Review: Shikhondo(食魂徒) – Soul Eater (PlayStation 4)

by Jim Smale · August 27, 2018

Select one of the Grim Reaper or girl. Find escaped yokai from limbo, extricate soul that they absorbed.

Pros:

Beautiful almost hand painted looking graphics.
205.8MB Download size.
Platinum trophy.
Korean SHMUP gameplay.
Full online leaderboards with filters like difficulty, Friends, and modes.
Six modes- Customize, Novice, Hardcore, Local co-op, Arcade, and Boss rush.
Four difficulties- Easy, Normal, Hard and extreme.
Customize mode- Choose difficulty, choose Graze or attack, Choose Bomb or Gauge, Then choose HP or count then lastly pick your character.
Two characters- The Girl or The Grim Reaper.
Mechanics-
- Graze- Go close to enemy projectiles to fill Soul charge.
- Attack- Shoot enemies to fill Soul charge.
- Bomb- Press a button to use a token.
- Gauge- Fill a second Soul gauge to detonate.
- HP- Use standard HP system.
- Count- Classic lives system.
Difficulty affects the end of level bonus score amount.
Tutorial video upon mode startup.
Arcade- Play through 5 levels, Fight bosses and at the end of each level pick 1 from 2 rewards life or attack damage.
Points pop up on screen.
Surprisingly cool soundtrack taking in many genres.
Highly detailed animated backdrops.
Bosses take on two forms in the fight. Complete with a new health bar each time.
Difficult.
You have infinite continues. Resets your score.
Big bright projectiles.
Excellent score chaser.
Room to add strategy to runs.
Easy to pick up.
Projectiles make really nice shapes. Sad thing to say but in boss fights, in particular, they make flower shapes… I like flowers.

Cons:

The tutorial video doesn’t say it a video so you think the game wants you to press x but this, in fact, skips the video.
Difficult.
Only five levels.
Around half a dozen enemy types.
Levels feel really short.
No classic SHMUP options like 1C run.
Cannot tweak lives.
Sometimes the music just drops.
Takes a few runs to work out how all the mechanics work as the tutorial doesn’t show any UI aspects.