#The song itself though is actually not that hard- button mashing /works/ towards the end; almost better than actually trying

[inkandpaintsnowleopard]

The worst thing about Broken Strings is that I feel like it’s so hard to recommend to people. Like hey are you an FNF fan? Why don’t you play this incomplete demo mod. It’s centered around puppets. What puppets? Well Elmo is the main villain and- wait no it’s good though. He’s just Pibby corrupted so- no I swear it’s good. Oh, the songs? Yeah I have no idea what’s canon and what’s not. Yeah there’s only one playable song. No it’s really good though. Yeah it’s a whole 8 minutes but you can find the rhythm if you listen to it like ten times. Wait no come back- you haven’t even heard about the FNAF stuff

[shrimpin-b-simpin]

i kinda wrote some widowtracer fanfic for the first time so im gonna post it here. give me some feedback if you want. 

She was about two seconds away from murdering her. But then again, she always was. Lena’s incessant bantering had plagued her for far too long. On many occasions it almost drove her to a premature completion her task. The day would come when her orders were given but for now she was required to deal with the annoying, British imbecile.

“Hey now, look. I’m not saying that you can’t do what you love as a profession, but trying to make money from playing video games is pretty dumb.” The girl gave Amelie a cocky look that dared her to challenge.

She glanced over where Lena was sitting, and gave her most evil glare. “I make money by being here. Therefore I am making money playing video games. Now do shut up.” She had to focus on the enemy in front of her. She couldn’t risk losing the match. This was her first tournament where victory meant she could win real compensation. She flicked her arm and clicked on the mouse while mashing buttons on the keyboard. Another clean headshot.

Lena let out a groan and started rapping her fingers against the wall. Over the course of a week Amelie learned how hard it was for her to sit still and be quiet. The annoyance was like a high maintenance puppy; she requires constant attention if you don’t want to deal with her getting into trouble. Amelie had never owned a dog. She wasn’t for the idea of having something that cannot help itself.

Yet here she was, a trained assassin, forced into this highly undesirable mission because she was still a newcomer in her field. One day she would work her way up the ranks until she was the one giving orders. The schmuck that continued to underestimate her and give her these horrid assignments would find himself employed at K-Mart. Or dead. One of the two. Retail jobs and death are about equivalent. The notion made her grin as she picked off another enemy in her game.

For now she had to deal. She had originally been stationed as Lena’s bodyguard while her father was away doing business. He had been in close company with her organization for years doing whatever it was he did. Something with weapons. She didn't know the specifics, and why would they tell a grunt like her? All she knew was that while he was away plans had changed. He apparently failed to deliver what he promised, and if the deadline were to expire then her orders were to take out the girl. He had only a couple of weeks. Good enough incentive to get him going. He seemed like a nice guy who cared about the girl; enough to get in trouble with one of the most dangerous group of criminals.

Of course Lena was unaware of the truth. Incidents like these had been a constant occurrence in her life. Her father had fed her lies about what he did so he would still look noble to his precious daughter. On the day he left he told her: “I have a very important job therefore I make lots of enemies. But don’t worry about me I have good people keeping me safe. The same people who will be keeping you safe while I’m away.” His words were a complete fabrication. And due to the abnormality of her father’s work life the girl never had a typical childhood. She was raised more so by nannies and bodyguards than by her father. He had been absent approximately eighty percent of her life. And her mother had been gone the whole eighteen years. Of course the only reason Amelie knew all of this was because the little parasite could never suppress her constant need to jabber.

So it was no surprise when Lena started singing. It was from some awful, dramatic musical she had been watching the other day.

  Mon Dieu. Does she ever shut up?“Silence you leech!” Amelie was trying hard to focus on her game. It was a tie at the moment and she was desperately trying to fix that.

Lena paying no mind started to increase in volume. “DO YOU HEAR THE PEOPLE SING? SINGING THE SONGS OF ANGRY MEN!” She let out a chuckle in the middle of the song, knowing the frustration she was causing, before she started up again. “IT IS THE VOICES OF A PEOPLE WHO WILL NOT BE SLAVES AGAIN.”

Lena observed from her position as Amelie tried her hardest to concentrate. Her callous look intensified as Lena grinned. Then suddenly she saw the character on the screen die, which led Amelie to cry out in fury. She told her teammates through the headset to cover for her but it was too late. Everyone was dead. The enemy quickly captured the objective and in big bright letters the word Defeat spread across the screen.

That was when Amelie snapped. She rotated her chair away from the screen and towards Lena. A malicious grin splayed across her face as her hands hardened into fists. In a calm tone that did not match her demeanor she breathed, “I am going to kill you.”

That was all it took for Lena to sprint out of the office. Amelie pushed herself up out of her chair and quickly followed in pursuit. The girl had almost made it down the hallway when she slipped on the hardwood floor. Fuzzy socks were not good running shoes. The assassin was right there on her. Lena tried to scramble back onto her feet but it was too late. Amelie had pulled her up by the back of her shirt and slammed her against the wall.

The girl yelped in pain and looked up, terrified into Amelie’s murderous gaze. “You can’t kill me cause that’s like the opposite of your job.” She stammered. She tried to move but the assassin tightened her grip.

“Oh really? The opposite of my job? My job does not consist of dealing with your constant BS. I am not required to be your dumb little therapists and listen to your incessant, childish squealing.” She knew that her words were cutting into the girl like knives. With added venom she spat, “I am not your friend. I am only here to make sure that no one kills you.”

“No one is going to kill me! No one is ever gonna kill me!” Lena pushed her tormentor off of her and continued. “My father doesn’t even care about me and all he does is stick me with you people all the time. If he actually knew what I needed he would know that I don’t need to be babysat-”

“What do you not understand when I said that I don't care? Go plague someone else.” She turned and began walking back down the hallway towards her quarters.

“I don’t have anyone else to plague because no one lets me go anywhere or make any friends!”

“I DON’T CARE!” She slammed the door behind her making the valuables on the shelfs tremble. She threw herself onto the bed that did not belong to her. Being an assassin should not involve being a babysitter. The girl was a legal adult anyways. Amelie wanted to break something, someone, shatter a collarbone. The vase on the wall would have to do. She grabbed it from its home on the shelf. It was ornate, covered in the symbols of some ancient civilization and encrusted with gold. But it wasn’t in her hand for very long. She launched it as hard as she could at the adjacent wall, causing it to shatter, bringing great satisfaction to Amelie in her aggravated state. She had doubted that anyone would care about its absence, but sound of hurried footsteps indicated otherwise.

“What the hell was that?” Lena inquired through the door.

Amelie responded, “A metaphor.”

“What?”

“A Metaphor for what I will do to you if you keep messing with me, imbécile.”

“Hmm. I see. Your French voice is pretty.” Lena shuffled outside the door then leaned her back against it.

Are you joking? This job was an actual nightmare. Amelie tried to dwell on the hopes of promotion but that was difficult with Lena making noises outside her door. After about a minute had passed she asked, “Why are you still there?”

“Cause we’re friends.” Lena giggled, “You're just mad cause you’re bad.”

“First of all, no. Second of all, no. I lost because you are the world’s biggest annoyance. I would like nothing more than to end you.”

“It’s just a game bro.”

Amelie groaned into the expensive bed spread. This was going to be a long three weeks. She stealthily stood up and walked towards the door, careful to make sure that Lena wouldn’t notice. Then she reached out towards the handle and yanked the door open as quickly as she could. On queue Lena fell backwards, landing on her butt. She swore loudly then glared up at Amelie.

She looked down at the little disaster. “You’re just mad cause you’re bad.” She mocked.

It seemed as though the bothersome brit didn’t know how to respond to what had just happened. Lena just sat there quietly, with a contemplative look on her face.

Amelie went back to the bed and began looking at her phone, thinking that perhaps the matter had been settled. As long as Lena wasn’t making noise or bothering her she didn’t care what she did.

Eventually the girl on the floor spoke up. “You know, I have never had a bodyguard like you. You pretend to be impassive yet you are so easily moved to emotion. I guess that’s why it’s so fun to piss you off.”

The assassin acknowledged her with a grunt and pretended to be more interested in her phone.She knew that Lena would be the most interesting, yet deserving person she would kill, if it came to that. She might even regret murdering her. Might.

“The best part about it though is that now matter what, you don’t actually get to kill me.” Lena joked as she layed on the floor.

That’s what you think Chérie.

[operationrainfall]

Title Kawaii Deathu Desu Developer Pippin Games, Top Hat Studios Publisher Eastasiasoft, Top Hat Studios Release Date April 16th, 2020 (Switch); August 30th, 2019 (Steam) Genre Action, beat’em up, fighting, arcade Platform Nintendo Switch, Steam Age Rating Teen Official Website

What happens when you take GWAR and make them cute monster girls instead of alien warlords? Kawaii Deathu Desu is a start. Developed by Pippin Games and Top Hat Studios, KDD (as it’s affectionately referred to in-game) is a fast-paced beat’em up button masher in the vein of One Finger Death Punch. Nine adorable supernatural beings have found themselves incarnated as Japanese idols, and have decided the best way to lay claim to the throne of the underworld is to kill as many of their fans as possible. Whoever reaps the most souls wins. Pretty straightforward, honestly. And like GWAR, the fans are more than happy to throw themselves on stage to be slaughtered by their idol overlords. (Fun fact: I was killed by GWAR once. They sacrificed me to the Meat Grinder. It was a blast, and thankfully I recovered.)

Death-chan is your default idol and she’s a pretty fun introduction to the game’s simple but addictive mechanics.

Each of the girls has a unique moveset, though they generally fall into one of two camps: a mid-range melee or a short-range melee. For instance, Death-chan, the game’s default monster girl, wields a scythe that has some decent range on it. When she activates her special, she conjures a much larger scythe, extending the range of her melee attack across half the screen while retaining full mobility. On the other hand, Emmy (my monster girl of choice for the majority of my playthrough) is a brawler who uses her hands and feet to beat her fans to a pulp. Her special plants her in the center of the screen and she spits zombie bile at her approaching zealots who are slowed down by corpse hands rising from the floor. The rest of the girls follow similar patterns with different weapons.

Since each idol is locked except Death-chan, here’s your options: Death-chan, Emmy, Suu, Mary, Elysa, Abigail, Gummy, Ruka, and Mira.

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I played a review copy on the Nintendo Switch for about six hours, and the controls were very, very responsive. You use the left and right bumpers to attack in their respective directions, and every tap had my girl turning on a dime to maul whichever poor soul had ventured too close. The tight controls were great, especially in later levels and when tackling hard modes, because the fans come fast and often. Unlike One Finger Death Punch, where you’re penalized for button mashing, Kawaii Deathu Desu pretty much requires it, though you can make breathing room for yourself by focusing on one side of the screen and only turning around to take out faster-moving fans as they approach. At other times it’s just a mash-a-thon to keep them from touching you, which is actually kind of exhilarating.

The more fans you kill, the more your special gauge fills up and you can unleash particularly devastating attacks. Early on you’ll see this rarely and it doesn’t offer much help, but later on it can mean the difference between life and death. To trigger the special, you have to hit both left and right bumpers at once. I almost always triggered it without meaning to because of how rapidly I was weaving back and forth. While not terrible, it did end up feeling like there was no way to strategically use my special. The game is also on Steam, and this issue might not come up when you’re using a keypad or mouse, but on the Switch I’d almost rather it be automatic once the bar fills.

Gummy’s special move envelops her in a ball of goo and she attacks oncoming fans using tendrils from the floor.

What’s nice about the controls is how easy the game is to pick up. There’s virtually no learning curve, and the pop aesthetic of the game itself is very inviting. My nine-year-old was able to pick up a Joy-Con and play with me without any hassle. What is a hassle is the fact you cannot remap the buttons on the Switch. I almost exclusively used a Pro Controller when playing, and my fingers would ache after about 20 minutes. Playing in handheld mode on the Switch itself was even worse. Constantly mashing your index fingers on the tiny bumpers made for a painful gaming session, and KDD is incredibly grindy. Playing PVP isn’t any better, as the game forces you to use individual Joy-Con, to which even my son felt the buttons were too small to play comfortably. (As an addendum, you can remap buttons on the Switch itself, though you cannot make it game-specific – or rather, I couldn’t figure out how if you can. This is a workaround if you intend on having long gaming sessions, but it’s cumbersome. Ideally, I’d prefer being able to remap in the game itself.)

The game suffers from a few other quality of life issues, the least of which is that confirm is mapped to the B button. As any Switch owner can tell you, confirm should be mapped to the A button, and it throws me for a loop every time. The UI is pretty cumbersome as well, and nothing aggravates me more than when I back out of a level to move on to another and it knocks me all the way back to the character select screen. When working your way through the game, you also cannot access the Hard or Insane modes until playing each Normal stage three times. It felt needlessly gatekeepy. The game also lacks any sort of information guide. Your monster girl has multiple stats you can level up using souls, but none of those stats are explained. Some are easy to infer (Life, Block), but others aren’t so straightforward. I think Magic is how long your special lasts? But I’m not sure.

I also stumbled across what I can only assume is a glitch. KDD has achievements for each character, which are nice motivators to keep playing. One of them is leveling each character to her max level. I maxed out Emmy at level 10, but her achievement says I’m still only 77% of the way toward the goal. It’s not a deal breaker or anything, but it does irk me a bit.

I’m not entirely sure why this says I’m only at 77% when my Emmy is maxed.

Speaking of souls, everything in KDD relies on them. Leveling up a character? Souls. Unlocking a new monster girl? Souls. Buying outfits for your idol? Souls. As far as I can tell there are no micro-transactions to be seen in the game (thank goodness!), so I expect some grinding, but coupled with how painful it is to play for extended periods, that grind feels interminable. As it is, I was able to level Emmy and unlock each idol, but never bothered leveling up anyone else or going for outfits.

One of my favorite aspects of the game was the music. This is a chiptune lover’s paradise. The game is broken up into four countries with three venues each: Japan, China, America, and Brazil. Each country has a distinct sound, which I really liked. Some of the tracks are absolute bangers (my favorites were “Tashite,” “Oturan,” “Fruity Dance,” and “Na Town Pongster”) but there are several that didn’t leave much of an impression on me. I do wish though that a game focused on idols had done more with that concept musically. With so many characters, I’d have loved to see character songs or boss levels that showcased each girl’s style of music. What we got was good, it just feels like a bit of a missed opportunity.

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Kawaii Deathu Desu is a fun time waster that would really benefit from some quality of life changes. (My soul for a button remap option!) For someone looking for a quick, simple gameplay experience, you can’t really go wrong picking it up.

KDD is available on Steam for $3.99 USD (or $4.99 if you also want the soundtrack), and $4.99 on the Nintendo eShop.

[easyreview cat1title=”Overall” cat1detail=”” cat1rating=”3″]

Review copy provided by the publisher.

REVIEW: Kawaii Deathu Desu Title Kawaii Deathu Desu