hours, which means you either have to get there with the shortest route, or by getting enough upgrades to the amount of time you can rewind to give you enough leeway to get there in time. There are these stalks hidden in the academy that can recover one hour of time when you hit them, but they are often hidden behind fake walls and in hard to reach areas.

So, what happens when you run out of time? Well, nothing too serious really. You can still explore, and you’re not locked out of anything you can’t solve by rewinding time for specific quests. What does happen however, is that any enemies fought in locked rooms (yes including bosses) get a lot stronger. They also give better rewards though, so there is a reward for “increasing the difficulty” as it were.

Here’s an interesting topic for the more veteran metroidvania players: quality of life options. Those like me that have to 100% metroidvanias can sometimes get frustrated when you’re missing one item and have to go slapping every wall in the game trying to find that one missed item. Thankfully, Kotama and the Academy Citadel does two things to make this a non-issue. Once you get to the end game, if you’ve activated every map room, then hidden areas on the map are indicated. Since rooms show on the map in the general shape of the actual room, an addition is added in grey if you haven’t been there, a really nice feature. Additionally, you can get an equipable ability that will indicate on the map the locations of important upgrade items. Since these are only obtainable at the end of the game, it doesn’t make exploration feel pointless, but helps with cleanup. As an added bonus, the map itself will usually note important aspects such as abilities, health and shield upgrades, and sidequest objectives. You can also place up to 50 tokens on the map to indicate places of interest.

The developers are also very invested in community response, as they actively fix or change issues people have. Don’t like the glasses that Kotama gets given early game? You can toggle those off. Not a fan of the fanservice shots on beating a boss? Turn on streamer mode. Trying to do a platforming section but you keep accidentally backdashing into a hazard? Toggle off backdash for the platforming section. They’ve even added platforming section skips you can turn on if you aren’t good at them. A bunch of these were actually patched during the period I was playing, which feels nice as a player to see the developers invested in their players like this.

Honestly, I don’t really have many complaints with Kotama and Academy Citadel. Almost all the issues I did have were either of my own making, or solved through a patch before I could voice them. My only remaining complaints would be the occasional lag I got when returning to the train hub/rewind station from too far away, and the final film for a sidequest. The lag is because my computer is getting old and I have the graphic quality set to Picasso instead of potato, but the final film I only found because I did a full lap of the train after I’d done literally almost everything else. I’ll have to doublecheck to see if I just missed a note or something on my next playthrough.

For a few aspects I really liked that I haven’t covered yet, I’d refer to the “secret” boss and the graphics of Kotama. As your shield gets damaged, Kotama’s clothes get progressively more worn out, and I’m pretty sure drained of colour. Similar for a specific ability on cooldown, the colour of one of here clothes items turns white on cooldown, while it returns to dark purple/blackish when charged. Really nice design choice. The secret boss though? That I loved. Oftentimes I feel you can tell how much developers like their own game by the quality of the optional content, especially late game optional content. The secret boss in this game? One of my favourite in any metroidvania I’ve played. Easily top 5 optional end/post game metroidvania bosses I’ve ever fought. Great design, cool animations, wonderfully integrated into the extended storyline, and a challenging but not unfair fight. Yeah I got my butt kicked a few times, but I really loved the fight. Exceptionally well done execution.

The graphics are also pretty on point as well. While the game does take a…very fanservice-like view of the characters in the all girls academy you’re in, the art is well drawn and each unique character has their own theme in outfit going on. Additionally, while the different areas of the academy are somewhat similar in terms of base background, they are all enhanced by the unique theming for that area of the academy. Furthermore, the character animations are great. Everything looked really smooth, and none of the characters or enemies moved in an awkward fashion. Enemy types are pretty varied as well. While the game isn’t super long, clocking in at about 17 hours for me to get 100% completion, it also isn’t more expensive than the game is priced at, so I’m happy in that regard as well. 

Overall Kotama and Academy Citadel is a stellar addition to my extensive metroidvania collection. The combat is fluid and fun, exploration feels really rewarding, quality of life inclusions are very welcome without taking away from gameplay, the multiple weapon system is fun and rewarding, and character interactions and discovering the back story is exciting. I thoroughly enjoyed my time guiding Kotama to becoming the next Carmel Star, and I hope that you do too. I can’t wait to see what the next step for 2p games is after this.

Score: 9.5 / 10

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Keen: One Girl Army - Switch Review

Keen: One Girl Army by developer Cat Nigiri and publishers Phoenixx Inc. and 2P Games—Nintendo Switch review written by Richard with a copy provided by the publisher.

Estimated reading time: 6 minutes

Keen: One Girl Army is a weird combination of puzzle game and turn-based combat. A good kind of weird, mind you. A really interesting combination of sliding and fighting that spans multiple screens per stage, Keen certainly lives up to its name.

Raised in a village of warriors with a missing mother and mysteriously absent male figures, Kim, a rather precocious little girl with what appears to be training in the use of a glaive, is the next in line to defend her village from any outside threats or, heaven forbid, EVIL. After some weapons training in the form of a tutorial, Kim goes to prevent an invasion into her village by burning the only connecting bridge. Lo and behold, she ends up on the other side of the bridge. Deciding she wants to try and find out the source of the invasion and cut it off at the source, off she goes to confront EVIL!

Now, puzzle games generally take one of two approaches to gameplay: simple is better or every bell and whistle humanly possible. Keen has decided for the former, but has put all their effort into devising the puzzles for the game. Kim can only move in straight lines in the cardinal directions. I.e. she can only move up, down, left, and right. If she can pass through an enemy, she will deal two damage and stun the enemy. If she hits a wall or is blocked by an enemy, she will stop and attack in all four directions, dealing one damage and also stunning the enemy.

By the way, when I say she can move in four directions, I mean she doesn't STOP moving until she is forced to. You remember those sliding ice puzzles from Pokemon? Or any other games that have you slide in one direction until you hit a wall? Yeah, that's how this works. Your basic goal is to move from room to room, until you reach the end of the stage. There are many a puzzle to be solved, some are simply movement based, figuring out which order of directions will bring you to the room exit, some involve dodging murder lasers while invisible ninjas are trying to attack and pushing a block around so you can reach a breakable block to progress onto the next screen. Yes, I'm slightly bitter about that last one, no, I don't want to talk about it.

Enemies will only move after you've made your move, which is where the "turn-based" combat comes in. Essentially, if you make a move and don't attack an enemy, they will move a tile. If they move within attacking range, they will hit you. While enemies start doing very little damage, later in the game they will do a ridiculous amount of damage, so don't think you can just take the hits all the time. As you progress through Keen, you may come across some hidden temples by exploring the world map, which uses movement in the same way each individual stage does. These temples can give you extra abilities, such as a one hit shield to protect you from a blow, or a cross shaped attack that hits two panels away instead of one. These temples can be opened if you have enough orbs collected.

These orbs can be found either through specific stage rewards, which you will be told about when selecting a stage, or they will be hidden somewhere in the stage, either behind a puzzle or a hidden wall. Sometimes even both. Hidden walls are...reasonable to find, but rather tricky. There will always be an indication that there is a hidden passageway, usually denoted by extra light filtering in, but can be really tough to spot. Thankfully, the game tells you how many bonus orbs are in each stage as well.

As I did get all the orbs before writing this review, I can honestly say that some of the harder hidden wall orbs were in the first few levels, at least for me personally. The bonus objective orbs are generally easier to comply with, such as "collect all orbs" or "Complete the stage", but then there are the challenging ones like "don't take damage". Thankfully every room can be traversed without getting hit, it just takes either careful planning or a lot of trial and error. Extra point go to the devs for letting you restart from checkpoint while keeping the "haven't been hit" state, although you will lose any abilities you've used. A fair tradeoff I think.

The graphics have an animated sort of "cartoony" vibe to them, which rather suits the corny plot line that would be right at home for Saturday morning cartoons. That being said, you meet some rather quirky characters, such as the chief priest of a cult that's basically a scam, and a beaver with nipple rings. Yes, I'm very serious about that second one. His name is Mr. Beaver. He also makes a guest appearance in the credits. The soundtrack is also pretty good as well, giving some nice atmosphere to the different locations, and having a pretty exciting boss fight theme.

While Keen is pretty short, I feel like it's pretty adequate length given the price point. The game is simple, yet requires a lot of strategy and planning, stages are set up really well, and the progression in difficulty is steady and not jarring. Keen also some a few really good lines, such as when Kim mentions a boss has been taken over by EVIL, and their response is "I CAN QUIT WHENEVER I WANT". The "bonus ending" if you collect all the orbs and complete the last temple was also pretty well done. Normally I find gag endings to really fall flat, but Cat Nigiri did a really swell job on that hidden ending. For a group that I'm fairly certain consists of less than ten people, this was done really well.

Overall, Keen: One Girl Army is short, but a lot of fun with some really solid mechanics and well done puzzle building. With some quirky aspects yet simply gameplay, Keen is likely to give you a great puzzle solving, zombie slicing adventure. With plenty of hidden objects and bonus puzzles in the temples, Keen is a really good addition to your puzzle game library.

Score: 8.5 / 10

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Zengeon - PC Review

Zengeon by developer IndieLeague Studio and publishers 2P Games, PQube—PC (Steam) review written by Pierre-Yves with a copy provided by the publisher.

Estimated Reading Time: 5 minutes

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Having originally released early last summer, Zengeon is a flashy and pretty to look at Dungeon Crawling Roguelike RPG with some heavy anime inspiration. Coming out soon for consoles, I had the pleasure of running through its gauntlet of enemies and boss fights in an old school style of completing the game in one run. With the seal of the Blessed Land being broken, and the Demon God's return imminent, it's up to the students of the Celestial Academy to take up their weapons and fight their way to restore the seal.

Starting things off you'll have the choice of two characters in order to get this dungeon crawling started with others unlocked by achieving certain conditions. Single player or coop, each character has both a guardian spirit allowing them elemental abilities alongside their own combat styles from double swords to massive umbrellas. Combined with the ability to dodge, that's about everything needed in order to get the action rolling.

Things are pretty straight forward from here. Once you've selected your character you are treated to a short cutscene of the student you picked talking with their master telling you that the patch he was able to make on the broken seal won't last more than a few days. Being given the reason for the fighting, you are then brought into gameplay and you'll have to be quick on your toes if you're going to survive.

Zengeon isn’t easy but nor is it brutally hard like your typical Roguelike. Starting off every time at level 1, you will be running through a series of randomly generated stages through three diverse environments each containing their own epic boss fights. With each stage basically laid out in a series of rooms that need to be moved through to make it to the exit, there are tons of enemies to kill for experience points and for money that you’ll need to unlock ability shrines that give you two options in order to better customize your character.

The abilities that can be obtained through the shrines, and also from enemies if you’re lucky enough for them to drop, can be game changing and like the environments are different every time that you play. These abilities range from anything like dropping rocks on your enemies to leeching life or summoning minions to help you fend off the waves of enemies that charge at you once you’ve moved into a room. Having the choice when opening shrines is nice as it gives you a bit more control but while sometimes these can feel useless to your current build, they can be used at certain shrines as a bartering tool for others as long as you also have money for those trades.

Now while the stage layouts and secondary abilities are random every time, I’m not exactly sure Zengeon counts as a Roguelike because there isn’t much that you’ll be unlocking for your characters or your “account”. Completing the game with a character will unlock a new skin, completing it on hard will unlock skins for others, but short of that? There’s nothing that is unlocked for your next run other than the personal knowledge of knowing what kind of enemies you’re going to face and what kind of tactics work.

That said, where Zengeon really shows its teeth is in the fact that there is no saving, there are no checkpoints and there are zero second chances. You have to make due with what you pick up when you pick it up. On average? I would say that a full run if you’re not killing every enemy in sight could go for about thirty plus minutes as I could see on the leaderboards, however if you are going to kill everything in sight for the experience and a greater chance of winning will run you about an hour to an hour of fifteen minutes. It’s not that long in the grand scheme of things, but, since you can’t pause and you can’t save? You’ll want to make the time for it.

Side to all of the above is the secondary Guard Mode which can better be described as a Tower Defense. Playing out similarly to the story in terms of features, the difference here is that instead of going through stages, you'll be defending a central point from the waves of enemies that will keep on coming at you until the object you are defending has been destroyed. If you die however, you'll be put onto a respawn timer so the only way for this to end is for the object to be destroyed so having someone else along for the ride really helps if you fall in battle.

The adventure isn’t without its issues however. For some reason there wasn’t an option for Vsync so I did get some lines running across the screen now and then but it was never enough to be distracting. It would be nice if it could be added in though. What was an issue, especially when plugged into a TV for example with no mouse close by, is that trading abilities within the shrines couldn’t be done with a controller, I had to switch over to a mouse or a trackpad in order to get that done. Even when you were defeated, you had to click on the option to move back to the main menu so if this is releasing on the consoles, figure these will be resolved soon for the PC.

So all in all, Zengeon offers some quick fun for both you and a partner locally or online in both the standard Dungeon Crawling run or a type of Tower Defense. With multiple unlockable characters and some interesting gameplay mechanics, this anime inspired adventure is worth looking into if you’ve been looking for a challenge.

Score: 7.75 / 10

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