{"id":20673,"date":"2020-11-02T00:01:31","date_gmt":"2020-11-02T00:01:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/?p=20673"},"modified":"2020-11-01T13:43:44","modified_gmt":"2020-11-01T13:43:44","slug":"umihara-kawase-bazooka-ps4-switch-pc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/2020\/11\/02\/umihara-kawase-bazooka-ps4-switch-pc\/","title":{"rendered":"Umihara Kawase BaZooKa! (PS4, Switch, PC)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>The Umihara Kawase game series has had quite a long history.\u00a0 It started back on the Super Famicom in Japan (SNES in the US).\u00a0 It never came out in the US then.\u00a0 In the game, you use a fishing line to hook and swing around platforms, similar to Bionic Commando.\u00a0 You can also hit and reel in fish-related enemies with your fishing line as well.\u00a0 The game was also known for being super hard, which has carried over into later games in the series.\u00a0 The first time the series reached the US was with Yumi\u2019s Odd Odyssey on the 3DS, which I reviewed way back in 2014<\/strong><\/a>.\u00a0 The main character also appeared in a fighting game called Blade Strangers<\/strong><\/a>!\u00a0 Other games have appeared in the US recently, like last year\u2019s Umihara Kawase Fresh!, which took a more open world adventure approach.\u00a0 But what happens when you mix the gameplay of Umihara Kawase with single screen arcade action games like Bubble Bobble?\u00a0 You get the newest game in the series: Umihara Kawase BaZooKa!\u00a0 It\u2019s available on PS4, Switch, and PC, but reviewed on PS4 here.<\/p>\n

Basic gameplay controls are very similar to the original game.\u00a0 You run around single screen mazes this time, and the goal is usually to defeat all the enemies.\u00a0 You can pick from over a dozen characters, some from the main game series and some from other games, like Cotton (a cute shooter starring a witch riding a broom).\u00a0 Every character has some sort of fishing line which you can use to navigate around the stages, but you can also double jump as well.\u00a0 When you reel in enemies, they\u2019ll be stored inside your backpack and when you press the button again, you\u2019ll shoot them out as bombs, hence the bazooka name.\u00a0 Defeat enemies using those bombs to perform chain reactions for more points.\u00a0 But be careful because the bombs bounce around and if they explode on you or other players, you\u2019ll take damage.\u00a0 Get hit enough times from enemies or bombs and you\u2019ll lose a life.\u00a0 Lose all your lives and it\u2019s Game Over.\u00a0 Up to four can play at the same time in any mode.<\/p>\n

There are a few modes of play.\u00a0 Challenge Mode has three types.\u00a0 Single player lets you tackle stages and bosses by yourself.\u00a0 It\u2019s really hard, but luckily you can start over at the last stage you left off on.\u00a0 There are also two multiplayer modes that let you challenge these stages with up to three others.\u00a0 In Friend Mode, you can work together, but in Rival Mode, you can damage other players so it\u2019s a fight to the finish to defeat the enemies in the stages.\u00a0 There is also a separate Battle Mode where you just fight the other players on levels using the same rules.\u00a0 And that\u2019s pretty much the game.\u00a0 The areas use the same graphics from the previous game in the series, so if you liked Umihara Kawase Fresh!, you\u2019ll enjoy this one, too.<\/p>\n

The only main problem I had with the game is the same problem I have with all the games in the series.\u00a0 It\u2019s just way too hard!\u00a0 Not only must you swing and navigate around stages using your rod and reel, enemies are also tough to beat.\u00a0 Not all of them can be reeled in with your rod, so you must figure out how to dispatch them.\u00a0 It kind of bogs down the otherwise simplistic and pick up and play nature of the game.\u00a0 But if you have a bunch of friends around who enjoy this series, and are up to the challenge, you may want to check it out anyway.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Kid Factor:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Umihara Kawase BaZooKa! is rated E-10 with ESRB descriptors of Fantasy Violence and Suggestive Themes.\u00a0 You can throw fishing lines and bombs at enemies and other players, but you only get knocked back with dizzy stars when hit.\u00a0 When you lose all your energy, an icon appears above you with text that says, \u201cDead,\u201d though.\u00a0 All the characters are presented in a short, squatty, cartoony \u201cchibi\u201d form, so I don\u2019t really consider that very suggestive.\u00a0 But one of the playable characters is supposed to be a scantily clad succubus, so there you go.\u00a0 Reading skill is helpful for the text, and younger gamers may find it too difficult.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Umihara Kawase game series has had quite a long history.\u00a0 It started back on the Super Famicom in Japan (SNES in the US).\u00a0 It never came out in the US then.\u00a0 In the game, you use a fishing line to hook and swing around platforms, similar to Bionic Commando.\u00a0 You can also hit and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":20657,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20673","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-game-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20673","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20673"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20673\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20676,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20673\/revisions\/20676"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20657"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20673"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20673"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20673"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}