Keio Flying Squadron 2

"Very good... but not quite super..."

Overview:

Keio Yugekitai is a very cute 2D hand-drawn platformer that at its core, while featuring diverse gameplay, is a \'\'basic\'\' platformer. The game stars Rami, a cute little girl sporting a semi-bunny costume. There\'s lots of humor and hi-jinx to go along the way as players control Rami through a wild and wacky adventure.

Categorical breakdowns:

Graphics: 9
Very beautiful hand-drawn art is everywhere. Nice looking backgrounds and everything on-screen is well animated. You\'ll see an underwater scene, a space scene, a forest scene, a mine scene, a screaming roller coaster ride, etc. There\'s plenty of 2D eye candy to find here, and the Saturn pumps it out like no one\'s business. Rami has plenty of cute facial expressions, as does the roller-coaster whenever it lands from a hard bump.

Music/sound effects: 8.5
Japanese-like tunes fill the air. It sets the mood well. Sound effects are crisp and loud. I like the sound Rami makes when she jumps on an enemy\'s head. The one thing I didn\'t like about the music was the boss battle theme. It\'s way too cute! I can accept cute music in the stages, but boss themes should be serious. And the bosses all share one cute theme. I found the theme to be annoying and didn\'t help to \'\'intensify\'\' the boss battle any.

Gameplay: 8.5
You kill enemies by jumping on their head or picking up one of 3 weapons: the giant hammer, the umbrella or the bow-and-arrow. I personally found the bow-and-arrow to be useless. It was too slow and ineffective in my experience. The umbrella is useful for covering Rami\'s head from falling boulders (hey -- it\'s an enchanted umbrella for crying out loud! ;-) and gliding (just open it up and press jump). The hammer is my favorite because I found it very useful.
Rami acts like Sonic the Hedgehog in the sense that as long as she has a weapon in her hand, she can take a hit and still survive. Once hit, the weapon flies out of Rami\'s grasp and you can then retrieve it if you wish (you should). You\'ll swim underwater, ride a roller coaster, hop on your flying dragon friend and battle the unfriendly skies in a horizontal shooter-like section, etc.
There is a lot to do and within stages there\'s plenty more to do than just hop on enemies\' heads. In one stage you will have to pick up a giant hand and take it over to a big button high above. A meter shall appear and you have to press \'B\' as quick as you can to activate the locked doors to open. It\'s little things like this that help the game pace along at a nice pace without getting too boring at any one point.
The enemies were different. You battle little bears, giant flying mutated bats, funky looking machines, red small birds, etc. The enemies are about as light-hearted as the game itself is.
The boss battles I was disappointed with. Yes the bosses are big. But they\'re simply too goofy and weird for my tastes. I wanted a bigger \'\'omph!\'\' feeling from them. It\'s a shame too that, you will come across a HUGE gorgeous (and hideous) red octopus, but it\'s not a boss battle (you can\'t even hurt it)
Some bosses defy explanation. The last boss is truly a strange fellow...
Some bosses reminded me of bosses seen in fellow Saturn imports \'\'Psychic Assassin Taromaru\'\' and \'\'Shin Shinobi Den\'\' (Shinobi Legions in the US)
There are three difficulty levels.
-Easy: The game\'s too easy here. Not much enemies, lots of inventories to help you out. So easy I found this mode boring
-Medium: This is more like it. More enemies, less inventories, and little touches like the time you have to retrieve a lost weapon (it\'s drastically less than when you play on easy) makes for a much tougher challenge.
-Hard: Master platformers need only apply. Tons of enemies littered everywhere...

Control: 9
I did not have a problem with it, although Rami\'s jumps to me seem a little low. I wish she could jump higher. I personally found setting the \'\'run\'\' button to \'\'L/R\'\' to work best.

Fun Factor: 8
It\'s pretty fun to guide little Rami throughout the wacky battle zones. Some will find the cute Japanese humor to be amusing, others will not. The more you fall in the former category, the more likely you are to enjoy Keio Yugekitai on the whole.

Replay Value: 6.5
I\'ve said it before and I\'ll say it again. Most platformers just don\'t have a high ceiling when it comes to replay value. As cute and humorous as this game is, after a while it does lose some of its appeal and charm. Thankfully, the normal and hard difficulty levels will give gamers incentive to return, whereas other platformers don\'t have different difficulty levels (e.g. Pandemonium) However, unlike Pandemonium, you can only use one character in Keio Yugekitai... so it balances out kinda...

MISC:

-Loading times are average

-No English to be found here, but it\'s still quite import-friendly (little trial and error should do the job)

-There are plenty of secrets to find

-I found the ending very amusing

-The anime intro is atmospheric; particularly in the beginning where it\'s peaceful at night with the crickets chirping... then all hell breaks loose (hee hee, you\'ll have to see it for yourself)

-The plot goes something like: Rami must recover the crystal balls from Hibiki (a troubled girl) and the mad scientist racoon (I suppose) Dr. Pon

-Honestly, while I do like this game, I find it *slightly* overrated within the Saturn diehard community... I feel this way also about Guardian Heroes. I like both these games but just not in that \'\'10\'\' or \'\'9\'\' grading range others have deemed these titles

-There is a PAL version of this game where it\'s translated all to English, but as of this writing it\'s harder to find than the JPN version and is more expensive

Bottom Line:

A strong entry into the platform genre, I hope you can find it at a good price (shoot for $35 or under, if possible) There\'s a lot of life to this game, but fair warning it\'s not for everyone. It\'s not at all a serious platformer. In fact, at times it feels like almost a parody, but that could just be me. At any rate, it\'s a solid game with great graphics and diverse gameplay in a polished package. If you\'re looking for a serious \'\'whoa look at that cool gruesome boss!\'\' platformer, you will want to look elsewhere. But for most everyone else, don that bunny suit and let\'s find those lost crystals!

Overall: 8.0

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 08/06/03