Publisher: Rising Star Games | Developer: Qute | Platforms: PlayStation 4 (Reviewed), Xbox One, PC | Code Provided to We Got Comms for Review Purposes
Natsuki Chronicles is a short gauntlet of a game depending on how well you play. If played poorly, it can be very grindy when you continue to rinse and repeat the same stage over and over. There is a full arsenal of weapons and shield types at your disposal — even if I found 75% of them were useless for me and I wasted credits hoping they would be more powerful than what they turned out to be. I was never able to complete a level at first try with the starting health bar and found it most feasible to survive a stage at about 10 extra shields with a comfortable loadout. But I kept going back knowing that I was getting progression every step of the way. The narration has Anime Cliché written all over it and is, unfortunately, difficult to follow the plot when the voice acting is all Japanese and you’re in the middle of a mission. Having to juggle reading and not getting shot in the process with no English audio setting was a bit frustrating. Otherwise, Natsuki Chronicles is a good side scrolling shoot ‘em up with plenty of replay value. It’s a solid experience overall and I wouldn’t mind other installments in the series.
7/10 – Good
On the Cutting Room Floor…
Remember the Classics
Natsuki Chronicles provides an alternate arcade mode…and I got exactly what I expected. It’s a simple survival playthrough of the same stages provided in story mode. I do recommend playing through the story mode first as it helps to learn the weapons and level layouts.
It’s reminiscent of retro arcade shooters like R-Type and Gradius: all you have are the floating power-ups that you can collect within the barrage of bullets and destroyed enemies while you pray to God that a stray bullet doesn’t kill you. No time to practice and no time to study enemy patterns because you only have a few lives and only as many shields as you’ve collected in your run — but that’s what it’s all about!
We Got Comms! 