The city of Mega-Tokyo has grown to a population of 100,000 inhabitants per square kilometer. I say it’s high time a samurai woman comes and clear out the riffraff by slicing and shooting them by the hundreds. Blasting samurai-cyberpunk visuals, the setting in Akane is what would happen if you gave a character from Kill Bill access to a sword from a Kurosawa movie and dropped them into the Blade Runner universe. You’ll kill enemies fast, but you’ll die even faster if you don’t manage to control the crowd that is running after you with katanas and guns. Your aim is simple, kill as many as you can without dying.
Developed by a small Brazilian team, Ludic Studios, Akana is an iteration of a few other projects the team has worked on prior. Initially released in 2018 on Switch and PC, Akane is now available on current Xbox and PlayStation systems. It’s priced at or below the $5 and makes a quick first impression.
You play as Akane who has crashed her motorcycle and finds herself quickly ambushed by an endless stream of enemies. Each enemy dies in one hit except for a few specialist enemies and the main boss. You’ll be given a list of quests to unlock better gear and then restart the game with a new vigor to kill as quickly as possible.
As you mow down the hoard running after you, you’ll fill up a power-up gauge. If you trigger the gauge before it reaches full, you’ll draw a line on the screen and kill any enemies within the vicinity of your line. If, however, you wait to fill up your power-up gauge all the way, you will trigger a much more lethal series of attack lines that kill nearly everything on the screen in one fell swoop. You also have a dash function, a sidearm, and sword mechanics all of which can be upgraded once you have completed various challenges.
The music is the standout element for me. Honestly, if I had to just pay five bucks to have this in one of my playlists, it’d be worth it. The music matches the tone and intensity of the action so well, that I think it lifts the weaker elements of the total game. This leads me to the shortcomings.
I have to admit, that I am not naturally good at this game. I spent hours and hours trying to get beyond 200 kills and found myself getting worse as the nights went on. I think part of that is on me, I’m in my 30s and maybe my reaction time isn’t what it used to be. However, I do think there’s a valid criticism to say it took me 3 hours just to unlock a new sword and a dash before hitting my head on a wall again to try and get a new gun. Some of the elements that contributed to my getting stuck were the controls.
Everything about this UI and control scheme screams mouse and keyboard to me. For example, it’s a big deal to run out of ammo, you have to track how much is left by looking in the very lower right corner. The gameplay is such that if I take my eyes off my character for a fraction of a second, I’m toast. Some kind of haptic or audio queue indicating when I was on my second to last bullet would have saved my life a handful of times. On a PC monitor, the HUD would be much smaller, and it’d be easier to see how many bullets are left without taking my eyes off my character.
The hit detection was troublesome as well. Your aiming is tied to the direction you are running. This is fully synched up if you’re using a keyboard as WASD only points in one direction at a time. However, an analog stick can point in a full 360 degrees. This means that if you aren’t pointing enough toward your enemy, you’ll swing the sword in the wrong direction. When you die in one hit, there’s no margin for error and I think if they played with the hit detection a bit more and gave more leniency to controller players, the overall gameplay loop would have felt more rewarding.
From the first screenshot, I wanted to like Akane. The art style, ultra-violent combat, and music are all outstanding. However, after the first 10 minutes, you will have seen the lion’s share of what you would see in 100 hours. At such a low price point, you can’t complain too much, but I wish I didn’t have to fight the controls so much. I hope they take the concept and build on it. More boards and distinct levels seem like a natural fit. I would say if you’re interested, it’s currently on sale for less than $5 and you’ll probably have some fun, but I wouldn’t expect to pick it up again after you initially have your fill.
