Core Awaken ~The Yuka~ is a 2D Action game set in a world where robots are starting to gain sentience and become aware of their slavery like place in life. To little surprise, they begin to rebel against the humans, which is where our protagonist Yuka comes in. Being a battle centered robot herself, she has been sent in to stop the leaders of this rebellion. We are thrown right into the action and must quickly become accustomed on how to hack & slash apart our mechanical foes with Yuka’s nifty beam swords.
There is little in the way of combos and can only attack up to three times in one go. On the flip side, we are given plenty in the way to follow up these short combos or create an opening with both our support weapon as well as Yuka’s abilities. Her fighting style is particular in that she is more akin to a ranged fighter, only grabbing onto her swords to strike. She has many more swords floating around her than her two hands can make use of, making them handy to weaken down a foe before being in striking range. It is possible to throw all your swords leaving her defenseless if you don’t pay attention however.
Yuka will gain plenty of other abilities aside from throwing her swords and recalling them throughout the course of the game. All of them will take up a varying amount of her energy meter, and if it gets low enough, she’ll be unable to use any until it recharges. Her secondary weapons are a much more straightforward thing to use. There are a decent amount of them to find as you play in the levels and all will simply have a bit of a cool-down before being available again. All of them are damage based with differing methods of use, such as leading enemies to a landmine or gaining distance to power slash foes from across the screen.
The final thing to take into consideration is her dashing. She can easily zoom across vast distances, whether she be on the ground or mid-air. This allows you to avoid a deadly attack or stop a ranged enemy before she has the chance to shoot. Combat has a good amount of depth contrary to its first impressions, and it only gets more interesting when you realize you can take control of a boss after you defeat them. There are six main missions overall, each containing a boss at the end if you manage to make it that far. If you manage to defeat her, you’ll take her back to your home-base and have to awaken her via a combat arena section in the digital world.
Once that’s done she is all yours to use, with each of them containing their own playstyles. They all have different basic attacks, abilities, and other quirks to them, such as some being unable to air dash. It’s pretty fun experimenting with each of them and setting up which of their four equip-able abilities you’ll want to have on hand. Spawn in a plant to attack from a range, put up an ice shield to stop projectiles and slow nearby enemies, or dive-bomb the ground to cause volcanic ruptures. Their abilities are very distinct from anything Yuka is capable of, and some even change the base gameplay up somewhat with their need to reload a gun or worry about overheating.
There is a leveling up mechanic in where you gain Money from completing missions and Material from defeating enemies. Everything you gain is accessible to all characters, though you do have to level up their stats and weapons individually. Using your main character then sending her to battle in the digital universe is a quick way to bring the rest of the group up to speed. Loot you get your hands on like weapon parts, or other equipable gear is shared as well. As an example, you get an item that massively increases your defense. You can then equip that single gear drop on every single character at once if you so choose. There are a lot of things to upgrade and tweak around with which does up the replay value, as does having eight unique fighters.
When you don’t feel like taking on one of the lengthy main missions and simply want to kill a few minutes, you have the sub-quests. These are short, simple tasks such as destroying all enemies in 60 seconds or defeating a difficult boss again. If you finished the entire game, you will then have the option to replay it in a new game plus mode with all of your unlocked content and characters. It also allows you to up the difficulty which ranges from Normal to No Future. There is also a ‘secret’ eighth character to play as for your efforts.
Core Awaken has an impressive amount of reasons to keep coming back to it and even has a demo on Steam to try out. Which brings me to why this has earned my R18+ moniker in its title. This was originally a hentai game, and there is a free uncensor patch on the developer’s blog. The Steam version scales back the lewd parts and makes it comparable to other fanservice filled anime games that are not straight up hentai. If you don’t care about the hentai aspects cut out, they are by no means necessary as the game certainly stands on its own. I just wanted to talk about it and view the whole package.
With the uncensor patch installed, you will notice many differences. Chief among them being that when an enemy grabs you, they have a random chance of sexually assaulting you. It makes the title slightly harder since the only way to escape from their grasps seems to be by using a secondary weapon if it is charged. Another thing you’ll notice are orbs scattered around some stages, that when collected show a portion of a hentai picture. Collecting them all will unlock an animated short story to give context to that picture. You will also unlock lewd CGs once you defeat a boss or are defeated by them, which are entirely absent from the censored version. The last thing it does is show complete nudity when your clothes are ripped off from the damage you take.
The story found here is quite interesting, though the poor English translation does it no favors. It is decent enough to be understandable, and punctuation, as well as grammar, is spot on mostly. Its issue lies in its wording. It improperly uses words and forms sentences in such a way as to require multiple double-takes to grasp the basics of what they meant. That is a pretty glaring flaw for a game containing as much text as this which is trying to tell a deep, complex story. By the end of it, I honestly had little clue what was going on and still haven’t the faintest idea what a “virgin circuit” is or does, despite how many times it was mentioned throughout.
Graphics as you can see, are underwhelming, to say the least. It is very reminiscent of the early 3D titles of the ’90s, though due to that it is effortless to run on just about any PC. The 2D artwork, on the other hand, is charming and adds some style to the game visually. Music is mostly fast-paced techno that fits well with the near nonstop fighting you’ll be doing on any given mission. You’ll be able to listen to the soundtrack once you’ve finished the game at least a single time, which is a nice touch. There is a decent amount of enemy variation that each have their own attack methods. They do pose a threat, though on occasions their AI is not great and you’ll see them trying to shoot you through a wall. Bosses escape this since you fight them in small, empty arenas where they navigate without worries.
Core Awaken ~The Yuka~ has its problems, but the core experience is enjoyable, and it gives you a ton of reasons to keep playing it. From the unique fighting styles of the eight fully upgradeable characters, to the multiple difficulty modes to play through it once again with more of a challenge, it will all likely hook you in. The levels from the digital universe are even randomly generated, granting even more things to do. It is a shame that the translation is so iffy since its story felt like it could have been interesting, though in its state, is more likely to leave you confused and wishing for a skip dialogue option. Regardless, it is an easy recommendation for fans of the Action genre looking for a title that packs a whole lot bang for the buck.
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