VGC’s BitSummit Sport of the Present is Sonokuni, a J-Hip-Hop gem impressed by Hotline Miami

Throughout this 12 months’s BitSummit occasion, I interviewed three of the unique builders behind the Chibi-Robo collection, together with composer Hirofumi Taniguchi.

I requested Taniguchi how he was approaching the composition of his soundtrack for koROBO, the crew’s new robotic recreation that positively, truthfully has nothing to do with Chibi-Robo.

Taniguchi informed me that though music know-how had improved within the practically 20 years since Chibi-Robo, and though his personal talents as a musician had developed, he intentionally determined to pare again the koROBO soundtrack and supply one thing less complicated and gentler.

“Typically easy is healthier,” he mentioned. And I instantly considered Sonokuni.

It definitely wasn’t the primary time I had considered Sonokuni since I’d performed it on the primary day of BitSummit, and it was to be removed from the final. Though at first look, the sport might not seem notably groundbreaking, it’s been on my thoughts because the pay session ended.

Sonokuni is printed by Kakehashi Video games, however it’s the developer that’s the actual story right here. Don Yasa Crew is a Japanese hip-hop outfit that’s extra used to dropping new beats than new builds, however Sonokuni is its try at making a online game that makes use of its music.

I briefly spoke to Don Sagawa, who was representing the crew at BitSummit, who informed me the sport was initially impressed by Hotline Miami, and the top-down viewpoint makes that fairly clear. It doesn’t play the identical, nevertheless.

The principle precept of Sonokuni seems to be trial and error, as gamers be taught the easiest way to clear every space. The part we performed consisted of a big map full of small rooms, every containing quite a few enemies. When you enter a room, the door to the subsequent one can’t be accessed till each enemy is defeated.

Your primary sword slash is sufficient to kill most enemies with one hit, however they don’t all simply stand there and provide you with a free shot. Each enemy must be overwhelmed utilizing a distinct method, and you’ve got a number of different methods up your sleeve to take care of them.

Some enemies must be killed inside a sure time, or they’ll immediately kill you with an ideal shot, so these are the precedence. Standing in the way in which could also be normal enemies who can simply be slashed, or inexperienced enemies who sprint at you at lightning pace. These are averted by holding down a set off to briefly decelerate time, permitting you to sidestep them then hit them whereas they recuperate.

Then there are enemies who fireplace blue pictures at you, which must be absorbed by your defend earlier than you may method. Others pink pictures at you – if you happen to method them they’ll block your sword and kill you each time, so it’s important to use the sword to hit their pink pictures again at them to kill them.

It’s nothing revolutionary, however once you enter a room and there are one thing like seven or eight enemies, all of a mixture of these varieties, you’ll get worn out virtually immediately. It’s an excessive amount of to deal with abruptly.

Then you definately cease and assume. “Properly, once I enter the room, the traditional enemy comes at me, so I’ll take him out first”. So that you do this, and as you do, a kind of quick inexperienced ones zips over to you and kills you.

So that you attempt once more, killing the traditional enemy, then shortly hitting slo-mo to side-step the inexperienced one. However as you chase him down whereas he’s shocked, you’re hit by a blue bullet. So now it is advisable take all this under consideration.

Lastly, in your seventh or eighth try at an ideal path via the room, you kill all of the enemies… solely to grasp there was a time-sensitive one within the nook who kills you immediately. Then it’s important to rethink your whole technique, understanding it’s important to transfer in direction of that enemy first.

This may increasingly sound infuriating, however the fight is so satisfying, and the sport is so acutely aware of the participant’s free time that it by no means actually is. As quickly as you die you hit a button and spawn proper on the door to the room, there aren’t any lengthy checkpoints it’s important to play via once more. It’s a die, attempt, die, attempt system and it nails the ‘yet another go’ vibe with gusto.

Then, on prime of all this, there’s the small matter of a dirty, gritty J-hip-hop soundtrack blasting on loop within the background.

When all of it combines, and also you lastly handle to drag off an ideal run with the bass thumping and Japanese rapping ringing round your ears, you’re feeling cool as all possible hell.

“When all of it combines and also you lastly handle to drag off an ideal run with the bass thumping and Japanese rapping ringing round your ears, you’re feeling cool as all possible hell.”

Certainly, not solely did the sport win the VGC Media Spotlight award at BitSummit (primarily the bodily model of this text), it additionally picked up the Excellence in Sound Design Award, which was determined by a totally separate occasion. So it wasn’t simply me!

There have been significantly better trying video games at BitSummit this 12 months (Goodbye Seoul was stunning, and a really shut runner-up for our Sport of the Present). There have been video games that had extra authentic mechanics and tried to do one thing that had by no means been seen earlier than in a recreation. I loved each single one of many 30 or 40 video games I performed over all the three-day interval.

However generally, as Chibi-Robo’s composer put it to me, easy is healthier. And as I walked away from the occasion’s venue after its third and remaining day, it was Don Yasa Crew’s recreation that continued to linger in my thoughts, and should proceed to take action till the complete recreation is out later this 12 months.