This violence does have consequences however, because every questionable act of destruction increases the player’s negative karma, which will start turning the game into a creepier and creepier experience. This allows the blob to effectively eliminate all kinds of enemies, traps, even the rotating saws I mentioned, making the levels substantially easier. Soon enough the player realizes they can also shoot, this being technically a twin stick shooter. Lives are unlimited but dying puts the player back to the start of the level, with the changes that happened to the level already in place: so no recovering the extra time you already picked up once. Smaller blue dots give the player extra time, as a counter on top of the screen (starting at level 1 at 180 seconds) reminds players that they can’t just screw around for too long, they need to get moving. The player just has to control a dot from a top-down view, having to navigate between tight walls, rotating saws, fast-moving blocks that attempt to crush the protagonist who’s trying to reach the top of each level where the finish line is located. It does look pretty simple at first, in fact. After the player chooses whether preferring love or hate as a playable character (whatever that means at this point), the game shows itself as a mixture of the minimalistic obstacle courses of titles like The Impossible Game (with an added CRT filter that throws us back right into the 90’s), the mobility of a twin stick shooter and the chaos of a bullet hell shooter, without really inheriting the complexity or sheer difficulty of either. With that out ot the way, let’s dive into what exactly is Gaijin Charenji 1 : Kiss or Kill. And chances are your only chance of trying this game on Xbox One, because for a series of likely copyright infringements in the game (I’ll talk about this later) I don’t think this will stay on the marketplace too long, and will most certainly not reach Microsoft’s Game Pass subscription. I’ll refrain from spoiling nearly anything from the second half of the game and the one big spoiler I’ve put into the review will have a handy heads-up first. A huge part of the enjoyment I got out of the game was related to the discovery of basic gameplay elements and the shock value of the oddities throughout the campaign, so you may want to skip certain parts of the review if you plan on having the most ideal experience. The less you know about it, the more impactful its sheer absurdity is going to be. This article will inevitably have to spoil many of those elements, so if at any point you are pretty sure you’d play this game, against my own interests I’d tell you to stop reading and buy the game. I’ve had an incredibly surprising and shocking experience with Gaijin Charenji 1 : Kiss or Kill partially because I had no idea how the game will play, what the story is about, how such a game came to be, what kind of surreal surprises it throws at the player. I want to make an important premise before diving into the actual contents of the game. It didn’t take long to realize that what I was playing went beyond my wildest expectations. ![]() So after a long day of work, I sat down expecting a very peculiar game. ![]() The trailer on the page looked intriguing enough for my tastes: a psychedelic Japanese twin stick shooter that combines all kinds of retrogaming styles, cute music and disturbing imagery? For 7 bucks, sign me up. ![]() It just came out this past September so it isn’t even an old product. The name is Gaijin Charenji 1 : Kiss or Kill (with that exact punctuation), and it normally goes for 9.99 US Dollars or your regional equivalent, temporarily sold with a 30% discount leaving it at 6.99. This week I’ve laid my eyes on a game on sale I’ve never heard of before. As such, I enjoy looking at new releases, smaller Game Pass titles or games on sale to see whether there’s something that looks peculiar enough for a try, regardless of what reviewers are saying. I enjoyed Gears 5 and Forza Horizon 4 as much as the next person, but some of the most memorable experiences I’ve had in this generation of consoles were made by small teams with relatively minor budgets, who tried to break expectations by offering things we’ve never seen before in the past. I have a huge passion for independent games.
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