Yurukill Review: the playground of slander

The absolute need to find a definition mortifies art as few other customs can do. From painting to music, passing through cinema and literature, the human urge to ascribe a work within a canon risks flattening it, emptying it from its context to make it fit into a genre with often vague outlines.

The same desire for classification also involves the younger medium, those video games that we try to explain through comparisons and similarities even when they stand out for originality and innovation but Yurukill launches into the multifaceted reality of “multi-genre” that made Yoko Taro’s works unforgettable (find here our review of Nier Replicant, the re-edition of a timeless masterpiece), avoiding an exact classification: visual novel, shoot ’em up and point and click, they mix in an adventure certainly capable of intriguing but the inventiveness that characterizes its context does not pour into the game mechanics, as we are about to see.

The great game of slander

Sengoku Shunju wakes up with a throbbing headache in a prison cell, but this is nothing new to him: the boy is very young, yet he has already served ten years in prison for the massacre that took place in an apartment complex, went on fire along with the lives of 21 innocent people.

A brief moment of bewilderment precedes the anguish, because that is not his usual cubicle in prison but a voice beyond the wall invites him to calm down. The man on the other side of the wall says his name is Futa Yamada, and explains to him that he too is a prisoner, just like Sengoku, even though he doesn’t remember how he ended up on that prison ship. The young killer tries to isolate the annoying playground music from the rest of the noises, surprising himself listening to the sweet sound of the waves crashing against the keel, while Futa concludes his presentation by reiterating his innocence. Sengoku is surprised and intrigued, why he too claims to be completely unrelated to the facts that have been attributed to him, but sadly he never managed to provide evidence for his release. Just as the past of lies begins to unite the two prisoners, a woman with a masked face and a cheerful air appears: her name is Binko and is in charge of bringing the detainees to the island of Yurukill Landwhere a series of tests will take place that will end with only one winner.

Who will manage to triumph at the end of the tournament he will return to his life as a free manwhile all the others will have to finish their prison sentence, and during the events to be overcome each one will be able to count on the help of a partner who is defined “Executioner“. The companion of the prisoners is not a simple support for the games but is called to make a terrible choice: the Executioner must decide whether forgive or kill his own prisoner, who will have to prove his innocence by overcoming the prejudices artfully mounted against him and thus dismantling the slander that threw him behind bars.

Relive the guilt

Through the long introductory section, the title developed by Izanagi Games presents itself with the narrative mechanics that will be held constant for the rest of the ten hours useful to end the adventure: the beating heart of Yurukill is in fact that of a visual novel where player input is only useful for advancing dialogue.

The conversations take place against the fixed background of uninspiring settings, while the drawings of the characters are immobile with the sole exception of the lips, through a visual aesthetic that remains serious and not very colorful, despite the narrative context tending towards playfulness and sparkling. There is so much (perhaps too much) to read during the tournament that sanctions the innocence of Sengoku and the other prisoners, for a work that draws from Japanese production the taste for prolix and repetition, coupled with an exaggerated and over the top voice acting even when the situation appears dramatic, a classic for many Japanese animation works. The story manages to grab the player’s attention with a few well thought out twistsbut we must deal with an underlying predictability that also involves the playful aspects of the Izanagi Games title: each chapter is structured the same waywith a long main part presenting the protagonists that opens to the point and click section, in which the prisoners relive the crime for which they were convicted, before ending with the shoot ’em up in augmented reality.

This cyclicality of events recurs constantly throughout the duration of the experience, net of very slight variations on the script, quickly diluting the surprise factor of a simple but fun storyline. The different crime scenes to be explored – one for each inmate, with the exception of the “Voyeurs” team which forms the comic line of the story – are forced into the 3X3 grid of the point and click sectionin which each level is divided into a central room and two side rooms, and you advance by solving the puzzles we encounter during the exploration as in an escape room.

The introduction of a “reasoned” factor slows down the fast pace of the visual novel section and is a touch of undoubted originality but the disarming simplicity of the proposed logical questions – combined with the flatness of the drawn backgrounds on which to investigate – makes this variation on the theme tedious, which is configured as the real weakness of the title. For those who want to completely switch off their brains and read only the story, there is also a system of three clues in which the (very simple) solution to all the puzzles is immediately revealed, and can be used without any kind of penalty.

Simple and immediate shooter

Once the point and click section is over, Yurukill inserts in his cauldron of genres the immediacy guaranteed by a fast and hilarious shoot ’em up, which decisively breaks the immobility to which the previous test forced.

Each prisoner is in possession of a different ship, each with unique characteristics and particular powers: that of Sengoku, for example, is versatile and easy to fly – the classic vehicle for beginners not very accustomed to the shooter – while that of Futa is very fast, can shoot in all directions but has a powerful of lesser fire. The gameplay mechanics are extremely simple and intuitive, without any variation whatsoever compared to the classic stylistic features of the genre we are used to (do not expect the crazy bullet hell adventures we told you about in the Resogun review) while the backgrounds on which it whizzes on are bare and in short repetitive, also characterized by an uninspired color palette, which does not make the battlefield immediately legible . That said, the introduction of the visual novel factor makes everything tastier and more innovative and, once the small enemy forces at the beginning of the level have been killed, the battle focuses on the fight for the truth through much more colorful and intriguing boss fights than the anonymous introductory shootout.

The final big enemies are piloted by the Executioner who accompanies the prisoner, and after having zeroed his life we ​​will have to convince him of our innocence using the evidence gathered during the point and click section. Unlike the simple puzzles mentioned above, however, some choices prove counterintuitive, with logical threads completely lost between question and answer and pindaric flights that we cannot predict in any way, but the simplicity of the fight (net of the Hell mode, recommended only to the experts of shoot ’em up) allows us to lose some life with extreme tranquility, since these are given in abundance at the beginning of each level.

Once again the European distribution of NIS America shows up without localization in Italianand a thorough knowledge of English proves essential both to enjoy the story and to solve the logical puzzles of escape rooms.