My copy of Reshrined just came in the mail… And yup, it’s my game of the year, very simply. What’s funny is that even though it’s a Japanese copy, it’s all fully in English! Was this the case for any of you who got it digitally? Makes me wonder why the English version is officially releasing a month from now when the software has technically already been shipped.
But my god, this is the single best-looking pixel art game I’ve seen in my life. Especially just in that first level, with all the dynamic shadows and leaves and such. These guys seriously know how to leave an impression. It’s been incredible seeing how they’ve fleshed out all the original Pocky & Rocky stages too, and noticing which parts of the level design they prioritize. For example, in stage 2 of Pocky & Rocky, what I tend to think of most is all the little monkeys in the forests, and then later the long river sequence with the kappas and the crabs. In Reshrined, they seem to care a lot more about the human-built structures and the yokai. I’m not complaining - that kappa section in the original, frankly, was pretty bad!! They made the right move for sure not just in scaling the difficulty way down and also cutting it to be considerably shorter. Maybe the best way to phrase this is seeing how they “proportion” the levels; which elements from the original they bring more forward and which ones they let take a backseat. I’ve stopped my first play session in the third level, which is 100% completely brand-new to this game, and was a great surprise in several ways. It’s just a buffet of great ideas presented in the best audio/visual experience on a modern console. The one thing I’m not huge on is just how different the power upgrades are per-character, but they’re certainly unique and I can imagine warming up to them once I spend more time with the game and learn the intricacies of how certain abilities are better suited for different parts of the stages. Maybe this doesn’t mean much coming from someone who has literally had Rocky as their profile picture for nearly their entire duration on these forums, but this is the single best newly-released video game I have played in years.
