The fairly popular indie title Shutshimi: Seriously Swole has recently been released on the Nintendo Wii U after being released on the PlayStation 4 towards the end of 2015. Was it worth the wait for owners of the current Nintendo home hardware?
It’s clear from the start that there isn’t much to do in Shutsimi. The only modes available consist of several short levels put together to challenge players in different ways. To make it fairer on those not so skilled there is a “Guppy” beginner difficulty along with the normal difficulty. Earn an in-game achievement and a new difficulty setting that promises a tougher challenge becomes available. Those who want to tackle the few bosses encountered can do so with the Boss Rush mode.
Oddly enough, one of the best reasons to keep playing the title on PlayStation 4 is missing in this version. There is no support for online leaderboards for the few modes included in the title. This essentially means that even trying to get better scores is almost pointless, given that it’s not possible to compete against other players to see who can get the best scores.
Even the novelty of playing through mostly random levels, known as waves, starts to wear off after only playing the title a few times. The idea is that it’s interesting to play because of not knowing exactly what each wave has in store. In practice this does work to a certain degree despite the limitations set by the amount of content available. However, each of the waves is far too short to truly appreciate what is happening on-screen.
It feels like Shutsimi is trying to incorporate old school shooter elements in the mini-games genre. Unfortunately, it never quite manages to achieve the same frantic feeling that comes with playing the likes of those wacky mini-games found in the Warioware series and other similar titles. Instead it feels like each wave is but a fleeting trip that only lasts a few seconds.
There is some degree of control in what the next wave contains in the way of the Shoot Shop. This consists of a menu that appears for a few seconds in-between waves. The idea is that players are given the choice to pick one of three random items. These items range from weapons to power ups and some even possess the ability to change the environment. For example, one of the more amusing items turns the next wave into a bounce castle and makes the character invincible until the next wave. It’s truly a shame that the waves don’t last long enough to appreciate these items. Even if some of the items, such as weapons, last longer than one wave.
What the title does really well is in how it presents itself. In keeping with the quirky mini-games theme, it makes use of all kinds of bizarre images in an attempt to make itself stand out. Just the idea of controlling fish characters that shoot all kinds of weapons being held by muscular arms is already unique. It doesn’t just stop there as the development team adds other neat touches, such as the rather unusual descriptions for items found in the shop.
The retro visuals also fit in with the old school side scrolling shooter theme and make for a more authentic experience. It’s just a shame that the backgrounds are not very inspiring and it soon gets dull to look at them – sometimes the only changes between backgrounds in waves is the colour being used.
It doesn’t help that dying whilst playing one of the modes means having to start all over from the beginning. It just makes it more apparent how very little there is to do once the novelty of using the different items starts to wear off.
For those fortunate enough to have friends into gaming it’s possible for up to four players to shoot the likes of flying bears and sharks that shoot lasers. The controls work fairly well and this also applies to movement restrictions activated when using certain items. It’s also worth noting that the normal difficulty offers a decent challenge for the average player.
The fact that there isn’t a lot of content makes it difficult to recommend such a title as this. It gets repetitive far too quickly and the lack of online leaderboards is somewhat disappointing given the competitive nature of the shooter genre.
