For those who’ve not heard of Kaiju Big Battel, it’s a live spectacle which combines WWE style wrestling combined with Kaiju style characters as the likes of the evil Dr. Cube, Dusto Bunny and err Kung-Fu Chicken Noodle battle in a wrestling ring / cage filled with cardboard buildings in a homage to Godzilla and Gamera.
Of course when it was announced that Kaiju Big Battel would be getting their own video game, the initially thought was that it would be a traditional wrestling game, utilising their colourful roster of characters. Needless to say it was certainly a surprise when it was revealed that it was going to be a Final Fantasy style RPG and yet somehow it strangely works.
Presented in a retro 16-bit style developed by Pixel artist Soda Piggy with a fantastic soundtrack by Glock & mr8bit, the game sees you taking control of the patriotic pugilist American Beetle who along with his fellow Kaiju heroes must travel through time to stop the diabolical Dr. Cube whose latest weapon is tearing open portals into the past.
Developed by Paul Harrington the one man indie developer and owner of Super Walrus Games who here teams up with Studio Kaiju give us here a game which will appeal to not only their established fan base but also the fans of JRPG’s such Final Fantasy or Breath of Fire. The turn based gameplay especially mirrors these titles, though the random monster attacks have been removed giving players much more control over when they choose to enter into battles.
Over the course of the demo you really get a feel for the random enemies which inhabit this world from knights and scarab beetles to a Tetris style creation the enemies are certainly as colourful as the seven heroes you can collect over the course of the game, with the demo allowing you to play with several of these characters including American Beetle, Silver Potato and Dusto Bunny all who come with their own special abilities, strengths and weaknesses requiring you like any other RPG to shuffle your group members to find the team which works best for you.
The game is really easy to pick up and play with the control system being especially familiar to the established RPG fans as for each character’s turn they can choose to do either standard attack, use and item or one of their special abilities. The downside though comes from the lack of any kind of energy bar for your enemies making it all the harder to tell what attacks were the most effective or how best to strategize your attacks leaving you often randomly stringing together attack patterns until you reached the conclusion of the fight.
Certainly the demo gives us a sizeable chunk of gameplay to enjoy and certainly playing through on normal mode provided an enjoyable challenge which perfectly served to introduce the gameplay and many of the characters from the main game while leaving you still wanting more by the conclusion.
Ultimately for fans, this game will tick a lot of boxes even if it’s perhaps not the game they were initially expecting to see attached to the Kaiju Big Battel name. This is still a game that delivers a lot of retro charm that will appeal to both RPG and the fan base alike.