FUBUKI ~zero in on Holoearth~

[Peklo]

Steam
​

Hololive fan projects continue to pay dividends, as a frantic 2D action game starring Shirakami Fubuki of Hololive Gamers, by Team Ladybug regular composer Peposoft has been announced. I'm not sure whether this is primarily a solo developer situation, but the stylistic deviation from the Ladybug baseline is already apparent, while maintaining a core component of that aesthetic in the music, so I look forward to the shakeup from the norm. The outright stage selection is a different format to begin with, which creates hope that similar differences will be found in the approach to general game mechanics, as Ladybug proper definitely stick to their fundamentals.

 

[Peklo]

The demo for this is out during Steam's current Next Fest. After giving it a whirl, I'm absolutely stoked for it. It's a Mega Man Zero speedrunning mad dash par excellence, where getting through the stages is only half the point, with the rest of it concerned with how fast, elegantly, seamlessly and untouchably you can pull it off--not because of a particular ranking incentive or system that I saw, but because that's what the mechanics naturally push you toward and how the game is at its most fun to play. Chaining together dashes, wall-jumps, bullet cancels, charged shots, sub-weapons, helper summons and all the other nuances present creates a massively chaotic but always precise action game hypersensory overload that's just a joy to see unfold. I wasn't making many pre-emptive judgments about the visual aesthetic, but in person it totally sings too, with a distinct style from Ladybug and Krobon's games, toward something more eye-poppingly saturated and vibrant that to me in combination with the arcade-adjacent high-tempo and execution-focused play frame the game as almost a Saturn platformer out of time. There are not as many of those around comparatively, so there's a lot to look forward to here.

 

[Peklo]

This has been out for a bit and I've been playing. Play options-wise, you get a choice of Easy/Normal/Hard modes to start off with, with Hell difficulty unlocking after a clear. Independently of those, you can enable a fall helper, which I assume negates pitfalls or allows some kind of grace period, and you can fiddle with a damage scaler that ranges from as low as 10% damage taken to a massive 800% increase. Difficulties adjust the damage you take per hit, the health of at least bosses, the number and speed of projectiles, and the speed of boss patterns and attacks.

At a scale of an opening stage, four regular stages and a final stage, the game isn't running any of its scenarios to the ground through repetition because there simply isn't any time to, and that's a great feeling to have for something as hectic and hyperkinetic as this. As it is, ample diversity in layouts do get explored, with some stages emphasizing a more combat-focused gauntlet approach, and some intersperse via platforming either utilizing the fundamental dashing and wall-jump verbiage, or spice things up via rope and mesh wire-scurrying, or even a coaster ride. The final stage pulls out the most advanced maneuvers from the player in a way that's satisfying instead of a whimper on the way to the combat-oriented climax, so the conclusion feels very much like an earned culmination of all elements of play the game explores.

Bosses unfortunately stumble a little in execution, as their movesets are ultimately too limited for the length of time you're expected to interact with them and pile on the damage; an especially exacerbated issue the higher you turn up the difficulty, which turns the bouts into attritional marathons rather than explosive intermissions. The audio design is also at its worst during the encounters, as the voice clips from the related talent are played at obscenely frequent intervals, constantly overlapping itself in a spectacle of awkward cacophony (turning down the volume for voices is thankfully an option). It's not the sweatiest game imaginable, and I'd say only Hell might earn it that descriptor, but that challenge does at times threaten to manifest through jacked-up number values than more interesting design.

A great way to spend a few hours, I'm happy that the game turned out as it did and that the developers are able to continue working on it, with promises of an Extra mode with revamped stage layouts already having been made. The Frozen Theme Park is the prettiest stage of the lot, emblematic of that Saturn-core I made allusions to, whether the mind drifts to Silhouette Mirage or Cotton 2.