Full review of the action figure come-to-life, rogue-lite, bullet-hell shooter Yuki from Arvore on PSVR.
Yuki from developer Arvore brings an action figure to life in a bullet hell shooter but does it deliver a playtime favourite or get left on the shelf to gather dust. Let’s take a look.
First up thanks to the developer for providing me with a review key for the game but as always the opinions presented here are my own.
Arvore previously bought us the highly recommended Pixel Ripped titles, evoking childhood nostalgia for video games of years gone by and they continue that idea here to a lesser extent with nostalgia for action figures. The game starts in a bedroom full of Yuki merchandise and paraphernalia and sees a Yuki action figure coming to life. The novelty factor here is that you control Yuki throughout the game as though you’re holding a toy and flying them around using your hand. The concept of everything being set in a child’s imagination and playing with toys isn’t made much more of throughout the game itself but it sets the scene nicely at the beginning.
Gameplay consists of flying and shooting your way through a series of levels featuring waves of so-called Yokaliens and a boss battle at the end of every second level. Unusually it also takes a rogue-lite approach which means once you die it’s permadeath and game over but you get to keep certain power ups that you unlocked along the way. This means you’ll be replaying the same series of levels over and over but each time you play you should benefit from becoming gradually more powerful and by having more power-ups available to you with each run. It also means certain aspects of the levels are randomised each time so you’ll find some variation in the enemy patterns and obstacles with each run, however the levels themselves are linear A to B affairs. Some branching paths through the levels might have helped add some further variety but perhaps that’s something for a sequel.
It certainly lives up to the bullet-hell genre by assaulting your senses with a barrage of brightly coloured bullet patterns almost non-stop throughout. At first this may appear overwhelming but you gradually learn the different types of bullet patterns and the best techniques to deal with them. Something that soon becomes apparent is that you actually have to physically move around a lot to stand the best chance of survival and this is best played standing as playing seated, whilst possible, will put you at a disadvantage.
At your disposal from the offset you also have a temporary shield and a freeze bomb, both of which recharge slowly after each use. It’s essential to make use of these as they both provide valuable seconds of breathing space and can get you out of a tight squeeze. There are also powerups available to reduce the recharge times making them even more useful for later levels where things become more intense.
As well as the enemies and bullets you often find yourself having to manoeuvre Yuki through various obstacles and collapsing bits of scenery. It actually took me a while to get used to the fact that I didn’t have to avoid the bullets and obstacles with my own head, it just felt like natural instinct to do so! You also control your loyal sidekick Pod with your other hand but luckily they’re immune to any damage.
During play you collect creative drive which acts as currency at the end of each run allowing you to purchase new power-ups and charms. Purchasing a power-up doesn’t directly equip you with it but instead unlocks the chance to find it in a capsule during your future runs.
Dotted throughout each level you’ll find these capsules which, when touched, will put the game into slow-mo for a few seconds and offer up a random selection of unlocked power-ups for you to choose from. Another option is to bank some extra creative drive to allow you to purchase additional power-ups before your next run. This adds a really neat tactical aspect to the game, as you have to decide which power-up is going to benefit you the most at that moment in time. There were more than a few moments where I found myself frozen with indecision as to which one to choose! There’s a huge selection of power-ups to unlock including drones, missiles, increased fire rate and shot strength.
Between runs you can also purchase Charms. These differ to power-ups in that they are instantly applied to your character and are active throughout all future runs.
Finally, by reaching certain levels you can also unlock new bladewing suits. Each of these has different pros/cons such as the rate of fire, strength of shots and special features like heat-seeking bullets. You can switch between the unlocked suits before starting each run and you’ll soon settle on a favourite depending on your technique.
You’ll notice in the main menu there’s a greyed-out option for an Endless mode. This has recently been added to the PC version and will be coming to PSVR with a future update. It adds a new mode to the game where, as the title would suggest, you play through a single, increasingly difficult level to see how far you can get. A nice feature which extends the replayability beyond the main campaign.
The graphics are gorgeous with a brightly coloured cartoon style and some really great character design particularly on Yuki and the epic end of level bosses. I really liked the way Yuki animates as you move her around the screen as it really sold the illusion of moving a character around rather than just your hand. The levels themselves are also beautifully designed and quite varied. The regular enemies are slightly disappointing by comparison as although they’re well drawn they’re mostly just heads or shapes that don’t particularly animate but instead just float about the screen spewing bullets. Having said that, your focus when playing is really on the bullets so I can imagine having lots of animation on the enemies themselves would become a bit distracting. The various obstacles and bits of scenery that collapse in on you also look great and add to the 3D effect, at times reminding me of Starfox on the SNES.
The visuals are backed up by some great music and audio. Original music tracks add to the atmosphere with a mix of upbeat electronic pop, stirring strings and intense techno. I found myself humming the music from the first level several days after playing! There’s plenty of explosive sound effects and some limited speech at select moments, although it might have been nice to have a bit more spoken word for the tutorial and storyline.
Control is only via two Move controllers. The control scheme is simple with one hand controlling Yuki and the other controlling Pod, with the trigger button for firing and Move buttons for activating the shield and freeze bomb. There are no comfort controls but the speed of movement is slow so unlikely to cause motion sickness. The game can be played seated but as mentioned this puts you at a disadvantage when dodging bullets and obstacles and can get tiring on the arms after a while.
My main gripe with the controllers, and the game overall, is that there’s no rumble, at all. This means there’s no tactile feedback for bullets, impacts, power-ups or indeed anything, which slightly detracts from the concept that you’re holding an action figure. However not all is lost. I chased this up before putting this review together and have it on good authority that rumble will be added to the game in a future update, most likely arriving at the same time as the Endless mode, so keep an eye out for that.
Overall the game is very polished and beautifully presented. Your enjoyment may depend on how you feel about the rogue-lite approach of having to replay the levels over and over but personally I loved it and found myself losing hours to the just-one-more-go factor. It’s also well-balanced so that the progression and power up system keeps things interesting and helps you progress further with each play.
For the asking price of £15.99 Yuki provides a good amount of entertainment with a lot of replayability and is definitely worth taking out of the toybox.
