Shikhondo – Soul Eater is a rather beautiful bullet-hell that takes its inspiration from Asian demons & folktale. Be aware that I am playing the Switch port of the game & that this is available on PC, along with PS4 & Xbox One.
Starting off the game greets you with a nice looking menu & awesome music, but at the same time, it hits you with its inverted menu controls. A minor but annoying quirk. That aside, you’ve got your standard SHUMP choices of Arcade, Boss Rush, Hard Core & Novice gameplay modes. Arcade & Boss Rush are self-explanatory. Hard Core, of course, is for the baddest of bullet-hell badasses, pitting you on a 1 Life journey through the game, get hit & it is Game Over. Lastly, there is Novice… I for the life of me couldn’t figure its gimmick & its Asian inspiration goes a bit too far with the vagueness that is found in a fair amount of DRPGs. In any case, those that have a buddy nearby can partake of local co-op or alternatively customize some gameplay aspects with the Customize mode.
Once a mode & difficulty is picked you’ve got your choices of 2 characters, Grim Reaper & The Girl. No frills when it comes to deep lore, just pick a character & go shoot stuff. As expected each plays differently with the Grim Reaper’s normal shots being wide & her focused shots being, well focused. The Girl’s projectiles are linear and she has 2 small orbs that follow her around shooting bullets that possess some slight homing. Her focused shots have the orbs physically move towards the enemies & focusing their shots. Lastly, you’ve got standard screen-clearing bombs & a “hyper” mode in which your bullets deal more damage & at the cost of a bomb can even be super-charged. Simple.
Shikhondo is a beautiful game as mentioned, but sadly a price is paid with enemy variety being minimal, & compared to the amazing backgrounds & bosses, just looking lackluster. Another minor flaw comes with the Grim Reaper’s deep purple/black shots blending in with some of the dark backgrounds of later stages. This dark color also affects enemies as they explode & bombs, which in a game about precision, obscuring your vision can spell death. Audio-wise, the soundtrack is top-notch & I loved how they change up when facing a boss’ 2nd form to signify the bigger sense of danger. Sound effects, on the other hand, were lacking. Activating your “hyper” mode should sound explosive & powerful but sadly it does not.
Performance on both docked & handheld mode was nice & smooth. The game sadly lacks a TATE mode or any other sort of options outside of turning off BGM & Sounds, as well as choosing between English, Japanese, Korean & Chinese text. Controls cannot be remapped, which with the Joy Cons default mapping, felt off to me. Using a Pro controller would be my recommendation to solve this, but ultimately I would have loved the option to remap.
All in all Shikhondo – Soul Eater is an easy to pick up bullet hell for novices & veterans alike with a fair amount of little annoyances that add up but don’t stop the game from being outright unplayable. Its lovely art & awesome music along with its decent gameplay certainly trumps those annoyances but of course not having them in the first places would have been so much better. The game is available on PC & all 3 current consoles so no lack of choices when picking it up on a sale, which I certainly recommend.
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