Game:

Akane (2018)

Category:

Review

Duration: 23:15

591 views

19

Welcome back to New Release Friday, my dudes. This week’s episode will be featuring Akane Gameplay & Review and potentially is one of the most difficult episodes of NRF that I have done as far as coming to conclusions that I find fair to the game and to you, the viewer. Akane is described on steam as such:
2121 A.D, with no escape options, Akane prepares for her final battle in the rain-soaked neon streets of Mega-Tokyo. Akane is an arena arcade slasher. Take out as many yakuza as possible, slashing and shooting in a one-hit-one-kill fight to the death.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/884260/Akane/
I didn’t read about Akane prior to picking it up and I generally try to do that whenever I do an episode of New Release Friday unless I am particularly concerned about its gameplay safeness for YouTube.

Before we get into the text Akane review let’s first talk about NRF. New Release Friday is a series in which (hopefully) every week I will hop over to the “New Releases” section of Steam and pick-up a game to play for a few hours and give a first-thought review on. This series is an attempt to not only keep content fresh and relevant around the channel by covering current games in a concise and genuine fashion, but also to offer exposure to new games via a relaxed review format to inform potential, unsure buyers. Check out the playlist for more!

Onward with the Akane gameplay and review here were are going to start with just a once over of what I am seeing at the start of the game here. Akane has a beautiful setting in a futuristic cyberpunk Japan. There is the usual grunge mixed with technology that you’d come to expect from a cyberpunk universe and it really gives a lot of character to the beat ‘em up style of Akane. There is a lot of detail packed into the arena that you first land in and it definitely leaves you wondering is there only one level? From everything I have seen and read and my own findings during my gameplay, yes. There seems to only be the arena level and the dojo for the tutorial. This is just a straight beat ‘em up endless wave type of game. You fight endless waves of Yakuza until a boss comes out, then you kill him before getting barraged by more waves of Yakuza.

Let’s now move into the portion of my Akane review where I talk about the gameplay elements I found enjoyable. As I mentioned, the setting is a very cool choice and the type of environment you really just want to go balls deep in and explore fully. The one song that plays during the entire game is also pretty well picked for the game and really helps to set the feel for the first bit of the game. The dev’s of #Akane also put in significant work on the gear for your character. There seems to be a really nice selection of gear that you unlock as you play and it adds functionality to your character that serves to keep gameplay interesting and gives you incentive to continue playing when the gear unlocks new challenges. Hopefully there is a very significant amount of these challenges since there is no other end goal in the game besides getting gear.

The next discussion we need to have in this Akane gameplay and review is the fundamental flaws in the game that really come out the more you play. At face value, the game does a good job but starts to wither because of repetitiveness in nearly all departments. The song you hear at the start is the song you will hear through the entirety of Akane. The level you drop into at the start of the game is the same level you will fight in until the end of Akane. The enemies you fight at the beginning will be the same at the end, though with a few more new variants added in along the way. The story that you get in the tutorial of Akane? That is the only story you get and nothing more. Overall, you can see everything the game has to offer in the trailer alone and I think that is the biggest negative tick that I can give the game during this review. I have played a lot of games in the $5 range for New Release Friday and I have seen MUCH more fleshed out games than this even comes close to. I understand that it had this goal in mind and while it does accomplish that goal well, I don’t think that the price justifies the end product for someone who isn’t really into this type of game to start.

With New Release Friday I usually try to give you a 100% answer as to whether or not the game is something you should play, but if I am being honest… I can’t do that with my Akane gameplay and review. It isn’t that the game is horrible if it is something that you are into, but it also isn’t great. I could easily be heavily biased because of the fact that I usually am not drawn to this type of game, or games that share similar characteristics with Akane. So, you will have to draw your own conclusions based off of what I have shown you and what I have said during this episode of New Release Friday.
Check out other NRF’s here:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLsq-4e3hJfweKVWtX0eo0eqQUgshP1lfj

#AkaneGame

Other Statistics