#Umihara Kawase Fresh

[video-witch]

Umihara Kawase Fresh has a character named Butt

[lesserknownwaifus]

Brenda from Umihara Kawase Fresh! (2019)

[mugiwaravt]

It is Thursday my dudes! Time for Umihara Kawase Fresh! Come check it out! uwu

[miloscat]

[Review] Cotton Fantasy (PS4)

Hit or miss.

The Cotton series by Success has a kind of cult classic status among shmups. There’s only a handful of games—this is only the fourth horizontal stg game in the series, not counting the two rail shooter instalments—but it’s a key component of the “cute ‘em up” subgenre, with its colourful looks, oddball enemies, and precocious witch protagonist. After a 20-year period of dormancy, Success has been working to revive the series recently with modern reissues, a remake of the original game, and lending out the character for appearances in Umihara Kawase Fresh and Bazooka. This collaboration with Saizensen led to the latter creating this game... and inserting their characters Luffee and Umihara Kawase as reciprocal guests, hence this being the epilogue to my series on grapple games that started with a Kawase sister game.

Now I’ve never been the biggest fan of shoot ‘em ups. They can be quite hostile to players who aren’t already diehards, or are intended to be played and replayed to memorise and master them, in order to aim for high scores and 1cc clears: not my style. This one threw me a bone by allowing you to respawn after a game over at any time with the only penalty being resetting your score (not an issue for my purposes). In fact, you come back fully powered up, which goes some way to avoiding the pitfall these games can fall into—even highly lauded classics—where any mistake is an insurmountable setback as it removes all your upgrades. With this one merciful dynamic, any novice can easily clear the game and see all the content, although they might experience frustration at constantly being knocked on their bum on the way there.

In the long tradition of scrolling shooters, this is a one-hit kill game. They’re not all like this, but... this one is, sadly for me. For fans of the series, it accrues mechanics from previous entries, and features the usual silly interstitial scenes in motion-comic style which are amusing, at least the first time (and for subsequent times you can zip through effortlessly with the handy skip button on R1). The tea-time screens are present and correct, and there’s even bonus stages which approximate the into-the-screen scrolling of my preferred entries Panorama and Rainbow.

Fantasy (known in Japan and on PC by the superior title Cotton Rock’n Roll) features the familiar “magic crystal” mechanic, similar to Twinbee’s bells where you shoot them to change their colour to stock up on particular powerups. You’re constantly shifting frantically between the three shot types, if not by grabbing another crystal then by expending a magic spell. In the rotation are also yellow crystals to increase your EXP meter and power up your shots, which charges up much too slowly for my liking and gets smacked down upon (my too-frequent) deaths. Spending any amount of mental energy on planning weapon types and gathering crystals would inevitably lead to me blundering into an enemy or bullet which come at you in a bewildering blur (depending on the stage). Some bosses also shift gears into almost bullet-hell style, made worse by the poor visibility of your small transparent heart which represents your vulnerable hit point.

A big feature of this is a selection of playable characters, which is sort of a returning feature from Boomerang (the Saturn conversion of Cotton 2, the fourth overall Cotton game... keeping up?). Some play quite similar to Cotton while adding a mechanic, like our beloved Kawase who has her grapple/bazooka. Others overhaul the whole game system in interesting ways, like Ria and Fine who are both references to separate Success shmups circa 2000. Note that Cotton’s fairy friend Silk is playable in the Japanese version but not patched into our release yet (if she ever will be?). Each of the five also unlocks a new stage from their home game when you clear story mode as them, which can then be selected during any subsequent playthrough. It’s a great way to expand the game and give some replay value as you find your favourite. For what it’s worth, the Kawase stage was enjoyable for me as a fan, set in the world of Fresh with a good variety of enemies and even a reprise of the final boss.

While I found some things to enjoy about this, I must say it didn’t convert me into a shmup fan. In fact it just reinforced that the genre still isn’t for me. I have had a decent time blasting through cute ‘em ups before, especially with the benefit of save states, and this provided a similar experience with its no-dramas respawning, but I’m not rushing out to re-evaluate Ikaruga right now or anything. However, I might just get around to some more rail shooters soon...

[crabsinvideogames]

Umihara Kawase Fresh!

The Crabpose boss also appears in the original Umihara Kawase, with a different design.

[tokiro07]

I finally figured out how to find a walkthrough for the secrets in Umihara Kawase Fresh!

I was a fool looking up “Umihara Kawase” when I should have been looking up “海腹川背”! Of course the Japanese community would post a walkthrough, they’re the only ones who’ve actually played the damn thing!

Here’s the playlist (link) if anyone is interested

[satoshi-mochida]

Umihara Kawase Fresh! releases today for the PS4.

[tinycartridge]

Umihara Kawase Fresh on Switch July 9 ⊟

I forgot there was even a new Umihara Kawase game -- or that it had a cute new visual style, or that Nicalis had announced plans to localize it. I’ve had a lot going on, okay? Anyway, I got to have several pleasant surprises in a row when the publisher announced a July 9 release date for the grappling platformer.

This time, the protagonist trades in sushi for burgers, and gets hungry for the first canonical time ever, with the addition of a hunger mechanic. This also means she gets the benefit of food:

Along the way, Kawase can use the lure to collect enemies and various food ingredients to store in her magical backpack. Combining ingredients with special recipes creates dishes that can be consumed to earn temporary special abilities, like jumping higher or being able to survive underwater for a longer time. The game also includes two additional playable characters: Cotton from the scrolling shooter Cotton: Fantastic Night Dreams and another storied character yet to be announced.

[flojocabron]

Something fishy is going on!

[bulgariansumo]

(Umihara Kawase Fresh!, 2019)

[nintendocafe]

Umihara Kawase Fresh! | $22.59 Buy-Now!

[stupjam]

Umihara Kawase Fresh concept idea

[gaygamer]

Video games rarely disappoint me so much that I walk away from them after just a few hours.

Well, I stumbled across two exceptions to that rule in 2019: Penny-Punching Princess and Umihara Kawase Fresh!

For more on how and why these titles failed to trip my trigger, as the old saying goes, check out this blog post of mine: “My biggest gaming disappointments of 2019”

[mugiwaravt]

Time for more hard core fishing action with Umihara Kawase Fresh! Let's goooooo!

[miloscat]

[Review] Umihara Kawase Fresh (PC)

The latest main instalment shifts the formula, with mixed results.

As I’ve been getting more into the Umihara Kawase series, the premise of Fresh interested me more. For one, there’s an actual story this time, with characters and dialogue! Also, rather than presenting a series of challenge rooms this puts the world in some kind of context, and has an open design. It’s sort of like the shift that happened with Super Monkey Ball Adventure, still the only one of those games I really connected with.

There’s parts of this approach that I really liked. Collecting ingredients is fun, although you end up stockpiling hoards of them in your bottomless backpack. They’re used to cook different food, more recipes for which unlock as you go, many of which give useful buffs (when I unlocked double jump I made sure it was almost permanently on). This ties into the health/hunger system, and it’s very nice not to die in one hit.

The game is still mission-based though, so you don’t really get to just explore the world. Also, many of the missions have you retreading over the same ground, so facing the same obstacles over and over can get dull. Still, the series’ central gimmick—the bouncy grapple lure—makes getting around a constant enjoyable challenge, and they’ve further refined it so it’s more possible than ever to pull off cool manoeuvres.

The story also gave me motivation to do every mission. There’s cute dialogue before and after each one with a series of adorable humanoid animals. There’s little relationship dramas, Kawase getting to know people better through her job as deliverer for the Return Pavilion, and the underlying intrigue of the seals and town’s history. Not to mention the mystery of why she’s there in the first place. To be frank, the game’s conclusion is a little vague and not everything is satisfactorily answered, but at least there’s a decent attempt at framing the character of Kawase and the strange dream world she finds herself in.

Apart from the 75 main game missions, there are time attacks if you’re so inclined and a set of much harder challenges, including remakes of the first and last levels of each of the three previous games. There’s also 7 missions each for the two guest characters: Cotton from Success’s series of shmups, and Curly Brace from Cave Story. It’s nice to have these cameos, and they have an extra ability each to shake up their playstyle slightly; you can also use them to mitigate the challenge missions, or even in main missions.

I bought the PC version, to avoid supporting Nicalis, but since their involvement is only with publishing the console ports Curly is only playable in those ports. They also did English localisation; the PC version only recently had one patched in, and Success’s effort is pretty unprofessional, a basic first-draft translation with no full-stops and those apostrophes with a space baked in. It’s fine though, it’s understandable. Either way you buy it is very expensive, so keep an eye out for a sale if you’re interested. And I do recommend it, as it’s probably the most accessible title in the series and the first one to feel like a full proper game rather than a charmingly odd tech demo (and I say that with a lot of love for the other games).

[ruuuranran]

umihara kawase

listen to the ost: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IM12xC1Sx1A&list=PLdNS0NBYWchW-wQFeOCu_q4iuYSr9EoUB