Sakeworld Review (PlayStation 5)

by Jim Smale · March 15, 2023

For this Sakeworld Review, where Something ain’t right in La Brea – punks everywhere who got no respect for anyone or anything. But the more I fight ‘em off, the weirder things get. Am I tripping, or is that dude some kind of rabbit man? Welcome to Sakeworld, a beat ‘em up where rappers fight punks and aliens to keep the streets safe. Play as Rappers Trippie Redd, Chief Keef, D Savage, Rucci, or Yung Bans to save Earth. Featuring the late Jack Phoenix’s hand-drawn art, intense fighting, a fire MP3 Player, and some funny $3it… Sakeworld’s like nothing you’ve ever played before!

Sakeworld Review Pros:

Decent hand-drawn graphics.
670.4MB download size.
Platinum trophy.
Own in-game achievements.
Optional tutorial.
Side scroller beat ’em up gameplay.
Two game modes – boss rush, and new game/continue.
Five characters each with a unique ability and damage/charge rate stats – D Savage, Chief Keef, Trippie Redd, Rucci, and Young bans.
Three difficulties – Easy, normal, and hard.
2.5D perspective.
Break items like crates and bins to get drops and food for health.
Fast-paced combat.
Comic book-style shout-outs for in-game conversations.
Power-ups vary from calling in a dog or a plague doctor to fire and Super punches.
Big boss encounters.
On the character select you get a brief description of each rapper.
The score is achieved by fighting and collecting items, your current rank is shown, and how close you are to the next one.
Local leaderboards for both modes and each difficulty.
Health bar system with food to replenish.
The art is crazy good and sets the theme.
Hip-hop themed from the atmosphere to the music and menus.
The weapon wheel allows you to quickly swap between them, drop them, and go back to just fists and kicks.
MP3 allows you to listen to brilliant soundtracks, sort/filter, and make up a favorite list.
Each stage has three objectives that earn stars and the time and score go to the rank.
Cops will drop health items for you.
Kiss females, that’s it.
Some truly whacky levels and enemies like aliens and stoners.
Bonus levels can be found for more cash and score.
Hitting enemies causes cash to fly out.
Game over will trigger a random mini-game that allows you to try and win back a continuation.

Sakeworld Review Cons:

Had the tutorial glitch out a few times and I died on the text pop-up screen.
Takes a bit of getting used to weapon management.
Dealing with a group of enemies can be tough at times.
Every level plays the same from the cops mid-way, the cars you need to blow up, to the boss at the end.
The music repeats far too often and any tracks without words are dull.
Very repetitive.
The trophies are stingy and take way too long with most of them being that you need to complete the game on all difficulties with all characters.
No replay value.
Last track of the story.
No real voice work.
Doesn’t have online leaderboards.
Spomgey boss fights.
Doesn’t really have much variety.
Having crates just spawn in front of you all the time kind of Ruins the fun.
It’s more about power-ups and guns rather than fighting.
Can be hard to make out who is an enemy and who is just a bystander.