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Umihara Kawase Bazooka makes for a surprisingly fun single screen platformer

by Amr (@siegarettes)

• Umihara Kawase Bazooka
• Developer: Studio Saizensen, Success
• Publisher: ININ Games
• Switch, PS4, PC

When Umihara Kawase Bazooka was announced, I was skeptical. The franchise has had its share of left field outings and cameos–to mixed success–and I wasn’t sure that the series’ signature wire action physics would translate to the hectic pace of a platform fighter. Well, after a strange, staggered release, Umihara Kawase Bazooka is finally here on the Switch and I can confidently say that my concerns were mostly unfounded–at least as far as the singleplayer goes. 

Bazooka eschews the usual Arcade mode for a Challenge mode, where you face off against waves of enemies in single screen arenas. The time attack emphasis from its parent series is folded in here, with waves continually respawning until you either clear a set amount of enemies and pick up the required amount of score tokens, or run out of time. 

Certain enemies will require different tactics, asking you to learn one of the game’s various mechanics, but most of them will be dispatched with the titular Bazooka attack. By stunning and reeling in enemies with your line you can store them in your backpack, where they can be fired at high speed towards other enemies. Taking out several at a time will not only spawn score tokens faster, but create combo balls, which can be picked up and launched into other enemies to keep the combo going. 

The combo mechanics give Bazooka a very arcade feel, not unlike something like Bubble Bobble. At the start you’ll be focused on just surviving, but as you get more comfortable you’ll begin to see the patterns in how enemies spawn, and try to manipulate them to hit as many at a time with a single shot. It gives a great incentive to return to levels, seeing how fast you can clear the stage with more knowledge of the layout and enemy spawns. 

What doesn’t quite work is the series’ signature grappling physics. The bouncy grappling hook takes a long time to retract and build up speed, and is way more technical to use than you’d want in the heat of battle. It’s fine for combat, but navigating platforms smoothly is going to take a long time to get used to unless you’re already a series expert. Bazooka offers a few control options to mitigate this, but they also end up taking away some control from you and don’t solve the problem, especially when the huge, lumbering bosses show up. 

These issues can be mitigated by your choice of character, with each falling into a particular archetype and sporting two abilities to help in navigation and combat. Characters like Kawase can fire off items they can recapture for an instant Bazooka attack, while others might be able to leap across the stage or even fly. The skills bring a decent variety of styles to the table and give you alternate approaches to a stage when you get stuck on a particularly troublesome one. 

Eventually the stages ramp up in difficulty enough that you’re either going to have to get serious about mastering the finicky grappling hook, or call in a few friends for backup. 

And for obvious reasons, getting a couple people in the same room is proving kind of difficult right now, let alone ones who are willing to stick around long enough to start learning the nuances of the grappling physics. And without any option to play against the CPU, at least as of writing, I didn’t get a chance to try its versus component at all. I’ll be following up with a report on its online play at a later date, now that the game has properly been released and hopefully has been given time to populate. 

Until then, Umihara Kawase Bazooka is going to be a surprisingly enjoyable set of challenge rooms, with just enough to keep me coming back to knock down those times. It’s not enough to carry the game on its own, but it’s thought out for something that could have easily been a throwaway extra.