We attended BitSummit Drift this past July, the latest edition of Kyoto’s biggest gaming event. At this event we got to play many upcoming indie titles from across the world, but mostly from Japan. NantenJex will be sharing his thoughts on the games he played from his hands-on experience and providing important information on each of the titles. Trailers and links to each of the games Steam pages (or closest equivalent) will be included (although many are coming to multiple platforms so if you want to get the title on a platform other than Steam then please check your system’s digital store).
In this final preview block, NantenJex wanted to give his thoughts on a handful of games he played at BitSummit that are all available to be purchased right now! These aren’t full, in-depth, reviews of these games though and should just be viewed as first impressions. Still, if you played any of these titles and have your own thoughts on them then let us know in the comments down below.
Moonstone Island
- Platforms: Nintendo Switch, Steam
- Release Date: June 19th 2024
- Steam link: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1658150/Moonstone_Island/
Moonstone Island is a creature-collecting life-sim set in an open world with 100 islands to explore. Make friends, brew potions, collect Spirits, and test your strength in card-based encounters to complete your Alchemy training!
Over the last decade I’ve come to the realisation that I’m not really a fan of farming sims. I grew up on the Harvest Moon (now Story of Seasons) series and loved them, but going back to play any of them in recent years, including new entries, has been a struggle. So I was pleasantly surprised with my time with Moonstone Island. Unlike most other games from BitSummit, I actually got to sit down and play Moonstone Island for an extensive amount of time, about four hours, and that was entirely because I couldn’t put the game down. I loved it.
A weird mash-up of Pokémon, Kiki’s Delivery Service and Stardew Valley, Moonstone Island is an open-world life-sim with everything you’d expect to see from both genres. It has dungeons to explore with big boss battles and even more monsters to recruit to your party, a fully customisable world where you can set-up a house and farm or forage the local environment, cutting down trees and setting up landmarks to your liking, and a lovable cast of locals to befriend and potentially romance, if you want to take things to the next level.
The farming sim elements play as you’d expect but the RPG battle system for the game is actually card based, making it stand-out from other monster battling games. Each monster comes with its own set of cards that get shuffled into the deck, and each level up allows the player to pick a new card to be added. It’s a neat system and makes the game stand-out. Moonstone Island really surprised me and I’m looking forward to getting stuck into the full-game when I get a moment. It might finally be the farming sim that gets me back into the genre.
Bzzzt
- Platforms: Nintendo Switch, Mac, Steam
- Release Date: November 13th 2023
- Steam link: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1293170/BZZZT/
Become a tiny ZX8000 robot and begin your journey through a beautiful, pixel-art world inspired by games iconic to the platformer genre. Follow a cute story, upgrade your skills, beat challenging levels, and compete with other players for the fastest speedrun!
Bzzzt is a classic precision puzzle platformer where you play as a little robot that has to navigate through a series of dangerous rooms as fast as possible. As the game progresses the little robot unlocks new platforming abilities in order to deal with the new obstacles the game introduces and find hidden collectables. What’s more, you can go back to prior levels when you have unlocked new abilities to find secrets in them, now that you can access previously unreachable areas. It’s a game that asks the player to be observant and skilled to get through each of its short levels.
Bzzzt is a lot of fun. It’s not trying to do anything groundbreaking or stand-out, it’s just focused on being a fun and challenging game, and from what I played it accomplished this. It reminds me a lot of early Nintendo Switch indie games like League of Evil. It’s not a game that’s a must have but definitely one that I would buy and play as a wind down game in the evenings before bed. Get a couple of challenges or stages done a night. That’s all it needs to be. I would recommend it for those looking for a simpler title, and it’s just received a brand new update with more content, so now’s a great time to get into it.
Umbraclaw
- Platforms: Xbox One, Xbox Series S/X, Nintendo Switch, Steam, Playstation 4, Playstation 5
- Release Date: May 30th 2024
- Steam link: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2428420/Umbraclaw/
Umbraclaw tells the story of Kuon, a house cat who has died in the mortal world, after she awakens in the Soulplane, a realm of the dead. She must challenge the perilous underworld to return home to her owner in this 2D action adventure.
The latest game from indie-giant (feels like an oxymoron) Inti Creates, Umbraclaw is a pretty unique 2D action game. You play as a cat, a regular ol’ cat, who has died, and at the start there isn’t a whole lot you can do. But every time the player dies they can unlock a new ability at random. It can be an attack or a new movement option, and if the player dies 9 times they can ‘forsake their soul’ and turn into a cat demon, which plays like the more typical Inti Creates action-hero. This isn’t necessarily a good thing though, as the game’s objective is to bring the cat back to life and to do this you must find the four MacGuffins across the world all while retaining your ‘pure soul’.
It has a very interesting hook. As a regular cat you are weak and need to rely on stealth and avoiding enemy encounters. Every time you die you get a bit stronger, making survival easier, but you also get closer to what the game considers the bad ending – going full demon mode. There are instances where you can recover a life and fight off the demonification but it’s left in the player’s hand what ratio of cat:demon they want to end up at, and I’ve not really played anything like it. It’s pretty unique.
Ninja Issen
- Platforms: Xbox Series S/X, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5, Steam
- Release Date: November 22nd 2023
- Steam link: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1714550/Ninja_Issen/
With its cyberpunk city brought to life with retro graphics, Ninja Issen invites players into a world filled with “hyper ninja action” as they work alone to annihilate waves of enemy troops using a variety of ninja skills and fight bosses coming at you with relentless, diverse attack patterns.
What if they took the original 2D Ninja Gaiden games and made them faster paced and less bullshit? That’s what Ninja Issen basically is. It’s a 2D action game where you play as a ninja and fight your way through gun-toting henchmen, flying robots and big flying tanks with nothing but your sword and a range of secret ninja arts at your disposal.
I don’t have a lot to say about Ninja Issen other than it was a lot of fun. You can parry enemy projectiles and set up a shield around you to protect yourself and just slash away with sword strikes. Try it out if fast-paced action games are something you enjoy.
Dwarves: Glory, Death and Loot
- Platforms: Steam
- Release Date: August 17th 2023
- Steam link: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2205850/Dwarves_Glory_Death_and_Loot/
Create your fully customizable army of dwarves and lead them to victory! Strategize with up to 10 individual beardlings in this combination of classic RPGs, roguelikes and auto-battlers. Forge your own path and decimate orcs, fight trolls or battle dragons – There will be Glory, Death and Loot!
I was not expecting to like Dwarves: Glory, Death and Loot as much as I did. It takes the basics of a management sim, something like Game Dev Tycoon, and asks ‘but what if Dwarves?’
The game is split into two sections – the management gameplay and the RPG gameplay. In the former, you recruit dwarves into your party, buy new weapons and abilities that you can equip to them and assign them specific party roles. Each dwarf has its own stat sheet with some specialising more in defence and others intelligence, and it’s up to the player to correctly customise their dwarf squad to take advantage of their strengths. You can choose to train up your dwarves or hire new ones, with specialist or highly skilled dwarves costing more gold, all in the service of making an unbeatable DnD party.
Once your dwarf squad is ready, you can send them out into the field to fight goblins and other such monsters, obtaining loot and finding glory in combat through EXP gains. This EXP and loot can then be used to upgrade your dwarves further and the cycle repeats. It’s an insanely satisfying gameplay loop and I found myself getting quite deep into it without realising. It was a surprise hit for me at the show and it definitely has an audience so check it out if it sounds like your type of game.
Recolit
- Platforms: Steam, Mac
- Release Date: February 16th 2024
- Steam link: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1250630/Recolit/
Your spaceship crashes, and you find yourself in a dark town that looks just like any other, but that has something different about it. Its people go about their daily lives as if nothing was off, even though the sky above their heads is always black.
Recolit is a slow-burn, atmospheric, adventure game where you play as an astronaut and help out the locals of a small Japanese seaside town. This town is pitch black and all of the residents are silhouetted, and in order to brighten up the town you need to help them with their various tasks – like watering plants or finding lost objects.
It’s definitely a game that relies on its vibes more than anything else. From the graphics and sound-design, it’s clear this is a game where the devs want you to put on some headphones and play late at night. It’s cozy. That said, there isn’t a whole lot else that stands out about this one. I didn’t play it for long enough for the story to really get going, and from a gameplay PoV it is structured like a point-and-click adventure game. Go point A > talk to person B > go to point C > find object D > return to person B and then you can advance. Watch the trailer and get a feel for the vibes to see if it’s something you would enjoy
Bō: Path of the Teal Lotus
- Platforms: Nintendo Switch, Steam, Playstation 5
- Release Date:July 17th 2024
- Steam link: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1614440/Bo_Path_of_the_Teal_Lotus/
Flow gracefully through a colorful, hand-drawn 2.5D action platformer inspired by Japanese folklore. Engage in acrobatic aerial combat, unlock powerful mystical abilities, and explore an interconnected world of myth as you seek to unravel the mysteries of your origin.
The final game I played at BitSummit was also one of the most anticipated: Bō: Path of the Teal Lotus. It’s a Hollow Knight-like Metroidvania but one that has been cooked for centuries within Japanese folklore and mythology, creating a mysterious world based on the stories of yokai from the land of the rising sun. It’s a very pretty game with some great set-pieces that can also be quite difficult. I kind of botched my playthrough by forgetting to save and then dying to a boss, but what I did play I enjoyed.
Like a lot of good Metroidvania, Bō seems to reward the player’s skill by allowing for sequence breaking that encourages speed-running. I reached the aforementioned boss very quickly by understanding the fluid movement mechanics and being able to use them to reach a platform that seemed just a bit too far out of reach. It’s a highly competent game with a great aesthetic and I think there is potential here for it to be a solid entry in this popular genre. Well, I guess the game is out already so you could just check a full review rather than my little preview. But if you’re reading this then it’s the end of the article, so it’s already too late for that!
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