Umihara Kawase BaZooka! Demo available now from JP Switch eShop

[sol-alpha]

eShop link: https://ec.nintendo.com/JP/ja/titles/70010000027144

The demo is available now.

Full game details are as follows:

Umihara Kawase BaZooka!
Price: ¥3,080 (Currently has a 10% off preorder discount)
Language options: Japanese, English, Korean, Chinese (Simplified) and Chinese (Traditional).

File size: 1.3GB

Screenshots and Credits:

[sol-alpha]

Looking at the credits, it's the same directors from Umihara Kawase Fresh! i.e. Toshinobu Kondo and Kozi Nakazima.

Kiyoshi Sekai who created the first three games in the series (Umihara Kawase, Umihara Kawase Shun and Sayonara Umihara Kawase) had only a Support role in Umihara Kawase Fresh! And then in Umihara Kawase BaZooka! He is listed nowhere in the credits which means he had no involvement in the game.

[KawaseFan]

I suppose it's to be expected that Kiyoshi Sakai would not be involved with BaZooKa, given that, as you say, he only had a supporting role with Fresh; and BaZooKa being the type of game that it is, intricate level design probably takes somewhat of a backseat to the battle mechanics.

Anyway, have you played the demo?  If so, what do you think of it?

[sol-alpha]

Anyway, have you played the demo?  If so, what do you think of it?

I assume the appeal of the game is from the multiplayer which I haven't tried. (There's no CPU vs option)

The single player mode consists of catching enemies and shooting them back out at other enemies in a chain to get a high score while beating them. I tried to get into the high score aspect but the gameplay wasn't appealing to me.

[KawaseFan]

I assume the appeal of the game is from the multiplayer which I haven't tried. (There's no CPU vs option)

The single player mode consists of catching enemies and shooting them back out at other enemies in a chain to get a high score while beating them. I tried to get into the high score aspect but the gameplay wasn't appealing to me.

Thanks for the impressions!  The demo sounds a bit underwhelming, unfortunately.  I certainly wouldn't expect a demo to have online or potentially even local multiplayer, but if multiplayer is the main appeal of the game (which, from all we've seen so far, it is), and the demo doesn't at least have an option to play vs. CPU players, it doesn't make for a great demo.  Still, at least there's a way for people to try out the game in some form before buying, I suppose.

[Drifter]

https://psnprofiles.com/trophies/10555-umiharakawase-bazooka

Seems like the only single-player content is the 40 stages. Not sure if there are huge differences between the characters in terms of movement since the demo only allows you to play as Kawase, but I can't imagine there to be drastic changes outside of specials. I didn't use my super at all clearing world 1 and just kept spamming hamburger to heal and acorn when I couldn't reach any projectiles. Movement appears to be the same with Fresh except you have access to a double jump at all times.

The real draw appears to be the multiplayer. Who knows how the netcode is though, I can't imagine it to be optimized for outside of Japan.

Hopefully this does well enough for the studio to continue making more games. For a niche series like Umihara Kawase, you gotta take what you can get.

As to where Kiyoshi Sakai went, it all seems pretty quiet on his end as far as I can muster with Google translate. Who knows if he's even still in games development.

https://twitter.com/sakaigamedev
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5W_tOx_RO83OshVujTl2Nw
http://www.sakaigamedev.jp/

[texh]

I've had the "pleasure" to try 2 player mode but honestly the most fun thing was swinging of each other which made me think about how cool it would be to have 2 player stages in Umihara.

The game itself doesn't seem very competetive although Kawase is the only playable character so things could change. Definitely skipping this one, I'm sure the inclusion of japanese minecraft youtuber as playable character will boost the sales though.