If you get a Game Over, you’re booted all the way back to the beginning of the level you failed on, but if you Game Over against a boss, you’ll respawn right in front of them and be allowed to take them on again. You also have a limited number of lives to play with, so you can’t just mindlessly bum rush a level until you win. While you’re technically on a time limit, you’re usually given more than enough time to play as you wish. The length of these levels can vary anywhere between five to ten minutes each. While the game’s difficulty is built around both foresight and hindsight, there are times where I’m left wanting for more clarity due to the occasional unfairness of the latter. Though it is overall easy to read, there are some key points in the game where I’m left scratching my head, wondering how the devs could have possibly thought a player could see some things coming. This variety does come at the slight detriment of the game occasionally being too eager to surprise the player. The main levels have surprises in all the best ways that a game like this should. Cleaning out the local monsters from your shrine will eventually become something so outlandish that I don’t think you could legitimately predict it. In a moment’s notice, a stroll through the Japanese mountainside can become a life or death struggle against an octopus on a river raft. This is best demonstrated with each main level, which can have radically different theming and transformative gimmicks that change how you fundamentally play. The developers have seen fit to fire on all cylinders within that timespan, delivering a non-stop barrage of variety and challenge. With just seven main stages to make up its main story, Pocky & Rocky: Reshrined is quite a short game, clocking in at roughly an hour or two in length. These power-ups can range from strengthening your main projectile attack, to a shield that lets you take an extra hit, to even a tiger you can mount for a short while. You’ll also be given a variety of power-ups throughout each stage, which can be dropped from defeated enemies or found in boxes sprinkled throughout every stage.
Mastering these aspects of play is highly satisfying, and flexing a full degree of movement over your character can lead to moments where it feels like you have absolute control over a given situation. Partway through the game, you’ll obtain upgrades that expand on your initial repertoire. The last is a dodge roll maneuver that can also let you clear some gaps in levels, while it’s fast and covers a lot of ground, it can also leave you vulnerable for a time. The second is a melee attack that also allows you to reflect incoming projectiles back to your enemies.
There are three core aspects of your kit: the first is a regular, fast projectile that you can shoot out by pressing or holding down a button. If you’re struggling too much with some parts of the game, you can call in a friend and play the whole game co-op. You’re additionally not forced to fight the broad majority of enemies you see and can walk right past them, but this tends to yield poor results from my experience. The key to winning is to ensure you don’t get overwhelmed and to take things one at a time.
Enemies come out from every corner of the screen and will rush at you before you even have time to think about it. Even in the game’s normal difficulty, the game will fight you tooth and nail to keep you from proceeding. There’s no two ways about it, it’s an absolutely brutal game. Slow and steady wins the race in Pocky & Rocky: Reshrined. If you’re eagle-eyed and attentive, you can get the drop on many enemies before they even become threats. Unlike bullet hell games where enemies and projectiles to dodge come in predetermined patterns, here you have a degree of influence over how things play out. Rather than being set on a linear path where you’re constantly moving forward, you move in all eight directions as you please. The key difference between Pocky & Rocky and most bullet hell games, though, comes down to the autonomy and control you have. You’ll be contesting with loads and loads of enemies to deal with at a single time, and you still have a very small number of hits before game over. Pocky & Rocky is an unconventional take on the top-down bullet hell genre. With many modern conveniences at its disposal, it aims to elevate that original outing to new heights. That was until last year, with the surprise announcement of a remake of the original game, Pocky & Rocky: Reshrined. It spawned what was a modestly successful series, until it suddenly ceased all activity for about two decades. Originally released in 1992 for the SNES, Pocky & Rocky was a darling child among fans of Natsume.