Shikhondo Soul Eater Is A Delicious Low Stakes Bullet Hell Experience – Review (PS4)

Shikhondo Soul Eater is a bullet hell shoot ‘em up set against the backdrop of Asian Mythology. Like most games in this genre, the story takes a back seat to the action. So unless you’re well versed in Asian culture, most of the story elements will be lost on you.

Gameplay

Like most shoot ‘em ups, Shikhondo Soul Eater is a vertical shooter and you start at the bottom of the screen shooting upwards as hoards of enemies and bullets rain down on you. You have the choice of two characters, both of which have their own styles of combat which are each effective in their own way. The Grim Reaper shoots her bullets in a more spread out pattern. However, The Girl has a more precise form of shooting where the focus of your bullet spray is on whatever you’re aiming at. If enemies appear off to the side, a stray line of bullets will focus on them – but then come back to the main spray shortly after.

Each character comes equipped with bombs as well. Setting off a bomb will nearly clear the screen sending enemies to the hereafter in a timely manner, so you’ll want to save those for the direst of times. Unfortunately, that is where the game falters the most. There really aren’t many times where you’ll ever feel like the stakes are really that high. Even on the highest difficulty you’ll be able to breeze through the games five levels with ease. With the bombs and the added ability to slow down time as you traverse through the levels, you never really have the chance to fail. Another bonus comes in a brief form of immortality that you can activate as you collect souls throughout the game. This gives you a brief time where you are invincible, and your weapons become god-like taking out everything in your path.

Aside from the main arcade mode, Shikhondo Soul Eater offers a variety of other modes to make the game’s appeal last longer. Modes including Boss Rush and Local Co-Op help add a little more depth to the game, but do little to bring you back repeatedly. After a few sittings you’ll probably feel as though you’ve done all that you can do with the game and move on. This is a shame because there really is a lot of fun to be had here – it’s just far too brief.

Graphics and Sound

Shikhondo Soul Eater is packed full of Asian Mythology which leads to some very bizarre visuals. Bosses are half woman/half beast and transform as the fight unfolds. They seemingly use every color on the palette and the visuals can be striking. There never seems to be too much going on at once on screen as we are sometimes used to seeing from other games in the genre. This enables you to enjoy the visuals more than you normally would, which is a huge plus for the game. There is a water color-esque style to the graphics and each level has its own feel to it.

The sound adds a lot to the experience as well and the music and sound fx work together to blend the mythology with the arcade nature of the game. Shikhondo Soul Eater would be right at home in any arcade next to Contra and Ikaruga.

Recommendation:

Shikhondo Soul Eater may not change the way you look at Bullet Hell experiences, but does it really have to? Not really. Though brief there is still a lot of fun to be had here and fans of he genre should check it out if they have an afternoon to kill. Shikhondo Soul Eater is available now on Steam, Switch, PS4 and Xbox One.

*Shikhondo Soul Eater was provided to the reviewer by the publishing company but this fact did not alter the reviewer’s opinion*

Check out our Review Guide to see what we criteria we use to score games.